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448

VIEWS OF PI Y MARGALL

[1896

Mr. Hoar's remark concerning the moving cause of over declamation must however not be taken too literally. Undoubtedly the presidential election of the coming fall had weight, but back of all was a very real feeling of deep indignation with the events in Cuba and of very real sympathy with the Cubans. While there had been intemperate statement, the foreign relations committee of the Senate had had access to the documents of the department of state which policy forbade making public, and had at least assured itself of the necessity of having Congress declare its state of mind, which was all that a concurrent resolution could effect. Mr. Sherman showed that there was even some notable Spanish opinion in support of the view that it was Spain's duty to stop the war. He quoted the former Spanish minister of state, Señor Pi y Margall, who a few months before had said: "Let us be just to the men who to-day are fighting us in Cuba. We ought long ago to have granted them the autonomy to which they have an undeniable right; we should have kept them united to the Peninsula by the single tie of common interests, national and international. How much blood and treasure we would have been spared by such a course! We were urged to it by reason, by right, by our self-interest, by the thought of the vast colonial empire we have lost. Unfortunately, for nations even more than for individuals, the force of habit is irresistible. Nothing could make us give up our old policy, a policy discredited by disaster to ourselves and to others. If there is now a war in Cuba the fault is ours and ours alone. . . . The compromise with which we shall have to terminate the present war, if Cuba does not prove stronger than we, let us make now while we are still the more powerful and our generosity cannot be branded as weakness. . . . Seventeen years ago we gave them freedom; let us now give them autonomy. Let us make them masters and arbiters of their own destinies. Let us leave them to rule themselves in all matters pertaining to their internal life-political, administrative, and economic. Against such conduct the sentiment of patriotism is invoked. But above the idea of country rises that of humanity; and above both that of justice. Cuba is the grave of our youth in these deplorable wars. . . . It is irritating to read and to hear, day after day, that it is necessary to send to Cuba regiment after regiment in order to make an end of the rebels

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1896]

RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED

449

and to leave the sovereignty of the nation firmly planted and established. . . . The sovereignty of the nation! Must the nation to be sovereign drain the life of the groups composing it? Does its sovereignty necessarily carry with it the slavery of the colonies? Its sovereignty is limited to the national interests. It must be confined to a form which will permit relations between the mother country and the colonies to exist." 1

The long debate in the Senate did not end until March 23, when it resolved to stand by its own resolutions. On this same date Senator Mills, of Texas, offered a resolution which, coming from such a source, shows the extent to which feeling had risen. The first section of this resolution directed the President to request Spain to grant Cuba "such local government as they may wish"; the second was the forerunner of a very similar one to come two years later: "In case Spain shall refuse to grant to the inhabitants of Cuba the rightful power of local self-government, then the President of the United States is hereby directed to take possession of the island of Cuba with the military and naval forces of the United States and hold the same until the people of Cuba can organize a government deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed, and arm and equip such military force as may be necessary to protect them from invasion." 2

The House on April 6, 1896, by a vote of 287 to 27 (80 not voting), accepted the Senate's resolutions, though not without a prolonged debate. Mr. Boutelle, of Maine, was one of the small number who stood firmly in opposition to the movement. He quoted a letter of March 23 by twenty-five Spanish residents of New York which declared that Cuba and Puerto Rico, in being allowed to send more than sixty members to the Spanish parliament, had, in such a representation, a greater liberty than was enjoyed by Canada or Jamaica; that Cuba with a territory the size of Pennsylvania, and a population of 1,500,000, was taxed but $22,000,000; less than the taxation for municipal purposes alone of the city of New York; that while Cuba's taxable property was about that of Boston, it was taxed at less than half the rate in either Boston or New York; that every province had its legislature and every municipality its council; 'Madrid, El Don Quijote, July 12, 1895. Cong. Record, 54 Cong., 1 Sess.,

2726.

2 Ibid., 3077.

450

AUTONOMY A NECESSITY

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[1896 that the great majority of the people of Cuba "having got what reforms they asked are satisfied to remain in the Spanish empire." All this may have been; but the actuality of conditions was now such that the only thing possible to Spain to prevent American intervention was, if not wholly to sever connection with the island, to grant it a measure of autonomy which should make it as free of the mother country as was Canada of England, and thus remove the impression of injustice which was the foundation of American sympathy.

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CHAPTER XXII

THE ATTITUDE OF THE CLEVELAND ADMINISTRATION DEFINED.THE CASE OF THE COMPETITOR

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THOUGH the concurrent resolution just passed had no legal weight beyond giving form to the sentiment in Congress and was in nowise mandatory upon the President, and though the better class of opinion throughout the Union, as shown in the press, was opposed to such action as declaring a state of belligerency which did not exist and at the same time demanding the independence of Cuba, and thus practically declaring victory to rest with the insurgents,' a vote, and by such majorities, could not be wholly ignored. It had the effect of bringing from the American government an official and solemn document on the subject of intervention in a note to the Spanish minister from Mr. Olney, April 4, 1896.

In transmitting this note, Señor de Lome said: "When one considers the numerous resolutions of the two houses of Congress, the popular agitation, the tide of public opinion, superficial but widespread, which has been inspired against Spain by our enemies, the attitude of the press and what it has been asking and is asking even to-day-nay, more, what has been demanded and is demanded even now of the President of the republic-we can do no less than admire the high qualities of rectitude and honor, the fearlessness and the respect toward the legitimate rights of Spain shown in this note addressed by this government through me to the government of his majesty."

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This note, so complete an exposition of the attitude of the American government, needs to be given in full.

'De Olivart, Revue Générale, vol. IX (1902), 162.

2 Señor Enrique Dupuy de Lome, to the Spanish minister of state, April 10, 1896, Spanish Diplomatic Correspondence and Documents, 4.

452

SECRETARY OLNEY'S NOTE

[1896

"DEPARTMENT OF STATE, "WASHINGTON, April 4, 1896.

"SEÑOR DON ENRIQUE DUPUY DE LOME.

"Sir: It might well be deemed a dereliction of duty to the government of the United States, as well as a censurable want of candor to that of Spain, if I were longer to defer official expression as well of the anxiety with which the President regards the existing situation in Cuba as of his earnest desire for the prompt and permanent pacification of that island. Any plan giving reasonable assurance of that result and not inconsistent with the just rights and reasonable demands of all concerned would be earnestly promoted by him by all the means which the Constitution and laws of this country place at his disposal.

"It is now some nine or ten months since the nature and prospects of the insurrection were first discussed between us. In explanation of its rapid and, up to that time, quite unopposed growth and progress you called attention to the rainy season, which, from May or June until November, renders regular military operations impracticable. Spain was pouring such numbers of troops into Cuba that your theory and opinion that, when they could be used in an active campaign, the insurrection would be almost instantly suppressed, seemed reasonable and probable. In this particular you believed and sincerely believed that the present insurrection would offer a most marked contrast to that which began in 1868, and which, being feebly encountered with comparatively small forces, prolonged its life for upward of ten years.

"It is impossible to deny that the expectations thus entertained by you in the summer and fall of 1895, and shared not merely by all Spaniards, but by most disinterested observers as well, have been completely disappointed. The insurgents seem to-day to command a larger part of the island than ever before. Their men under arms, estimated a year ago at from ten to twenty thousand, are now conceded to be at least two or three times as many. Meanwhile, their discipline has been improved and their supply of modern weapons and equipment has been greatly enlarged, while the mere fact that they have held out to this time has given them confidence in their own eyes and prestige with the world at large. In short, it can hardly be questioned that the insurrection, instead

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