"that the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and the control of the island to its people."

The treaty of peace concluded at Paris on the 10th of December, 1898, and ratified by the Senate on the 6th of February, 1899, provides in the first article that

"as the island is, upon its evacuation by Spain, to be occupied by the United States, the United States will, so long as such occupation shall last, assume and discharge the obligations that may, under international law, result from the fact of its occupation, for the protection of life and property."

It contains numerous obligations on the part of the United States in respect of the treatment of the inhabitants of the territory relinquished by Spain, such as the provision of the tenth article, that the inhabitants shall be secured in the free exercise of their religion; of the eleventh article, that they shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts, pursuant to the ordinary laws governing the same, and of the ninth article, that they shall retain all their rights of property, including the right to sell or dispose thereof, and the right to carry on their industry, commerce, and professions. The sixteenth article of the treaty provides that the obligations assumed in the treaty by the United States with respect to Cuba are limited to the time of its occupancy thereof, but that it shall, upon the termination of such occupancy, advise any government established in the island to assume the same obligations.

Our occupation of Cuba has been under the binding force both of the resolution and of the treaty, and the pacification mentioned in the resolution has necessarily been construed as coextensive with the occupation provided for by the treaty, during which we were to discharge international obligations, protect the rights of the former subjects of Spain, and cause or permit the establishment of a government to which we could, in good faith, commit the protection of the lives and property and personal rights of those inhabitants from whom we had compelled their former sovereign to withdraw her protection. It is plain that the government to which we were thus to transfer our temporary obligations should be a government based upon the peaceful suffrages of the people of Cuba, representing the entire people and holding their power from the people, and subject to the limitations and safeguards which the experience of constitutional government has shown to be necessary to the preservation of individual rights. This is plain as a duty to the people of Cuba under the resolution of April 20, 1898, and it is plain as an obligation of good faith under the treaty of Paris. Such a government we have been persistently and with all practicable speed building up in Cuba, and we hope to see it established and assume control under the provisions which shall be adopted by the present convention. It seems to me that no one familiar with the traditional and established policy of this country in respect to Cuba can find cause for doubt as to our remaining duty. It would be hard to find any single statement of public policy which has been so often officially declared by so great an array of distinguished Americans authorized to speak for the Government of the United States, as the proposition stated, in vary

ing but always uncompromising and unmistakable terms, that the United States would not under any circumstances permit any foreign power other than Spain to acquire possession of the island of Cuba.

Jefferson and Monroe and John Quincy Adams and Jackson and Van Buren and Grant and Clay and Webster and Buchanan and Everett have all agreed in regarding this as essential to the interests and the protection of the United States. The United States has, and will always have, the most vital interest in the preservation of the independence which she has secured for Cuba, and in preserving the people of that island from the domination and control of any foreign power whatever. The preservation of that independence by a country so small as Cuba, so incapable, as she must always be, to contend by force against the great powers of the world, must depend upon her strict performance of international obligations, upon her giving due protection to the lives and property of the citizens of all other countries within her borders, and upon her never contracting any public debt which in the hands of the citizens of foreign powers shall constitute an obligation she is unable to meet. The United States has, therefore, not merely a moral obligation arising from her destruction of Spanish authority in Cuba and the obligations of the treaty of Paris for the establishment of a stable and adequate government in Cuba, but it has a substantial interest in the maintenance of such a government.

We are placed in a position where, for our own protection, we have, by reason of expelling Spain from Cuba, become the guarantors of Cuban independence and the guarantors of a stable and orderly government protecting life and property in that island. Fortunately the condition which we deem essential for our own interests is the condition for which Cuba has been struggling, and which the duty we have assumed toward Cuba on Cuban grounds and for Cuban interests requires. It would be a most lame and impotent conclusion if, after all the expenditure of blood and treasure by the people of the United States for the freedom of Cuba and by the people of Cuba for the same object, we should, through the constitution of the new government, by inadvertence or otherwise, be placed in a worse condition in regard to our own vital interests than we were while Spain was in possession, and the people of Cuba should be deprived of that protection and aid from the United States which is necessary to the maintenance of their independence. It was, undoubtedly, in consideration of these special relations between the United States and Cuba that the president said in his message to Congress of the 11th of April, 1898:

"The only hope of relief and repose from a condition which can no longer be endured is the enforced pacification of Cuba. In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, in behalf of endangered American interests which give us the right and the duty to speak and to act, the war in Cuba must stop.

"In view of these facts and of these considerations I ask the Congress to authorize and empower the President to take measures to secure a full and final termination of hostilities between the Government of Spain and the people of Cuba, and to secure in the island the establishment of a stable government, capable of maintaining order and observing its international obligations, insuring peace and tranquillity and the security of its citizens as well as our own, and to use the military and naval forces of the United States as may be necessary for these purposes."

And in his message of December 5, 1899:

"This nation has assumed before the world a grave responsibility for the future good government of Cuba. We have accepted a trust, the fulfillment of which calls for the sternest integrity of purpose and the exercise of the highest wisdom. The new Cuba yet to arise from the ashes of the past must needs be bound to us by ties of singular intimacy and strength if its enduring welfare is to be assured. Whether those ties shall be organic or conventional, the destinies of Cuba are in some rightful form and manner irrevocably linked with our own, but how and how far is for the future to determine in the ripeness of events. Whatever be the outcome, we must see to it that free Cuba be a reality, not a name, a perfect entity, not a hasty experiment bearing within itself the elements of failure. Our mission, to accomplish which we took up the wager of battle, is not to be fulfilled by turning adrift any loosely framed commonwealth to face the vicissitudes which too often attend weaker states whose natural wealth and abundant resources are offset by the incongruities of their political organization and the recurring occasions for internal rivalries to sap their strength and dissipate their energies.”

And it was with a view to the proper settlement and disposition of these necessary relations that the order for the election of delegates to the present constitutional convention provided that they should frame and adopt a constitution for the people of Cuba, and as a part thereof provide for and agree with the Government of the United States upon the relations to exist between that Government and the government of Cuba.

The people of Cuba should desire to have incorporated in her fundamental law provisions in substance as follows:

1. That no government organized under the constitution shall be deemed to have authority to enter into any treaty or engagement with any foreign power which may tend to impair or interfere with the independence of Cuba, or to confer upon such foreign power any special right or privilege without the consent of the United States.

2. That no government organized under the constitution shall have authority to assume or contract any public debt in excess of the capacity of the ordinary revenues of the island after defraying the current expenses of government to pay the interest.

3. That upon the transfer of the control of Cuba to the government established under the new constitution Cuba consents that the United States reserve and retain the right of intervention for the preservation of Cuban independence and the maintenance of a stable government, adequately protecting life, property, and individual liberty, and discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the treaty of Paris on the United States and now assumed and undertaken by the government of Cuba.

4. That all the acts of the military government, and all rights acquired thereunder, shall be valid and shall be maintained and protected.

5. That to facilitate the United States in the performance of such duties as may devolve upon her under the foregoing provisions and for her own defense, the United States may acquire and hold the title to land for naval stations, and maintain the same at certain specified points.

These provisions may not, it is true, prove to be in accord with the conclusions which Congress may ultimately reach when that body comes to consider the subject, but as, until Congress has acted, the Executive must necessarily within its own sphere of action be controlled by its own judgment, you should now be guided by the views above expressed.

It is not our purpose at this time to discuss the cost of our intervention and occupation, or advancement of money for disarmament, or our assumption under the treaty of Paris of the claims of our citizens against Spain for losses which they had incurred in Cuba. These can well be the subject of later consideration.

Very respectfully,

Maj. Gen. LEONARD WOOD,

Military Governor of Cuba, Habana, Cuba.

ELIHU ROOT,

Secretary of War.

On the passage of the act of March 2, 1901, entitled "An act making appropriation for the Army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1902,” the following proviso, contained in the act and commonly known as the "Platt amendment," was communicated to the military governor, viz:

Provided further, That in fulfillment of the declaration contained in the joint resolution approved April twentieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, entitled "For the recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba, demanding that the Government of Spain relinquish its authority and government in the island of Cuba, and to withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters, and directing the President of the United States to use the land and naval forces of the United States to carry these resolutions into effect," the President is hereby authorized to "leave the government and control of the island of Cuba to its people" so soon as a government shall have been established in said island under a constitution which, either as a part thereof or in an ordinance appended thereto, shall define the future relations of the United States with Cuba, substantially as follows:

I.

That the government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or other compact with any foreign power or powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba, nor in any manner authorize or permit any foreign power or powers to obtain by colonization or for military or naval purposes or otherwise, lodgment in or control over any portion of said island.

II.

That said government shall not assume or contract any public debt, to pay the interest upon which, and to make reasonable sinking fund provision for the ultimate discharge of which the ordinary revenues of the island, after defraying the current expenses of government, shall be inadequate.

III.

That the government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the government of Cuba.

IV.

That all acts of the United States in Cuba during its military occupancy thereof are ratified and validated, and all lawful rights acquired thereunder shall be maintained and protected.

V.

That the government of Cuba will execute, and, as far as necessary, extend, the plans already devised or other plans to be mutually agreed upon, for the sanitation of the cities of the island, to the end that a recurrence of epidemic and infectious diseases may be prevented, thereby assuring protection to the people and commerce of Cuba, as well as to the commerce of the Southern ports of the United States and the people residing therein.

VI.

That the Isle of Pines shall be omitted from the proposed constitutional boundaries of Cuba, the title thereto being left to future adjustment by treaty.

VII.

That to enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations at certain specified points, to be agreed upon with the President of the United States.

VIII.

That by way of further assurance the government of Cuba will embody the foregoing provisions in a permanent treaty with the United States.

By direction of the Department the military governor formally communicated these provisions to the convention and advised that body that the President awaited its action thereon.

On the 3d of April the following dispatch was sent to the military governor, who communicated it to a committee of the convention: WOOD, Habana:

You are authorized to state officially that in the view of the President the intervention described in the third clause of the Platt amendment is not synonymous with intermeddling or interference with the affairs of the Cuban government, but the formal action of the Government of the United States, based upon just and substantial grounds, for the preservation of Cuban independence, and the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and adequate for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the treaty of Paris on the United States.

ELIHU ROOT,
Secretary of War.