could have been bridged at about the rate of one an hour. As it was, waggons sometimes overturned in them, and soldiers who had to wade through them were made unnecessarily wet.

The American intention was to surround the city as nearly as possible by extending the right of the line till it reached beyond the end of the harbour. Most of the infantry firing was in that direction, and for this reason General Lawton's division was strengthened by the transference to it of a brigade from General Kent's division. As on the previous evening, the firing was slight; the most active guns of all were those of the Rough Riders. Perhaps there never were volunteers who went about their business with greater zest than these, or who learned more in so short a time. Not content with the amount of ordinary artillery, they carried about with them quick-firing guns as a kind of personal equipment. Someone had presented this Colt to the regiment, someone else that Gatling, others had bought among them the dynamite gun. Sometimes there was a noise exactly like rapping on a door that was one of the Colts at work; sometimes there was a noise like the grinding of coffee that was one of the Gatlings. One of these nights I spent in the Rough Riders' camp.. The men in the trenches were like men out for a holiday; their chief characteristic was a habit of cheering on every possible occasion; they used to cheer when they went into the trenches, and cheer when they came out; they used to cheer when there was food, but also when there was no food. The camp used to laugh for hours over some quite silly joke, which seemed at the time to be mightily amusing and witty, and afterwards it would turn out that it was only that the silliness had been opportune. It was vastly amusing, for example, to hear a certain officer, whose name had incessantly to be repeated, spoken of as General Mango, or another officer spoken of as Lieutenant-Colonel Cocoanut. These light-hearted people did as much firing as they were allowed to do with the quick-firing instruments which one had come to look upon almost as their playthings. The dynamite gun was not fired very often, because it used to become jammed, but everybody loved it as a great big expensive toy. The firing string was not very longnot longer than that of an ordinary field-piece - but, as the operator used to explain, if the gun blew up you were no better off fifty yards away than five. When the gun was fired there was very little noise only the sound of a rocket; but when the shell exploded there was a tremendous detonation. It was said that everything near the explosion was devastated. In one case a Spanish gun and a tree were seen to be

hurled bodily into the air. It was my singular misfortune, however, to find no traces of the devastation done by this terrible instrument.

Colonel Roosevelt, the lieutenant-colonel of the Rough Riders, since elected Governor of New York, was a man who impressed one. He is the typical strong man, with the virtues and defects of the strong man; creating opposition and making enemies, but in the end beating down in his own direct, honest, didactic way the opposition which he himself has created, and turning, often, into friends the enemies whom he himself has made. So that in every adventure he almost inevitably to use the expressive American phrase 'gets there.' The impulse of which he is capable was illustrated by his sudden resignation of his Assistant Secretaryship to the Navy to command this whimsical, gallant regiment. The Rough Riders were the devotees of his person.

All the morning of July 11 the bombardment was a half-hearted affair. Neither side left its trenches. At noon General Toral, who had succeeded General Linares, sent out a flag of truce saying that he would meet General Miles personally in conference the next day. With the flag the firing ceased, and, as all the. world knows, never began again.

...

John Black Atkins, The War in Cuba (London, 1899), 176–182 passim.

185. Ultimatum in the Negotiation of Peace (1898)

BY ENVOY WILLIAM RUFUS DAY

Day was assistant secretary of state from the beginning of McKinley's administra tion, and when Sherman resigned the state portfolio at the outbreak of the Spanish War, Day was appointed his successor. Later in the year he resigned, and became head of the commission to negotiate peace with Spain. This extract is from his official letter to the head of the Spanish commission.

HA

Paris. November 22, 1898.

AVING received and read your letter of today, touching the final proposition presented by the American Commissioners at yesterday's conference, I hasten to answer your enquiries seriatim, first stating your question, and then giving my reply.

"First. Is the proposition you make based on the Spanish colonies being transferred free of all burdens, all, absolutely all outstanding obli

gations and debts, of whatsoever kind and whatever may have been their origin and purpose, remaining thereby chargeable exclusively to Spain?"

In reply to this question, it is proper to call attention to the fact that the American Commissioners, in their paper of yesterday, expressed the hope that they might receive within a certain time "a definite and final acceptance" of their proposal as to the Philippines, and also "of the demands as to Cuba, Porto Rico and other Spanish Islands in the West Indies, and Guam, in the form in which those demands have been provisionally agreed to."

The form in which they have thus been agreed to is found in the proposal presented by the American Commissioners on the 17th of October and annexed to the protocol of the 6th conference, and is as follows:

"ARTICLE 1. Spain hereby relinquishes all claim of sovereignty over and title to Cuba.

"ARTICLE 2. Spain hereby cedes to the United States the Island of Porto Rico and other islands now under Spanish sovereignty in the West Indies, and also the Island of Guam in the Ladrones."

These articles contain no provision for the assumption of debt by the United States.

In this relation, I desire to recall the statements in which the American Commissioners have in our conferences repeatedly declared that they would not accept any articles that required the United States to assume the so-called colonial debts of Spain.

To these statements I have nothing to add.

But, in respect of the Philippines, the American Commissioners, while including the cession of the archipelago in the article in which Spain "cedes to the United States the Island of Porto Rico and other islands now under Spanish sovereignty in the West Indies, and also the Island of Guam in the Ladrones," or in an article expressed in similar words, will agree that their Government shall pay to Spain the sum of twenty million dollars ($20,000,000).

"Second. Is the offer made by the United States to Spain to establish for a certain number of years similar conditions in the ports of the archipelago for vessels and merchandise of both nations, an offer which is preceded by the assertion that the policy of the United States is to maintain an open door to the world's commerce, to be taken in the sense that the vessels and goods of other nations are to enjoy or can enjoy the

same privilege (situación) which for a certain time is granted those of Spain, while the United States do not change such policy?"

The declaration that the policy of the United States in the Philippines will be that of an open door to the world's commerce necessarily implies that the offer to place Spanish vessels and merchandise on the same footing as American is not intended to be exclusive. But, the offer to give Spain that privilege for a term of years, is intended to secure it to her for a certain period by special treaty stipulation, whatever might be at any time the general policy of the United States.

"Third. The Secretary of State having stated in his note of July 30 last that the cession by Spain of the Island of Porto Rico and the other islands now under Spanish sovereignty in the West Indies, as well as one of the Ladrones, was to be as compensation for the losses and expenses of the United States during the war, and of the damages suffered by their citizens during the last insurrection in Cuba, what claims does the proposition refer to on requiring that there shall be inserted in the treaty a provision for the mutual relinquishment of all claims, individual and national, that have arisen from the beginning of the last insurrection in Cuba to the conclusion of the treaty of peace?"

While the idea doubtless was conveyed in the note of the Secretary of State of the United States of the 30th of July last that the cession of "Porto Rico and other islands now under the sovereignty of Spain in the West Indies, and also the cession of an island in the Ladrones, to be selected by the United States," was required on grounds of indemnity, and that " on similar grounds the United States is entitled to occupy and will hold the city, bay, and harbor of Manila, pending the conclusion of a treaty of peace which shall determine the control, disposition and government of the Philippines," no definition has as yet been given of the extent or precise effect of the cessions in that regard. The American Commissioners therefore propose, in connection with the cessions of territory, "the mutual relinquishment of all claims for indemnity, national and individual, of every kind, of the United States against Spain and of Spain against the United States, that may have arisen since the beginning of the late insurrection in Cuba and prior to the conclusion of a treaty of peace."

Senate Documents, 55 Cong., 3 sess. (Washington, 1899), VIII, No. 62, pt. 2, pp. 217-219.

CHAPTER XXXI-QUESTIONS OF COLONIZATION

186. American Experience of Colonization (1898)

Was

PRESIDENT

BY PROFESSOR ABBOTT LAWRENCE LOWELL

Lowell is professor of the science of government at Harvard University, and an authority on questions relating to the organization and government of colonies. Bibliography: A. P. C. Griffin, List of Books relating to the Theory of Colonization,

11-22.

IT

-

T is commonly said that the recent annexations mark a departure from our traditional policy, in that they present the first attempt the nation has made to acquire colonies. The former half of this statement is substantially correct; for, with the exception of Alaska, the lands we have annexed have bordered upon those we already possessed. Moreover, they have been, for the most part, uninhabited or very thinly peopled. The other half of the statement that we have entered for the first time in the path of colonization cannot be accepted without careful examination. . . . Properly speaking, a colony is a territory, not forming, for political purposes, an integral part of the mother country, but dependent upon her, and peopled in part, at least, by her emigrants. If this is true, there has never been a time, since the adoption of the first ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory in 1784, when the United States has not had colonies. Nor is there anything artificial or strained about this definition. The very essence of a colony lies in the fact that it is a new land, to which citizens can go and carry with them the protection of the parent state; and this has been eminently the case in the territories of the United States. They have been administered, it is true, with a view to their becoming at the earliest possible moment members of the Union, with full equality of rights; but this is not inconsistent with their being colonies in the strictest sense, so long as they remained territories at all. Until admitted as states, their position has not differed in any essential particular from that of the North American colonies of England before the outbreak of the Revolution.