mander-in-chief. His humanity and fairness, the honor and manhood that were his, gave him breadth and the country credit in the clearing up of the situation.

Never until that hour when President McKinley, commissioned by his country and blest by his God, issued the Republic's mandate to a king, had the United States of America for one hour ventured to take part in the affairs of nations. Singularly strong, admittedly brave and progressive, confessedly full of the vigor drawn from the best blood in all nations, it had never asked for place beside them, nor joined in their age-old contendings for spoil. And never in the century and a quarter of our national life had the kings and emperors of Europe given more than a good-humored credence to the theory that the American Republic was a nation. It was no small matter to so wisely choose the time, so judiciously select the occasion as that America's entrance into the affairs of the world should meet no united opposition in the conservative courts of the continent. A day too soon or a day too late, a warrant less adequate or a reason more impelling, would have arrayed the world against the Republic, and launched a nation of peace upon a limitless era of war.

But the master hand of this Chief Executive saw the instant under the shadow of the Spanish war-cloud when advance might be sounded; and that moment, well employed, lifted the Republic to the crest of the world, widened her borders and enriched her people, and made substantial peace a certainty.

He proved himself a prophet and statesman in peace, a soldier and leader in war, equally strong in all situations.

Able, fair, fearless, successful was his record in this-as in all things.

CHAPTER XXI.

MCKINLEY'S OWN STORY OF THE SPANISH WAR.

In all that has been written of the Spanish war and the way in which it was conducted by President McKinley's administration, no history can give such a clear and complete account of it as was written by the President himself. President McKinley's own history of the Spanish war is contained in an official message to Congress sent by him after the war had been brought to such a successful close. It is as follows:

For a righteous cause and under a common flag military service has strengthened the national spirit and served to cement more closely than ever the fraternal bonds between every section of the country.

In my annual message very full consideration was given to the question of the duty of the Government of the United States toward Spain and the Cuban insurrection as being by far the most important problem with which we were then called upon to deal. The considerations then advanced, and the exposition of the views then expressed, disclosed my sense of the extreme gravity of the situation.

Setting aside, as logically unfounded or practically inadmissible, the recognition of the Cuban insurgents as belligerents, the recognition of the independence of Cuba, neutral intervention to end the war by imposing a rational compromise between the contestants, intervention in favor of one or the other party, and forcible annexation of the islands, I concluded it was honestly due to our friendly relations with Spain that she should be given a reasonable chance to realize her expectations of reform, to which she had become irrevocably committed. Within a few weeks previously she had announced comprehensive plans, which it was confidently asserted would be efficacious to remedy the evils so deeply affecting our own country, so injurious to the true interests of the mother country as well as to those of Cuba, and so repugnant to the universal sentiment of humanity.

The ensuing month brought little sign of real progress toward the pacification of Cuba. The autonomous administration set up in the capital and some of the principal cities appeared not to gain the favor of the inhabitants nor to be able to extend their influence to the large extent of territory held by the insurgents, while the military arm, obviously unable to cope with

the still active rebellion, continued many of the most objectionable and offensive policies of the government that had preceded it.

No tangible relief was afforded the vast numbers of unhappy reconcentrados, despite the reiterated professions made in that regard and the amount appropriated by Spain to that end. The proffered expedient of zones of cultivation proved illusory. Indeed, no less practical nor more delusive promises of succor could well have been tendered to the exhausted and destitute people, stripped of all that made life and home dear and herded in a strange region among unsympathetic strangers hardly less necessitous than themselves.

By the end of December the mortality among them had frightfully increased. Conservative estimates from Spanish sources placed the deaths among these distressed people at over 40 per cent. from the time General Weyler's decree of reconcentration was enforced. With the acquiescence of the Spanish authorities a scheme was adopted for relief by charitable contributions raised in this country and distributed, under the direction of the Consul General and the several Consuls, by noble and earnest individual effort through the organized agencies of the American Red Cross. Thousands of lives were thus saved, but many thousands more were inaccessible to such forms of aid.

The war continued on the old footing, without comprehensive plan, developing only the same spasmodic encounters, barren of strategic result, that had marked the course of the earlier Ten Years' rebellion as well as the present insurrection from its start. No alternative save physical exhaustion of either combatant, and therewithal the practical ruin of the island, lay in sight, but how far distant no one could venture to conjecture.

DESTRUCTION OF THE MAINE.

At this juncture, on the 15th of February last, occurred the destruction. of the battleship Maine, while rightfully lying in the Harbor of Havana on a mission of international courtesy and good will-a catastrophe the suspicious nature and horror of which stirred the nation's heart profoundly.

It is a striking evidence of the poise and sturdy good sense distinguishing our national character that this shocking blow, falling upon a generous people, already deeply touched by preceding events in Cuba, did not move them to an instant, desperate resolve to tolerate no longer the existence of a condition of danger and disorder at our doors that made possible such