The Conditions Leading Up to the Crisis: Cuban and Spain
The most distressing feature of the struggle is the concentration of the Cuban small farmers within the Spanish military lines, where they are perishing of famine and pestilence. Captain-General Weyler invented the policy of making the peasantry leave their humble homes and fields and put themselves under the protection--that is, within the power--of the Spanish forces, because the assistance the country people gave the insurgents was constantly obvious. A Spanish column could not move an hour's march without full reports reaching their enemies, with endless facilities for ambuscades, while it was impossible for the regular troops to get news of rebel movements. No persuasion or threats could prevail with the islanders to aid by giving information to those attempting their subjugation. This fact is itself proof of the desperate resolution of the Cubans to fight Spain to the last. They feel that Spanish rule is intolerable--that it is martial law modified by corruption, and not, under any conditions, to be endured. The information of the terrible sanitary conditions of the camps in which the Cubans are penned, reached President McKinley very early in his administration. Special reports were ordered from all our representatives in the Island, and these confirmed the narratives of the privation and perishing of those children of Spain who would not serve her and aid in extinguishing their own hopes of liberty.
The Cubans have been intensely anxious, from the first, as to the position of the United States, and had hopes that our presidential election in 1896 would turn upon the Cuban question. The form in which the policy of the islanders was presented in Congress, and through the organs expressing the sentiments of the insurgents, was that of obtaining recognition of their rights as belligerents; but the real question was whether the rebellion should be aided by our action. Senator Morgan's joint resolutions, so warmly debated, in May, in the Senate, was in these terms:
Resolved, etc., That a condition of public war exists between the government of Spain and a government proclaimed, and for some time maintained by force of arms, by the people of Cuba, and that the United States of America shall maintain a strict neutrality between the contending powers, according to each all the rights of belligerents in the ports and territory of the United States.
It was anticipated that this resolution, vehemently discussed, would make necessary a declaration of the Cuban policy of the McKinley administration. The leadership of the movement was in the hands of the Southern Democratic Senators, aided by the Populists, and a few Republicans took advanced ground on the same side, passing the resolution May. 30. The vote was: years, 41; nays, 14; not voting, 33.
Senator Fairbanks moved to amend the Morgan resolution by substituting a request that the President offer to mediate between Spain and Cuba on the suggested basis of independence for the latter.
President McKinley was from the first profoundly impressed by the seriousness of the Cuban situation, and anxious to preserve "peace with honor." He has been painstaking in procuring information, and his influence has been constantly conservative. His solicitude to perform humane offices has been conspicuous. His first official act in the affairs of Cuba was to ask an appropriation to buy medicines and food and transportation out of the land for Americans stranded there. He has availed himself fully of consular reports and the observations of travellers in whom he had confidence. He has refused the call in Congress for the full reports of consuls, for if they were written with a view to immediate publicity their value would be destroyed. He has studied every phase of all the questions involved. He has witnessed with clear intelligence the efforts of the filibusters to involve this country in a war with Cuba, that they might appropriate the usufruct of the conflict. We presume that he understands perfectly that there are two classes of American citizens in Cuba--one the actual Americans, who are engaged in various Cuban industries that have been annihilated by the war; and the other the Cubans, who have sought American citizenship for the purpose of using it in their political relations.
The administration has been under filibuster fire from the first. It seemed to the President to be his duty to assume that Spain was a civilized nation, and that if we were forced into war with that country, it would be on such grounds that she could not find friends to protest against our action or interfere with it, even with a demand for arbitration.
It seemed to the President that if General Blanco could in a humane way pacify the Island, he should have reasonable time, and our disturbing intrusion would be unfortunate; at the same time, our interests in Cuba were enormous, and we certainly had a right to put out the fire, if it did not speedily burn itself out. In his first annual message to Congress, the President candidly declared himself--gave impressively the record of our relations with Cuba--spoke plainly of the peculiar horrors of war in the Island, and indicated that the time might come when we must interfere.