Cleveland forced Great Britain to arbitrate the boundary dispute with Venezuela in 1895, by a defiant enunciation of the Monroe doctrine.  Congress supported him and voted unanimously for a commission to settle the dispute.

Free coinage of silver was the chief issue of the Presidential election, in 1896.  McKinley defeated Bryan by a great majority.  The Dingley Tariff Bill maintained the protective theory.

The blowing up of the “Maine,” in the Havana Harbor, in 1898, hastened the forcible intervention of the United States, in Cuba, where Spain had been carrying on a war for three years.

On May 1st, Dewey entered Manila Bay and destroyed a Spanish fleet.  The more powerful and stronger Spanish fleet was destroyed while trying to escape from the Harbour of Santiago de Cuba, on July 3.

By the Treaty of Paris, December 10, Porto Rico was ceded, and the Philippine Islands were made over on a payment of $20,000,000, and a republic was established in Cuba, under the United States protectory.

Hawaii had been annexed, and was made a territory, in 1900.

A revolt against the United States in the Philippine Islands was put down, in 1901, after two years.

McKinley was elected to a second term, with a still more overwhelming majority over Bryan.

McKinley was assassinated on September 6, 1901, at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, by an Anarchist.  Theodore Roosevelt, the Vice-President, succeeded him, and was re-elected, in 1904, defeating Alton B. Parker.

Roosevelt intervened in the Anthracite Coal Strike, in 1902, recognised the revolutionary Republic of Panama, and in his administration, the United States acquired the Panama Canal Zone, and began work on the inter-oceanic canal.  Great efforts were made, during his administration, to repress the big corporations by prosecutions, under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law.  The conservation of natural resources was also taken up as a fixed policy.

* * * * *

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT

History of the Conquest of Mexico

The “Conquest of Mexico” is a spirited and graphic narrative of a stirring episode in history.  To use his own words, the author (see p. 271) has “endeavoured to surround the reader with the spirit of the times, and, in a word, to make him a contemporary of the 16th century.”

I.  The Mexican Empire

Of all that extensive empire which once acknowledged the authority of Spain in the New World, no portion, for interest and importance, can be compared with Mexico—­and this equally, whether we consider the variety of its soil and climate; the inexhaustible stores of its mineral wealth; its scenery, grand and picturesque beyond example; the character of its ancient inhabitants, not only far surpassing in intelligence that of the other North American races, but reminding us, by their monuments, of the primitive civilisation of Egypt and Hindostan; and lastly, the peculiar circumstances of its conquest, adventurous and romantic as any legend devised by any Norman or Italian bard of chivalry.  It is the purpose of the present narrative to exhibit the history of this conquest, and that of the remarkable man by whom it was achieved.