CHAPTER XXXI.

McKINLEY succeeds Cleveland.

The Cuban Question Not a New One—­The Efforts of Former Administrations to Bring About a Settlement—­President Cleveland’s Message—­Recommendations of President McKinley—­The Spanish Minister’s Insulting Letter—­His Resignation Accepted—­The Apology of the Spanish Government.

For more than ninety years the United States government has been confronted with a Cuban question.  At times it has disappeared from our politics, but it has always reappeared.  Once we thought it wise to prevent the island from winning its independence from Spain, and thereby, perhaps, we entered into moral bonds to make sure that Spain governed it decently.  Whether we definitely contracted such an obligation or not, the Cuban question has never ceased to annoy us.  The controversies about it make a long series of chapters in one continuous story of diplomatic trouble.  Many of our ablest statesmen have had to deal with it as Secretaries of State and as Ministers to Spain, and not one of them has been able to settle it.  One President after another has taken it up, and every one has transmitted it to his successor.  It has at various times been a “plank” in the platforms of all our political parties—­as it was in both the party platforms of 1896—­and it has been the subject of messages of nearly all our Presidents, as it was of President Cleveland’s message in December, 1896, in which he distinctly expressed the opinion that the United States might feel forced to recognize “higher obligations” than neutrality to Spain.  In spite of periods of apparent quiet, the old trouble has always reappeared in an acute form, and it has never been settled; nor has there recently been any strong reason for hope that it could be settled merely by diplomatic negotiation with Spain.  Our diplomats have long had an experience with Spanish character and methods such as the public can better understand since war has been in progress.  The pathetic inefficiency and the continual indirection of the Spanish character are now apparent to the world; they were long ago apparent to those who have had our diplomatic duties to do.

Thus the negotiations dragged on.  We were put to trouble and expense to prevent filibustering, and filibustering continued in spite of us.  More than once heretofore has there been danger of international conflict, as for instance when American sailors on the Virginius were executed in Cuba in 1873.  Propositions have been made to buy the island, and plans have been formed to annex it.  All the while there have been great American interests in Cuba.  Our citizens have owned much property and made investments there, and done much to develop its fertility.  They have paid tribute unlawful as well as lawful, both to insurgents and to Spanish officials.  They have lost property, for which no indemnity has been paid.  All the while we have had a trade with the island, important during periods of quiet, irritating during periods of unrest.