Carl Russell Fish ......................................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER I. The Monroe Doctrine........................................................................................................1

CHAPTER II. Controversies With Great Britain....................................................................................6

CHAPTER III. Alaska And Its Problems..............................................................................................11

CHAPTER IV. Blaine And PanAmericanism .....................................................................................15

CHAPTER V. The United States And The Pacific ................................................................................18

CHAPTER VI. Venezuela.....................................................................................................................21

CHAPTER VII. The Outbreak Of The War With Spain.......................................................................24

CHAPTER VIII. Dewey And Manila Day............................................................................................31

CHAPTER IX. The Blockade Of Cuba.................................................................................................35

CHAPTER X. The Preparation Of The Army .......................................................................................38

CHAPTER XI. The Campaign Of Santiago De Cuba...........................................................................40

CHAPTER XII. The Close Of The War................................................................................................46

CHAPTER XIII. A Peace Which Meant War.......................................................................................52

CHAPTER XIV. The Open Door..........................................................................................................57

CHAPTER XV. The Panama Canal......................................................................................................63

CHAPTER XVI. Problems Of The Caribbean......................................................................................68

CHAPTER XVII. World Relationships .................................................................................................73

In 1815 the world found peace after twentytwo years of continual war. In the forests of Canada and the

pampas of South America, throughout all the countries of Europe, over the plains of Russia and the hills of

Palestine, men and women had known what war was and had prayed that its horrors might never return. In

even the most autocratic states subjects and rulers were for once of one mind: in the future war must be

prevented. To secure peace forever was the earnest desire of two statesmen so strongly contrasted as the

impressionable Czar Alexander I of Russia, acclaimed as the "White Angel" and the "Universal Savior," and

Prince Metternich, the real ruler of Austria, the spider who was for the next thirty years to spin the web of

European secret diplomacy. While the Czar invited all governments to unite in a "Holy Alliance" to prevent

war, Metternich for the same purpose formed the less holy but more powerful "Quadruple Alliance" of

The designs of Metternich, however, went far beyond the mere prevention of war. To his mind the cause of

all the upheavals which had convulsed Europe was the spirit of liberty bred in France in the days of the

Revolution; if order was to be restored, there must be a return to the former autocratic principle of

government, to the doctrine of "Divine Right"; it was for kings and emperors to command; it was the duty of

subjects to obey. These principles had not, it was true, preserved peace in the past, but Metternich now

proposed that, in the future, sovereigns or their representatives should meet "at fixed periods" to adjust their

own differences and to assist one another in enforcing the obedience of subjects everywhere. The rulers were

reasonably well satisfied with the world as it was arranged by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and

determined to set their faces against any change in the relations of governments to one another or to their

subjects. They regretted, indeed, that the Government of the United States was built upon the sands of a

popular vote, but they recognized that it was apparently well established and decently respectable, and

therefore worthy of recognition by the mutual protection society of the Holy Alliance.

The subjects of these sovereigns, however, did not all share the satisfaction of their masters, and some of

them soon showed that much as they desired peace they desired other things even more. The inhabitants of

Spanish America, while their imperial mother was in the chaos of Napoleon's wars, had nibbled at the

forbidden fruit of freedom. They particularly desired freedom to buy the products of British factories, which

cost less and satisfied better than those previously furnished by the Spanish merchants, secure in their

absolute monopoly. With peace came renewed monopoly, haughty officials, and oppressive laws dictated by

that most stupid of the restored sovereigns, Ferdinand VII of Spain. Buenos Aires, however, never recognized

his rule, and her general, the knightly San Martin, in one of the most remarkable campaigns of history, scaled

the Andes and carried the flag of revolution into Chili and Peru. Venezuela, that hive of revolution, sent forth

Bolivar to found the new republics of Colombia and Bolivia. Mexico freed herself, and Brazil separated

herself from Portugal. By 1822 European rule had been practically swept off the American mainland, from

Cape Horn to the borders of Canada, and, except for the empire of Dom Pedro in Brazil, the newly born

nations had adopted the republican form of government which the European monarchs despised. The spirit of

unrest leaped eastward across the Atlantic. Revolutions in Spain, Portugal, and Naples sought impiously and

with constitutions to bind the hands of their kings. Even the distant Greeks and Serbians sought their

Divine Right, just rescued from the French Revolution, was tottering and had yet to test the strength of its

new props, the "Holy" and the "Quadruple" alliances, and the policy of intervention to maintain the status

quo. Congresses at AixlaChapelle in 1818, at Troppau in 1820, and at Laibach in 1821, decided to refuse

recognition to governments resting on such revolutions, to offer mediation to restore the old order, and, if this

were refused, to intervene by force. In the United States, on the other hand, founded on the right of revolution

and dedicated to government by the people, these popular movements were greeted with enthusiasm. The

fiery Clay, speaker and leader of the House of Representatives, made himself champion of the cause of the

Spanish Americans; Daniel Webster thundered forth the sympathy of all lovers of antiquity for the Greeks;

and Samuel Gridley Howe, an impetuous young American doctor, crossed the seas, carrying to the Greeks his

services and the gifts of Boston friends of liberty. A new conflict seemed to be shaping itselfa struggle of

Between the two camps, both in her ideas and in her geographical situation, stood England. Devoted as she

was to law and order, bulwark against the excesses of the French Terror and the world dominion that

Napoleon sought, she was nevertheless equally strong in her opposition to Divine Right. Her people and her

government alike were troubled at the repressive measured by which the Allies put down the Revolution of

Naples in 1821 and that of Spain in 1823. Still more were they disturbed at the hint given at the Congress of

Verona in 1822 that, when Europe was once quieted, America would engage the attention of Europe's

arbiters. George Canning, the English foreign minister, soon discovered that this hint foreshadowed a new

congress to be devoted especially to the American problem. Spain was to be restored to her sovereignty, but

was to pay in liberal grants of American territory to whatever powers helped her. Canning is regarded as the

ablest English foreign minister of the nineteenth century; at least no one better embodied the fundamental

aspirations of the English people. He realized that liberal England would be perpetually a minority in a united

Europe, as Europe was then organized. He believed that the best security for peace was not a union but a

balance of powers. He opposed intervention in the internal affairs of nations and stood for the right of each to

choose its own form of government. Particularly he fixed his eyes on America, where he hoped to find weight

to help him balance the autocrats of the Old World. He wished to see the new American republics free, and

he believed that in freedom of trade England would obtain from them all that she needed. Alarmed at the

impending European intervention to restore the rule of Spain or of her monarchical assignees in America, he

sought an understanding with the United States. He proposed to Richard Rush, the United States minister in

London, that the two countries declare concurrently that the independence of Spanish America, was a fact,

that the recognition of the new governments was a matter of time and circumstance, that neither country

desired any portion of Spain's former dominions, but that neither would look with indifference upon the

On October 9, 1823, this proposal reached Washington. The answer would be framed by able and most

experienced statesmen. The President, James Monroe, had been almost continuously in public service since

1782. He had been minister to France, Spain, and England, and had been Secretary of State. In his earlier

missions he had often shown an unwise impetuosity and an independent judgment which was not always well

balanced. He had, however, grown in wisdom. He inspired respect by his sterling qualities of character, and

he was an admirable presiding officer. William H. Crawford, his Secretary of the Treasury, John C. Calhoun,

his Secretary of War, William Wirt, his AttorneyGeneral, and even John McLean, his PostmasterGeneral,

not then a member of the Cabinet, were all men who were considered as of presidential caliber.

Foremost in ability and influence, however, was John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State. Brought up from

early boyhood in the atmosphere of diplomacy, familiar with nearly every country of Europe, he had

nevertheless none of those arts of suavity which are popularly associated with the diplomat. Short,

baldheaded, with watery eyes, he on the one hand repelled familiarity, and on the other hand shocked some

sensibilities, as for example when he appeared in midsummer Washington without a neckcloth. His early

morning swim in the Potomac and his translations of Horace did not conquer a temper which embittered

many who had business with him, while the nightly records which he made of his interviews show that he

was generally suspicious of his visitors. Yet no American can show so long a roll of diplomatic successes.

Preeminently he knew his business. His intense devotion and his native talent had made him a master of the

theory and practice of international law and of statecraft. Always he was obviously honest, and his word was

relied on. Fundamentally he was kind, and his work was permeated by a generous enthusiasm. Probably no

man in America, had so intense a conviction not only of the correctness of American principles and the

promise of American greatness but of the immediate strength and greatness of the United States as it stood in

Fully aware as Adams was of the danger that threatened both America and liberty, he was not in favor of

accepting Canning's proposal for the cooperation of England and the United States. He based his opposition

upon two fundamental objections. In the first place he was not prepared to say that the United States desired

no more Spanish territory. Not that Adams desired or would tolerate conquest. At the time of the Louisiana

Purchase he had wished to postpone annexation until the assent of the people of that province could be

obtained. But he believed that all the territory necessary for the geographical completeness of the United

States had not yet been brought under the flag. He had just obtained Florida from Spain and a claim westward

to the Pacific north of the fortysecond parallel, but he considered the SouthwestTexas, New Mexico, and

Californiaa natural field of expansion. These areas, then almost barren of white settlers, he expected time

to bring into the United States, and he also expected that the people of Cuba would ultimately rejoice to

become incorporated in the Union. He wished natural forces to work out their own results, without let or

Not only was Adams opposed to Canning's proposed selfdenying ordinance, but he was equally averse to

becoming a partner with England. Such cooperation might well prove in time to be an "entangling alliance,"

involving the United States in problems of no immediate concern to its people and certainly in a partnership

in which the other member would be dominant. If Canning saw liberal England as a perpetual minority in

absolutist Europe, Adams saw republican America as a perpetual inferior to monarchical England. Although

England, with Canada, the West Indies, and her commerce, was a great American power, Adams believed

that the United States, the oldest independent nation in America, with a government which gave the model to

the rest, could not admit her to joint, leadership, for her power was in, not of, America, and her government

was monarchical. Already Adams had won a strategic advantage over Canning, for in the previous year,

Great as were the dangers involved in cooperation with England, however, they seemed to many persons of

little moment compared with the menace of absolutist armies and navies in the New World or of, perhaps, a

French Cuba and a Russian Mexico. The only effective obstacle to such foreign intervention was the British

Navy. Both President Monroe and Thomas Jefferson, who in his retirement was still consulted on all matters

of high moment, therefore favored the acceptance of Canning's proposal as a means of detaching England

from the rest of Europe. Adams argued, however, that England was already detached; that, for England's

purposes, the British Navy would still stand between Europe and America, whatever the attitude of the

United States; that compromise or concession was unnecessary; and that the country could as safely take its

stand toward the whole outside world as toward continental Europe alone. To reject the offer of a country

whose assistance was absolutely necessary to the safety of the United States, and to declare the American

case against her as well as against the more menacing forces whose attack she alone could prevent, required a

nerve and poise which could come only from ignorant foolhardiness or from absolute knowledge of the facts.

The selfassurance of Adams was well founded, and no general on the field of battle ever exhibited higher

Adams won over the Cabinet, and the President decided to incorporate in his annual message to Congress a

declaration setting forth the attitude of the United States toward all the world, and in particular denying the

right of any European power, England included, to intervene in American affairs. In making such a statement,

however, it was necessary to offer compensation in some form. The United States was not prepared to offer

Canning's selfdenying ordinance barring the way to further American expansion, but something it must

offer. This compensating offset Adams found in the separation of the New World from the Old and in

abstention from interference in Europe. Such a renunciation involved, however, the sacrifice of generous

American sympathies with the republicans across the seas. Monroe, Gallatin, and many other statesmen

wished as active a policy in support of the Greeks as of the Spanish Americans. Adams insisted, however,

that the United States should create a sphere for its interests and should confine itself to that sphere. His plan

for peace provided that European and American interests should not only not clash but should not even meet.

The President's message of December 2, 1823, amounted to a rejection of the Holy Alliance as guardian of

the world's peace, of Canning's request for an entente, and of the proposal that the United States enter upon a

campaign to republicanize the world. It stated the intention of the Government to refrain from interference in

Europe, and its belief that it was "impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any

portion of either continent [of America] without endangering our peace and happiness." The message

contained a strong defense of the republican system of government and of the right of nations to control their

own internal development. It completed the foreign policy of the United States by declaring, in connection

with certain recent encroachments of Russia along the northwest coast, that the era of colonization in the

Americas was over. The United States was to maintain in the future that boundaries between nations holding

land in America actually existed and could be traceda position which invited arbitration in place of force.

Both Canning and Adams won victories, but neither realized his full hopes. Canning prevented the

interference of Europe in Spanish America, broke up the Quadruple Alliance, rendered the Holy Alliance a

shadow, and restored a balance of power that meant safety for England for almost a hundred years; but he

failed to dictate American policy. Adams on his part detached the United States from European politics

without throwing England into the arms of Europe. He took advantage of the divisions of the Old World to

establish the priority of the United States in American affairs; but he failed in his later attempt to unite all the

Americas in cordial cooperation. Earnest as was his desire and hard as he strove in 1825 when he had become

President with Clay as his Secretary of State, Adams found that the differences in point of view between the

United States and the other American powers were too great to permit a PanAmerican policy. The Panama

Congress on which he built his hopes failed, and for fifty years the project lay dormant.

Under the popular name of the Monroe Doctrine, however, Adams's policy has played a much larger part in

world affairs than he expected. Without the force of law either in this country or between nations, this

doctrine took a firm hold of the American imagination and became a national ideal, while other nations have

at least in form taken cognizance of it. The Monroe Doctrine has survived because Adams did not invent its

main tenets but found them the dominating principles of American international politics; his work, like that

of his contemporary John Marshall, was one of codification. But not all those who have commented on the

work of Adams have possessed his analytical mind, and many have confused what was fundamental in his

pronouncement with what was temporary and demanded by the emergency of the time.

Always the American people have stood, from the first days of their migration to America, for the right of the

people of a territory to determine their own development. First they have insisted that their own right to work

out their political destiny be acknowledged and made safe. For this they fought the Revolution. It has

followed that they have in foreign affairs tried to keep their hands free from entanglements with other

countries and have refrained from interference with foreign politics. This was the burden of Washington's

"Farewell Address," and it was a message which Jefferson reiterated in his inaugural. These are the

permanent principles which have controlled enlightened American statesmen in their attitude toward the

It was early found, however, that the affairs of the immediate neighbors of the United States continually and

from day to day affected the whole texture of American life and that actually they limited American

independence and therefore could not be left out of the policy of the Government. The United States soon

began to recognize that there was a region in the affairs of which it must take a more active interest. As early

as 1780 Thomas Pownall, an English colonial official, predicted that the United States must take an active

part in Cuban affairs. In 1806 Madison, then Secretary of State, had instructed Monroe, Minister to Great

Britain, that the Government began to broach the idea that the whole Gulf Stream was within its maritime

jurisdiction. The message of Monroe was an assertion that the fate of both the Americas was of immediate

concern to the safety of the United States, because the fate of its sister republics intimately affected its own

security. This proved to be an enduring definition of policy, because for many years there was a real

institutional difference between the American hemisphere and the rest of the world and because oceanic

Adams, however, would have been the last to claim that his method of securing the fundamental purposes of

the United States was itself fundamental. It is particularly important for Americans to make a distinction

between the things which they have always wished to obtain and the methods which they have from time to

time used. To build a policy today on the alleged isolation of the American continents would be almost as

absurd as to try to build a government on the belief in Divine Right. The American continents are no longer

separated from the rest of the world by their national institutions, because the spirit of these institutions has

permeated much of Europe, Asia, and even Africa. No boundaries, not even oceans, can today prohibit

international interference. But while the particular method followed in 1823 is no longer appropriate, the ends

which the United States set out to attain have remained the same. Independence, absolute and complete,

including the absence of all entanglements which might draw the country into other peoples' quarrels; the

recognition of a similar independence in all other peoples, which involves both keeping its own hands off and

also strongly disapproving of interference by one nation with anotherthese have been the guiding

principles of the United States. These principles the Government has maintained by such means as seemed

appropriate to the time. In colonial days the people of America fought in courts for their charter rights; at the

time of the Revolution, by arms for their independence from England; during the Napoleonic wars, for their

independence from the whole system of Europe. The Monroe Doctrine declared that to maintain American

independence from the European system it was necessary that the European system be excluded from the

Americas. In entering the Great War in the twentieth century the United States has recognized that the system

of autocracy against which Monroe fulminated must disappear from the entire world if, under modern

It is the purpose of the following chapters to trace the expansion of American interests in the light of the

Monroe Doctrine and to explain those controversies which accompanied this growth and taxed the diplomatic

resources of American Secretaries of State from the times of Adams and Webster and Seward to those of

Blaine and Hay and Elihu Root. The diplomacy of the Great War is reserved for another volume in this

No two nations have ever had more intimate relationships than the United States and Great Britain. Speaking

the same language and owning a common racial origin in large part, they have traded with each other and in

the same regions, and geographically their territories touch for three thousand miles. During the nineteenth

century the coastwise shipping of the United States was often forced to seek the shelter of the British West

Indies. The fisherfolk of England and America mingled on the Grand Bank of Newfoundland and on the

barren shores of that island and of Labrador, where they dried their fish. Indians, criminals, and game crossed

the Canadian boundary at will, streams flowed across it, and the coast cities vied for the trade of the interior,

indifferent to the claims of national allegiance. One cannot but believe that this intimacy has in the long run

made for friendship and peace; but it has also meant constant controversy, often pressed to the verge of war

by the pertinacious insistence of both nations on their full rights as they saw them.

The fifteen years following Adams's encounter with Canning saw the gradual accumulation of a number of

such disputes, which made the situation in 1840 exceptionally critical. Great Britain was angered at the

failure of the United States to grant her the right to police the seas for the suppression of the slave trade,

while the United States, with memories of the vicious English practice of impressment before the War of

1812, distrusted the motives of Great Britain in asking for this right. Nearly every mile of the joint boundary

in North America was in dispute, owing to the vagueness of treaty descriptions or to the errors of surveyors.

Twelve thousand square miles and a costly American fort were involved; arbitration had failed; rival camps

of lumberjacks daily imperiled peace; and both the Maine Legislature and the National Congress had voted

money for defense. In a New York jail Alexander McLeod was awaiting trial in a state court for the murder

of an American on the steamer Caroline, which a party of Canadian militia had cut out from the American

shore near Buffalo and had sent to destruction over Niagara Falls. The British Government, holding that the

Caroline was at the time illegally employed to assist Canadian insurgents, and that the Canadian militia were

under government orders justifiable by international law, assumed the responsibility for McLeod's act and his

safety. Ten thousand Americans along the border, members of "Hunters' Lodges," were anxious for a war

which would unleash them for the conquest of Canada. Delay was causing all these disputes to fester, and the

Fortunately in 1841 new administrations came into power in both England and the United States. Neither the

English Tories nor the American Whigs felt bound to maintain all the contentions of their predecessors, and

both desired to come to an agreement. The responsibility on the American side fell upon Daniel Webster, the

new Secretary of State. With less foreign experience than John Quincy Adams, he was more a man of the

world and a man among men. His conversation was decidedly less ponderous than his oratory, and there was

no more desirable dinner guest in America. Even in Webster's lightest moments, his majestic head gave the

impression of colossal mentality, and his eyes, when he was in earnest, almost hypnotized those upon whom

he bent his gaze. A leading figure in public life for twentyfive years, he now attained administrative position

for the first time, and his constant practice at the bar had given something of a lawyerlike trend to his mind.

The desire of the British Government for an agreement with the United States was shown by the selection of

Washington instead of London as the place of negotiation and of Lord Ashburton as negotiator. The head of

the great banking house of Baring Brothers, he had won his title by service and was, moreover, known to be a

friend of the United States. While in Philadelphia in his youth, he had married Miss Bingham of that city, and

she still had American interests. In the controversies before the War of 1812 Lord Ashburton had supported

many of the American contentions. He knew Webster personally, and they both looked forward to the social

pleasure of meeting again during the negotiations. The two representatives came together in this pleasant

frame of mind and did most of their business at the dinner table, where it is reported that more than

diplomatic conversation flowed. They avoided an exchange of notes, which would bind each to a position

It must not be supposed, however, that either Ashburton or Webster sacrificed the claims of his own

Government. Webster certainly was a good attorney for the United States in settling the boundary disputes, as

is shown by the battle of the maps. The territorial contentions of both countries hung largely upon the

interpretation of certain clauses of the first American treaty of peace. Webster therefore ordered a search for

material to be made in the archives of Paris and London. In Paris there was brought to light a map with the

boundary drawn in red, possibly by Franklin, and supporting the British contention. Webster refrained from

showing this to Ashburton and ordered search in London discontinued. Ironically enough, however, a little

later there was unearthed in the British Museum the actual map used by one of the British commissioners in

1782, which showed the boundary as the United States claimed it to be. Though they had been found too late

to affect the negotiations, these maps disturbed the Senate discussion of the matter. Yet, as they offset each

Rapidly Webster and Ashburton cleared the field. Webster obtained the release of McLeod and effected the

passage of a law to prevent a similar crisis in the future by permitting such cases to be transferred to a federal

court. The Caroline affair was settled by an amicable exchange of notes in which each side conceded much to

the other. They did not indeed dispose of the slave trade, but they reached an agreement by which a joint

squadron was to undertake to police efficiently the African seas in order to prevent American vessels from

Upon the more important matter of boundary, both Webster and Ashburton decided to give up the futile task

of convincing each other as to the meaning of phrases which rested upon halfknown facts reaching back into

the misty period of first discovery and settlement. They abandoned interpretation and made compromise and

division the basis of their settlement. This method was more difficult for Webster than for Ashburton, as both

Maine and Massachusetts were concerned, and each must under the Constitution be separately convinced.

Here Webster used the "Red Line" map, and succeeded in securing the consent of these States. They finally

settled upon a boundary which was certainly not that intended in 1782 but was a compromise between the

two conceptions of that boundary and divided the territory with a regard for actual conditions and geography.

From Passamaquoddy Bay to the Lake of the Woods, accepted lines were substituted for controversy, and the

basis of peace was thus made more secure. The treaty also contained provision for the mutual extradition of

criminals guilty of specified crimes, but these did not include embezzlement, and "gone to Canada" was for

The friendly spirit in which Webster and Ashburton had carried on their negotiations inaugurated a period of

reasonable amity between their two nations. The United States annexed Texas without serious protest; in

spite of the clamor for "fiftyfour forty or fight," Oregon was divided peacefully; and England did not take

advantage of the war with Mexico. Each of these events, however, added to American territory, and these

additions gave prominence to a new and vexing problem. The United States was now planted solidly upon the

Pacific, and its borders were practically those to which Adams had looked forward. Natural and unified as

this area looks upon the map and actually is today, in 1850 the extent of territorial expansion had overreached

the means of transportation. The Great Plains, then regarded as the Great American Desert, and the Rockies

presented impossible barriers to all but adventurous individuals. These men, uniting in bands for

selfprotection and taking their lives in their hands, were able with good luck to take themselves but little

else across this central region and the western barrier. All ordinary communication, all mail and all freight,

must go by sea. The United States was actually divided into two very unequal parts, and California and

The ocean highroad belonged to the United States in common with all nations, but it took American ships to

the opposite ends of the earth. No regular shuttle of traffic sufficient to weave the nation together could be

expected to pass Cape Horn at every throw. The natural route lay obviously through the Caribbean, across

some one of the isthmuses, and up the Pacific coast. Here however, the United States would have to use

territory belonging to other nations, and to obtain the right of transit and security agreement was necessary.

All these isthmus routes, moreover, needed improvement. Capital must be induced to do the work, and one

This isthmus route became for a time the prime object of American diplomacy. The United States made in

1846 satisfactory arrangements with the Republic of New Granada (later Colombia), across which lay the

most southern route, and in 1853 with Mexico, of whose northern or Tehuantepec route many had great

expectations; but a further difficulty was now discovered. The best lanes were those of Panama and of

Nicaragua. When the discovery of gold in California in 1848 made haste a more important element in the

problem, "Commodore" Vanderbilt, at that time the shipping king of the United States, devoted his attention

to the Nicaragua route and made it the more popular. Here however, the United States encountered not only

the local independent authorities but also Great Britain. Just to the north of the proposed route Great Britain

possessed Belize, now British Honduras, a meager colony but with elastic boundaries. For many generations,

too, she had concerned herself with securing the rights of the Mosquito Indians, who held a territory, also

with elastic boundaries, inconveniently near the San Juan River, the Caribbean entrance to the Nicaraguan

thoroughfare. From Great Britain, moreover, must come a large portion of the capital to be employed in

The local situation soon became acute. Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and the Mosquitoes all claimed the mouth of

the San Juan; Honduras and Nicaragua, the control of the Pacific outlet. British diplomatic and naval officers

clashed with those of the United States until, in their search for complete control, both exceeded the

instructions which they had received from home. The British occupied Greytown on the San Juan and

supported the Mosquitoes and Costa Rica. The Americans won favor in Nicaragua and Honduras, framed

treaties allowing transit and canal construction, and proposed the annexation of Tigre Island, which,

To untie these knots, Sir Henry Bulwer was sent to Washington to negotiate with John M. Clayton, President

Taylor's Secretary of State. Neither of these negotiators was of the caliber of Webster and Ashburton, and the

treaty which they drew up proved rather a Pandora's box of future difficulties than a satisfactory settlement.

In the first place it was agreed that any canal to be constructed over any of the isthmuses was to be absolutely

neutral, in time of war as well as of peace. Both nations were to guarantee this neutrality, and other nations

were invited to join with them. No other nations did join, however, and the project became a dual affair

which, owing to the superiority of the British Navy, gave Britain the advantage, or would eventually have

done so if a canal had been constructed. Subsequently the majority of Americans decided that such a canal

must be under the sole control of the United States, and the treaty then stood as a stumbling block in the way

More immediately important, however, and a great wrench to American policies, was the provision that

neither power "will ever erect or maintain any fortifications commanding" the canal "or occupy, or fortify, or

colonize, or assume or exercise any dominion over...any part of Central America." This condition violated

Adams's principle that the United States was not on the same footing with any European power in American

affairs and should not be bound by any selfdenying ordinance, and actually it reversed the principle against

the United States. An explanatory note accompanying the treaty recognized that this provision did not apply

to Belize and her dependencies, and Great Britain promptly denied that it applied to any rights she already

possessed in Central America, including the Mosquito protectorate and certain Bay Islands which were

claimed by Great Britain as dependencies of Belize and by Honduras as a part of her territory.

In vain did Webster, who succeeded Clayton, seek an agreement. His term of office passed, and the

controversy fell into the hands of Lord Palmerston, the jingoistic spirit who began at this time to dominate

British foreign policy, and of James Buchanan, who, known to us as a spineless seeker after peace where

there was no peace, was at this time riding into national leadership on a wave of expansionist enthusiasm.

Buchanan and Palmerston mutually shook the stage thunder of verbal extravagance, but probably neither

intended war. Poker was at this time the national American game, and bluff was a highly developed art. The

American player won a partial victory. In 1856 Great Britain agreed to withdraw her protectorate over the

Mosquitoes, to acknowledge the supremacy of Honduras over the Bay Islands, and to accept a reasonable

interpretation of the Belize boundary. Though this convention was never ratified, Great Britain carried out its

The dreams of 1850, however, were not satisfied. A railroad was completed across Panama in 1855, but no

canal was constructed until years after the great transcontinental railroads had bound California to the East by

bonds which required no foreign sanction. Yet the ClaytonBulwer Treaty remained an entangling alliance,

During the Civil War other causes of irritation arose between the United States and Great Britain. The

proclamation of neutrality, by which the British Government recognized the Confederacy as a belligerent,

seemed to the North an unfriendly act. Early in the war occurred the Trent affair, which added to the growing

resentment.* It was held to be a violation of professed neutrality that Confederate commerce destroyers were

permitted to be built and fitted out in British yards. The subsequent transfer of hundreds of thousands of tons

of American shipping to British registry, owing to the depredations of these raiders, still further incensed the

American people. It was in the midst of these strained relations that the Fenian Brotherhood in the United

* See Stephenson, "Abraham Lincoln and the Union," in "The Chronicles of America."

America laid claims against Great Britain, based not merely on the actual destruction of merchantmen by the

Alabama, the Florida, and other Confederate vessels built in British yards, but also on such indirect losses as

insurance, cost of pursuit, and commercial profits. The American Minister, Charles Francis Adams, had

proposed the arbitration of these claims, but the British Ministry, declined to arbitrate matters involving the

honor of the country. Adams's successor, Reverdy Johnson, succeeded in arranging a convention in 1868

excluding from consideration all claims for indirect damages, but this arrangement was unfavorably reported

from the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Senate. It was then that Charles Sumner, Chairman of the

Committee, gave utterance to his astounding demands upon Great Britain. The direct claims of the United

States, he contended, were no adequate compensation for its losses; the indirect claims must also be made

good, particularly those based on the loss of the American merchant marine by transfer to the British flag.

The direct or "individual" American losses amounted to $15,000,000. "But this leaves without recognition the

vaster damage to commerce driven from the ocean, and that other damage, immense and infinite, caused by

the prolongation of the war, all of which may be called NATIONAL in contradistinction to INDIVIDUAL."

Losses to commerce he reckoned at $110,000,000, adding that this amount must be considered only an item

in the bill, for the prolongation of the war was directly traceable to England. "The rebellion was suppressed at

a cost of more than four thousand million dollars...through British intervention the war was doubled in

duration; ...England is justly responsible for the additional expenditure." Sumner's total bill against Great

Britain, then, amounted to over $2,000,000,000; "everyone," said he, "can make the calculation."

Had an irresponsible member of Congress made these demands, they might have been dismissed as another

effort to twist the British lion's tail; but Charles Sumner took himself seriously, expected others to take him

seriously, and unhappily was taken seriously by a great number of his fellow countrymen. The explanation of

his preposterous demand appeared subsequently in a memorandum which he prepared. To avoid all possible

future clashes with Great Britain, he would have her withdraw from the American continents and the Western

Hemisphere. Great Britain might discharge her financial obligations by transferring to the United States the

whole of British America! And Sumner seems actually to have believed that he was promoting the cause of

For a time it was believed that Sumner spoke for the Administration, and public opinion in the United States

was disposed to look upon his speech as a fair statement of American grievances and a just demand for

compensation. The British Government, too, in view of the action of the Senate and the indiscreet utterances

of the new American Minister in London, John Lothrop Motley, believed that President Grant favored an

aggressive policy. Further negotiations were dropped. Both Governments, nevertheless, were desirous of

Fortunately it happened that Caleb Cushing for the United States and John Rose for Canada were then

engaged at Washington in the discussion of some matters affecting the two countries. In the course of

informal conversations these accomplished diplomats planned for a rapprochement. Rose presented a

memorandum suggesting that all questions in dispute be made the subject of a general negotiation and treaty.

It was at this moment that Sumner came forward with his plan of compensation and obviously he stood in the

way of any settlement. President Grant, however, already incensed by Motley's conduct and by Sumner's

opposition to his own favorite project, the annexation of Santo Domingo, now broke definitely with both by

removing Motley and securing Sumner's deposition from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign

On February 27, 1871, a Joint High Commission, composed of five distinguished representatives from each

Government, began its memorable session at Washington. The outcome was the Treaty of Washington,

signed on May 8, 1871. The most important questionthe "Alabama Claims"was by this agreement to be

submitted to a tribunal of five arbitrators, one to be selected by the President of the United States, another by

the Queen of Great Britain, a third by the King of Italy, a fourth by the President of the Swiss Republic, and a

fifth by the Emperor of Brazil. This tribunal was to meet at Geneva and was to base its award on three rules

for the conduct of neutral nations: "First, to use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, ...within its

jurisdiction, of any vessel which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to cruise...against a Power

with which it is at peace...; secondly, not to permit...either belligerent to make use of its ports or waters as a

base of naval operations...; thirdly, to exercise due diligence in its own ports and waters...to prevent any

Another but less elaborate tribunal was to decide all other claims which had arisen out of the Civil War. Still

another arbitration commission was to assess the amount which the United States was to pay by way of

compensation for certain privileges connected with the fisheries. The vexed question of the possession of the

San Juan Islands was to be left to the decision of the Emperor of Germany. A series of articles provided for

the amicable settlement of border questions between the United States and Canada. Never before in history

had such important controversies been submitted voluntarily to arbitration and judicial settlement.

The tribunal which met at Geneva in December was a body of distinguished men who proved fully equal to

the gravity of their task. Charles Francis Adams was appointed to represent the United States; Sir Alexander

Cockburn, to represent Great Britain; the commissioners from neutral States were also men of distinction. J.

C. Bancroft Davis was agent for the United States, and William M. Evarts, Caleb Cushing, and Morrison R.

Waite acted as counsel. The case for the United States was not presented in a manner worthy of the occasion.

According to Adams the American contentions "were advanced with an aggressiveness of tone and

attorneylike smartness, more appropriate to the wranglings of a quartersessions court than to pleadings

before a grave international tribunal." The American counsel were instructed to insist not, indeed, on

indemnity for the cost of two years of war, but on compensation because of the transfer of our commerce to

the British merchant marine, by virtue of the clause of the treaty which read "acts committed by the several

vessels which have given rise to the claims generally known as the 'Alabama Claims.'" British public opinion

considered this contention an act of bad faith. Excitement in England rose to a high pitch and the Gladstone

That the tribunal of arbitration did not end in utter failure was due to the wisdom and courage of Adams. At

his suggestion the five arbitrators announced on June 19, 1872, that they would not consider claims for

indirect damages, because such claims did "not constitute, upon the principles of international law applicable

to such cases, good foundation for an award of compensation, or computations of damages between nations."

These claims dismissed, the arbitrators entered into an examination of the direct American claims and on

September 14, 1872, decided upon an award of fifteen and a half million dollars to the United States. The

Treaty of Washington and the Geneva Tribunal constituted the longest step thus far taken by any two nations

The impulse for expansion upon which Buchanan floated his political raft into the presidency was not a party

affair. It was felt by men of all party creeds, and it seemed for a moment to be the dominant national ideal.

Slaveholders and other men who had special interests sought to make use of it, but the fundamental feeling

did not rest on their support. American democracy, now confident of its growing strength, believed that the

happiness of the people and the success of the institutions of the United States would prove a loadstone which

would bring under the flag all peoples of the New World, while those of the Old World would strike off their

shackles and remold their governments on the American pattern. Attraction, not compulsion, was the method

to be used, and none of the paeans of American prophets in the editorials or the fervid orations of the fifties

No one saw this bright vision more clearly than did William H. Seward, who became Secretary of State under

Lincoln. Slight of build, pleasant, and talkative, he gave an impression of intellectual distinction, based upon

fertility rather than consistency of mind. He was a disciple of John Quincy Adams, but his tireless energy had

in it too much of nervous unrest to allow him to stick to his books as did his master, and there was too wide a

gap between his beliefs and his practice. He held as idealistic views as any man of his generation, but he

believed so firmly that the right would win that he disliked hastening its victory at the expense of bad feeling.

He was shrewd, practical maliciously practical, many thought. When, in the heat of one of his perorations,

a flash of his hidden fires would arouse the distrust of the conservative, he would appear to retract and try to

smother the flames in a cloud of conciliatory smoke. Only the restraining hand of Lincoln prevented him

from committing fatal blunders at the outset of the Civil War, yet his handling of the threatening episode of

the French in Mexico showed a wisdom, a patient tact, and a subtle ingenuity which make his conduct of the

* See "Abraham Lincoln and the Union" and "The Hispanic Nations of the New World" (in "The Chronicles

In 1861 Seward said that he saw Russia and Great Britain building on the Arctic Ocean outposts on territory

which should belong to his own country, and that he expected the capital of the great federal republic of the

future would be in the valley of Mexico. Yet he nevertheless retained the sentiment he had expressed in 1846:

"I would not give one human life for all the continent that remains to be annexed." The Civil War prevented

for four years any action regarding expansion, and the same conspiracy which resulted in the assassination of

Lincoln brought Seward to the verge of the grave. He recovered rapidly, however, and while on a

recuperating trip through the West Indies he worked for the peaceable annexation of the Danish Islands and

Santo Domingo. His friend, Charles Sumner, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, was

framing his remarkable project for the annexation of Canada. President Johnson and, later, President Grant

endorsed parts of these plans. Denmark and Santo Domingo were willing to acquiesce for money, and

Sumner believed, although he was preposterously wrong, that the incorporation of Canada in our Union

To willing ears, therefore, came in 1867 the offer of the Russian Minister, Baron Stoeckl, to sell Alaska. The

proposal did not raise a question which had been entirely unthought of. Even before the Civil War, numbers

of people on the Pacific coast, far from being overawed by the responsibility of developing the immense

territories which they already possessed, had petitioned the Government to obtain Alaska, and even the

proper purchase price had been discussed. The reasons for Russia's decision to sell, however, have not been

sufficiently investigated. It is apparent from the conduct of the negotiation that it was not a casual proposal

but one in which Baron Stoeckl, at least, was deeply interested. It is to be remembered that at this time

Russia's ambitions were in Asia, and that her chief rival was Great Britain. Russia's power was on land; the

seas she could not hope to control. The first moment of war would put Russian rule in, Alaska at the mercy of

the British fleet. In those days when a Siberian railroad was an idle dream, this icebound region in America

was so remote from the center of Russian power that it could be neither enjoyed nor protected. As Napoleon

in 1803 preferred to see Louisiana in the hands of the United States rather than in those of his rival England,

so Russia preferred Alaska to fall to the United States rather than to Canada, especially as she could by

Seward was delighted with the opportunity, but diplomatically concealed his satisfaction and bargained

closely. Stoeckl asked ten million dollars; Seward offered five. Stoeckl proposed to split the difference;

Seward agreed, if Stoeckl would knock off the odd half million. Stoeckl accepted, on condition that Seward

add two hundred thousand as special compensation to the Russian American Company. It was midnight of

the 29th of March when $7,200,000 was made the price. Seward roused Sumner from bed, and the three

worked upon the form of a treaty until four o'clock in the morning. No captains of industry could show

The treaty, however, was not yet a fact. The Senate must approve, and its approval could not be taken for

granted. The temper of the majority of Americans toward expansion had changed. The experiences of the

later fifties had caused many to look upon expansion as a Southern heresy. Carl Schurz a little later argued

that we had already taken in all those regions the climate of which would allow healthy selfgovernment and

that we should annex no tropics. Hamilton Fish, then Secretary of State, wrote in 1873 that popular sentiment

was, for the time being, against all expansion. In fact, among the people of the United States the idea was

developing that expansion was contrary to their national policy, and their indisposition to expand became

almost a passion. They rejected Santo Domingo and the Danish Islands and would not press any negotiations

What saved the Alaska Treaty from a similar disapproval was not any conviction that Alaska was worth

seven million dollars, although Sumner convinced those who took the trouble to read, that the financial

bargain was not a bad one. The chief factor in the purchase of Alaska was almost pure sentiment. Throughout

American history there has been a powerful tradition of friendliness between Russia and the United States,

yet surely no two political systems have been in the past more diametrically opposed. The chief ground for

friendship has doubtless been the great intervening distance which has reduced intercourse to a minimum.

Some slight basis for congeniality existed in the fact that the interests of both countries favored a similar

policy of freedom upon the high seas. What chiefly influenced the public mind, however, was the attitude

which Russia had taken during the Civil War. When the Grand Duke Alexis visited the United States in 1871,

Bleak are our coasts with the blasts of December, Thrilling and warm are the hearts that remember Who was

This Russian friendship had presented itself dramatically to the public at a time when American relations

with Great Britain were strained, for Russian fleets had in 1863 suddenly appeared in the harbors of New

York and San Francisco. These visits were actually made with a sole regard for Russian interests and in

anticipation of the outbreak of a general European war, which the Czar then feared. The appearance of the

fleets, however, was for many years popularly supposed to signify sympathy with the Union and a

willingness to defend it from attack by Great Britain and France. Many conceived the ingenuous idea that the

purchase price of Alaska was really the American half of a secret bargain of which the fleets were the

Russian part. Public opinion, therefore, regarded the purchase of Alaska in the light of a favor to Russia and

Thus of all the schemes of expansion in the fifty years between the Mexican and the Spanish wars, for the

Gadsden Purchase of 1853 was really only a rectification of boundary, this alone came to fruition. Seward

could well congratulate himself on his alertness in seizing an opportunity and on his management of the

delicate political aspects of the purchase. Without his promptness the golden opportunity might have passed

and never recurred. Yet he could never have saved this fragment of his policy had not the American people

cherished for Russia a sentimental friendship which was intensified at the moment by anger at the supposed

If Russia hoped by ceding Alaska to involve the United States in difficulties with her rival Great Britain, her

desire was on one occasion nearly gratified. The only profit which the United States derived from this new

possession was for many years drawn from the seal fishery. The same generation of Americans which

allowed the extermination of the buffalo for lap robes found in the sealskin sack the hall mark of wealth and

fashion. While, however, the killing of the buffalo was allowed to go on without official check, the

Government in 1870 inaugurated a system to preserve the seal herds which was perhaps the earliest step in a

national conservation policy. The sole right of killing was given to the Alaska Commercial Company with

restrictions under which it was believed that the herds would remain undiminished. The catch was limited to

one hundred thousand a year; it was to include only male seals; and it was to be limited to the breeding

The seals, however, did not confine themselves to American territory. During the breeding season they

ranged far and wide within a hundred miles of their islands; and during a great part of the year they were to

be found far out in the Pacific. The value of their skins attracted the adventurous of many lands, but

particularly Canadians; and Vancouver became the greatest center for deepsea sealing. The Americans saw

the development of the industry with anger and alarm. Considering the seals as their own, they naturally

resented this unlimited exploitation by outsiders when Americans themselves were so strictly limited by law.

They also believed that the steady diminution of the herds was due to the reckless methods of their rivals,

particularly the use of explosives which destroyed many animals to secure a few perfect skins.

Public opinion on the Pacific coast sought a remedy and soon found one in the terms of the treaty of

purchase. That document, in dividing Alaska from Siberia, described a line of division running through

Bering Sea, and in 1881 the Acting Secretary of the Treasury propounded the theory that this line divided not

merely the islands but the water as well. There was a widespread feeling that all Bering Sea within this line

was American territory and that all intruders from other nations were poachers. In accordance with this

theory, the revenue cutter Corwin in 1886 seized three British vessels and hauled their skippers before the

United States District Court of Sitka. Thomas F. Bayard, then Secretary of State under President Cleveland,

did not recognize this theory of interpreting the treaty, but endeavored to right the grievance by a joint

agreement with France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and Great Britain, the sealing nations, "for the better

A solution had been almost reached, when Canada interposed. Lord Morley has remarked, in his

"Recollections," how the voice of Canada fetters Great Britain in her negotiations with the United States.

While Bayard was negotiating an agreement concerning Bering Sea which was on the whole to the advantage

of the United States, he completed a similar convention on the more complicated question of the northeastern

or Atlantic fisheries which was more important to Canada. This latter convention was unfavorably reported

by the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, which foreshadowed rejection. Thereupon, in May, 1888, Lord

Salisbury, the British Foreign Minister, withdrew from the Bering Sea negotiation.

At this critical moment Cleveland gave place to Harrison, and Bayard was succeeded by James G. Blaine, the

most interesting figure in our diplomatic activities of the eighties. These years marked the lowest point in the

whole history of our relations with other countries, both in the character of our agents and in the nature of the

public opinion to which they appealed. Blaine was undoubtedly the most illinformed of our great diplomats;

yet a trace of greatness lingers about him. The exact reverse of John Quincy Adams, he knew neither law nor

history, and he did not always inspire others with confidence in his integrity. On the other hand, the magnetic

charm of his personality won many to a devotion such as none of our great men except Clay has received.

Blaine saw, moreover, though through a glass darkly, farther along the path which the United States was to

take than did any of his contemporaries. It was his fate to deal chiefly in controversy with those accomplished

diplomats, Lord Salisbury and Lord Granville, and it must have been among the relaxations of their office to

point out tactfully the defects and errors in his dispatches. Nevertheless when he did not misread history or

misquote precedents but wielded the broadsword of equity, he often caught the public conscience, and then

Blaine at once undertook the defense of the contention that Bering Sea was "closed" and the exclusive

property of the United States, in spite of the fact that this position was opposed to the whole trend of

American opinion, which from the days of the Revolution had always stood for freedom of the high seas and

the limitation of the water rights of particular nations to the narrowest limits. The United States and Great

Britain had jointly protested against the Czar's ukase of 1821, which had asserted Russia's claim to Bering

Sea as territorial waters; and if Russia had not possessed it in 1821, we certainly could not have bought it in

1867. In the face of Canadian opinion, Great Britain could never consent, even for the sake of peace, to a

position as unsound as it was disadvantageous to Canadian industry. Nor did Blaine's contention that the seals

were domestic animals belonging to us, and therefore subject to our protection while wandering through the

ocean, carry conviction to lawyers familiar with the fascinating intricacies of the law, domestic and

international, relating to migratory birds and beasts. To the present generation it seems amusing that Blaine

defended his basic contention quite as much on the ground of the inhumanity of destroying the seals as of its

economic wastefulness. Yet Blaine rallied Congress to his support, as well as a great part of American

The situation, which had now become acute, was aggravated by the fact that most American public men of

this period did not separate their foreign and domestic politics. Too many sought to secure the important Irish

vote by twisting the tail of the British lion. The Republicans, in particular, sought to identify protection with

patriotism and were making much of the fact that the recall of Lord SackvilleWest, the British Minister, had

been forced because he had advised a correspondent to vote for Cleveland. It spoke volumes for the

fundamental good sense of the two nations that, when relations were so strained, they could agree to submit

their differences to arbitration. For this happy outcome credit must be given to the cooler heads on both sides,

but equal credit must be given to their legacy from the cool heads which had preceded them. The United

States and Great Britain had acquired the habit of submitting to judicial decision their disputes, even those

In accepting arbitration in 1892, the United States practically gave up her case, although Blaine undoubtedly

believed it could be defended, and in spite of the fact that it was ably presented by John W. Foster from a

brief prepared by the American counsel, Edward J. Phelps, Frederic R. Coudert, and James C. Carter. The

tribunal assembled at Paris decided that Bering Sea was open and determined certain facts upon which a

subsequent commission assessed damages of nearly half a million against the United States for the seizure of

British vessels during the period in which the American claim was being asserted. Blaine, however, did not

lose everything. The treaty contained the extraordinary provision that the arbitration tribunal, in case it

decided against the United States, was to draw up regulations for the protection of the seal herds. These

regulations when drafted did not prove entirely satisfactory, and bound only the United States and Great

Britain. It required many years and much tinkering to bring about the reasonably satisfactory arrangement

that is now in force. Yet to leave to an international tribunal not merely the decision of a disputed case but the

legislation necessary to regulate an international property was in itself a great step in the development of

world polity. The charlatan who almost brought on war by maintaining an indefensible case was also the

statesman who made perhaps the greatest single advance in the conservation of the world's resources by

During the half century that intervened between John Quincy Adams and James G. Blaine, the Monroe

Doctrine, it was commonly believed, had prevented the expansion of the territories of European powers in the

Americas. It had also relieved the United States both of the necessity of continual preparation for war and of

that constant tension in which the perpetual shifting of the European balance of power held the nations of that

continent. But the Monroe Doctrine was not solely responsible for these results. Had it not been for the

British Navy, the United States would in vain have proclaimed its disapproval of encroachment. Nor, had

Europe continued united, could the United States have withstood European influence; but Canning's policy

had practically destroyed Metternich's dream of unity maintained by intervention, and in 1848 that whole

structure went hopelessly tumbling before a new order. Yet British policy, too, failed of full realization, for

British statesmen always dreamed of an even balance in continental Europe which Great Britain could incline

to her wishes, whereas it usually proved necessary, in order to preserve a balance at all, for her to join one

side or the other. Divided Europe therefore stood opposite united America, and our inferior strength was

The insecurity of the American position was revealed during the Civil War. When the United States divided

within, the strength of the nation vanished. The hitherto suppressed desires of European nations at once

manifested themselves. Spain, never satisfied that her American empire was really lost, at once leaped to take

advantage of the change. On a trumped up invitation of some of the inhabitants of Santo Domingo, she

invaded the formerly Spanish portion of the island and she began war with Peru in the hope of acquiring at

More formidable were the plans of Napoleon III, for the French, too, remembered the glowing promise of

their earlier American dominions. They had not forgotten that the inhabitants of the Americas as far north as

the southern borders of the United States were of Latin blood, at least so far as they were of European origin.

In Montevideo there was a French colony, and during the forties France had been active in proffering her

advice in South American disputes. When the second French Republic had been proclaimed in 1848, one of

the French ministers in South America saw a golden chance for his country to assume the leadership of all

Latin America, which was at that time suspicious of the designs of the United States and alarmed by its rapid

expansion at the expense of Mexico. With the power of the American Government neutralized in 1861, and

with the British Navy immobilized by the necessity of French friendship, which the "Balance" made just then

of paramount interest to Great Britain, Napoleon III determined to establish in Mexico an empire under

It is instructive to notice that General Bernhardi states, in "Germany and the Next War" which has attracted

such wide attention and which has done so much to convince Americans of the bad morals of autocracy, that

Great Britain lost her great chance of world dominance by not taking active advantage of this situation, as did

France and Spain. It is indeed difficult to see what would have been the outcome had Great Britain also

played at that time an aggressive and selfish part. She stayed her hand, but many British statesmen were

keenly interested in the struggle, from the point of view of British interests. They did not desire territory, but

they foresaw that the permanent separation of the two parts of the United States would leave the country

shorn of weight in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. North and South, if separated, would each

inevitably seek European support, and the isolation of the United States and its claim to priority in American

affairs would disappear. The balance of power would extend itself to the Western Hemisphere and the

assumption of a sphere of influence would vanish with the unity of the United States.

Nor did the close of the Civil War reveal less clearly than its beginning the real international position of the

United States. When the country once more acquired unity, these European encroachments were renounced,

and dreams of colonial empire in America vanished. There was a moment's questioning as to the reality of the

triumph of the Northa doubt that the South might rise if foreign war broke out; but the uncertainty was

soon dispelled. It was somewhat embarrassing, if not humiliating, for the Emperor of the French to withdraw

from his Mexican undertaking, but the way was smoothed for him by the finesse of Seward. By 1866 the

international position of the United States was reestablished and was perhaps the stronger for having been

In all these years, however, the positive side of the Monroe Doctrine, the development of friendly cooperation

between the nations of America under the leadership of the United States, had made no progress. In fact, with

the virtual disappearance of the American merchant marine after the Civil War, the influence of the United

States diminished. Great Britain with her ships, her trade, and her capital, at that time actually counted for

much more, while German trade expanded rapidly in the seventies and eighties and German immigration into

Brazil gave Prussia a lever hold, the ultimate significance of which is not even yet fully evident.

Under these circumstances, Blaine planned to play a brilliant role as Secretary of State in President Garfield's

Cabinet. Though the President was his personal friend, Blaine regarded him as his inferior in practical

statecraft and planned to make his own foreign policy the notable feature of the Administration. His hopes

were dashed, however, by the assassination of Garfield and by the accession of President Arthur. The new

Secretary of State, F T. Frelinghuysen, reversed nearly all of his predecessor's policies. When Blaine returned

to the Department of State in 1889, he found a less sympathetic chief in President Harrison and a less brilliant

role to play. Whether his final retirement before the close of the Harrison Administration was due directly to

the conflict of views which certainly existed or was a play on his part for the presidency and for complete

Narrow as was Blaine's view of world affairs, impossible as was his conception of an America divided from

Europe economically and spiritually as well as politically and of an America united in itself by a provoked

and constantly irritated hostility to Europe, he had an American program which, taken by itself, was definite,

well conceived, and in a sense prophetic. It is interesting to note that in referring to much the same

relationship, Blaine characteristically spoke of the United States as "Elder Sister" of the South American

republics, while Theodore Roosevelt, at a later period, conceived the role to be that of a policeman wielding

Blaine's first aim was to establish peace in the Western Hemisphere by offering American mediation in the

disputes of sister countries. When he first took office in 1881, the prolonged and bitter war existing between

Chili, Bolivia, and Peru for the control of the nitrate fields which lay just where the territories of the three

abutted, provided a convenient opportunity. If he could restore peace on an equitable basis here, he would do

much to establish the prestige of the United States as a wise and disinterested counselor in Spanish American

affairs. In this his first diplomatic undertaking, there appeared, however, one of the weaknesses of execution

which constantly interfered with the success of his plans. He did not know how to sacrifice politics to

statesmanship, and he appointed as his agents men so incompetent that they aggravated rather than settled the

difficulty. Later he saw his mistake and made a new and admirable appointment in the case of Mr. William

H. Trescot of South Carolina. Blaine himself, however, lost office before new results could be obtained; and

A second object of Blaine's policy was to prevent disputes between Latin American and European powers

from becoming dangerous by acting as mediator between them. When he took office, France was

endeavoring to collect from Venezuela a claim which was probably just. When Venezuela proved obdurate,

France proposed to seize her custom houses and to collect the duties until the debt was paid. Blaine protested,

urged Venezuela to pay, and suggested that the money be sent through the American agent at Caracas. He

further proposed that, should Venezuela not pay within three months, the United States should seize the

custom houses, collect the money, and pay it to France. Again his short term prevented him from carrying out

his policy, but it is nevertheless of interest as anticipating the plan actually followed by President Roosevelt

Blaine was just as much opposed to the peaceful penetration of European influence in the Western

Hemisphere as to its forceful expression. The project of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, to be built and

owned by a French company, had already aroused President Hayes on March 8, 1880, to remark: "The policy

of this country is a canal under American control. The United States cannot consent to the surrender of this

control to any European power or to any combination of European powers." Blaine added that the passage of

hostile troops through such a canal when either the United States or Colombia was at war, as the terms of

guarantee of the new canal allowed, was "no more admissible than on the railroad lines joining the Atlantic

It is characteristic of Blaine that, when he wrote this dispatch, he was apparently in complete ignorance of the

existence of the ClaytonBulwer Treaty, in which the United States accepted the exactly opposite

principleshad agreed to a canal under a joint international guarantee and open to the use of all in time of

war as well as of peace. Discovering this obstacle, he set to work to demolish it by announcing to Great

Britain that the treaty was antiquated, thirty years old, that the development of the American Pacific slope had

changed conditions, and that, should the treaty be observed and such a canal remain unfortified, the

superiority of the British fleet would give the nation complete control. Great Britain, however, could scarcely

be expected to regard a treaty as defunct from old age at thirty years, especially as she also possessed a

developing Pacific coast. Moreover, if the treaty was to British advantage, at least the United States had

accepted it. Great Britain, therefore, refused to admit that the treaty was not in full force. Blaine then urged

the building of an American canal across the Isthmus of Nicaragua, in defiance of the ClaytonBulwer

Treatya plan which received the support of even President Arthur, under whom a treaty for the purpose

was negotiated with the Republic of Nicaragua. Before this treaty was ratified by the Senate, however,

Grover Cleveland, who had just become President, withdrew it. He believed in the older policy, and refused

his sanction to the new treaty on the ground that such a canal "must be for the world's benefit, a trust for

The crowning glory of Blaine's system, as he planned it, was the cooperation of the American republics for

common purposes. He did not share Seward's dream that they would become incorporated States of the

Union, but he went back to Henry Clay and the Panama Congress of 1826 for his ideal. During his first term

of office he invited the republics to send representatives to Washington to discuss arbitration, but his

successor in office feared that such a meeting of "a partial group of our friends" might offend Europe, which

indeed was not improbably part of Blaine's intention. On resuming office, Blaine finally arranged the meeting

of a PanAmerican Congress in the United States. Chosen to preside, he presented an elaborate program,

including a plan for arbitrating disputes; commercial reciprocity; the establishment of uniform weights and

measures, of international copyright, trademarks and patents, and, of common coinage; improvement of

communications; and other subjects. At the same time he exerted himself to secure in the McKinley Tariff

Bill, which was just then under consideration, a provision for reciprocity of trade with American countries.

This meeting was not a complete success, since Congress gave him only half of what he wanted by providing

for reciprocity but making it general instead of purely American. Nevertheless one permanent and solid result

was secured in the establishment of the Bureau of American Republics at Washington, which has become a

clearing house of ideas and a visible bond of common interests and good feeling.

Throughout the years of Blaine's prominence, the public took more interest in his bellicose encounters with

Europe, and particularly with Great Britain, than in his constructive American policy; and he failed to secure

for either an assured popular support. His attempt to widen the gulf between Europe and America was indeed

absurd at a time when the cable, the railroad, and the steamship were rendering the world daily smaller and

more closely knit, and when the spirit of democracy, rapidly permeating western Europe, was breaking down

the distinction in political institutions which had given point to the pronouncement of 1823. Nevertheless

Blaine did actually feel the changing industrial conditions at home which were destroying American

separateness, and he made a genuine attempt to find a place for the United States in the world, without the

necessity of sharing the responsibilities of all the world, by making real that interest in its immediate

neighbors which his country had announced in 1823. Even while Blaine was working on his plan of "America

for the Americans," events were shaping the most important extension of the interests of the United States

Long before the westward march of Americans had brought their flag to the Pacific, that ocean was familiar

to their mariners. >From Cape Horn to Canton and the ports of India, there ploughed the stately merchantmen

of Salem, Providence, and Newburyport, exchanging furs and ginseng for teas, silks, the "Canton blue" which

is today so cherished a link with the past, and for the lacquer cabinets and carved ivory which give distinction

to many a New England home. Meanwhile the sturdy whalers of New Bedford scoured the whole ocean for

sperm oil and whalebone, and the incidents of their selfreliant threeyear cruises acquainted them with

nearly every coral and volcanic isle. Early in the century missionaries also began to brave the languor of these

The interest of the Government was bound to follow its adventurous citizens. In 1820 the United States

appointed a consular agent at Honolulu; in the thirties and forties it entered into treaty relations with Siam,

Borneo, and China; and owing to circumstances which were by no means accidental it had the honor of

persuading Japan to open her ports to the world. As early as 1797 an American vessel chartered by the Dutch

had visited Nagasaki. From time to time American sailors had been shipwrecked on the shores of Japan, and

the United States had more than once picked up and sought to return Japanese castaways. In 1846 an official

expedition under Commodore Biddle was sent to establish relationships with Japan but was unsuccessful. In

1853 Commodore Perry bore a message from the President to the Mikado which demandedthough the

demand was couched in courteous language"friendship, commerce, a supply of coal and provisions, and

protection for our shipwrecked people." After a long hesitation the Mikado yielded. Commodore Perry's

success was due not solely to the care with which his expedition was equipped for its purpose nor to his

diplomatic skill but in part to the fact that other countries were known to be on the very point of forcing an

entrance into the seclusion of Japan. Few Americans realize how close, indeed, were the relations established

with Japan by the United States. The treaty which Townsend Harris negotiated in 1858 stated that "The

President of the United States, at the request of the Japanese Government, will act as a friendly mediator in

such matters of difference as may arise between the Government of Japan and any European power."

Through his personal efforts Harris may almost be said to have become the chief adviser of the Japanese

Government in the perplexities which it encountered on entering international society.

Not only did the United States allow itself a closer intimacy with this new Pacific power than it would have

done with a state of Europe, but it exhibited a greater freedom in dealing with the European powers

themselves in the Far East than at home or in America. In 1863 the United States joinedin fact, in the

absence of a naval force it strained a point by chartering a vessel for the purposewith a concert of powers

to force the opening of the Shimonoseki Straits; subsequently acting with Great Britain, France, and the

Netherlands, the United States secured an indemnity to pay the cost of the expedition; and in 1866 it united

with the same powers to secure a convention by which Japan bound herself to establish certain tariff

Nor were the relations of the United States with the Pacific Ocean and its shores confined to trade and

international obligations. The American flag waved over more than ships and a portion of the Pacific coast.

Naval officers more than once raised it over islands which they christened, and Congress authorized the

President to exercise temporary authority over islands from which American citizens were removing guano

and to prevent foreign encroachment while they were so engaged. In the eighties, fifty such islands of the

In 1872 an American naval officer made an agreement with the local chieftain of Tutuila, one of the Samoan

Islands, for the use of Pago Pago, which was the best harbor in that part of the ocean. The United States

drifted into more intimate relationship with the natives until in 1878 it made a treaty with the Samoan king

allowing Americans to use Pago Pago as a coaling station. In return the United States agreed: "If unhappily,

any differences should have arisen, or shall hereafter arise, between the Samoan government and any other

government in amity with the United States, the government of the latter will employ its good offices for the

purpose of adjusting those differences upon a satisfactory and solid foundation." In 1884 the Senate insisted

on securing a similar harbor concession from Hawaii, and within the next few years the American Navy

began to arise again from its ashes. The obligation incurred in exchange for this concession, however,

although it resembled that in the Japanese treaty, was probably an unreflecting act of good nature for, if it

meant anything, it was an entangling engagement such as the vast majority of Americans were still

The natives of Samoa did not indulge in cannibalism but devoted the small energy the climate gave them to

the social graces and to pleasant wars. They were governed by local kings and were loosely united under a

chief king. At Apia, the capital, were three hundred foreigners, nearly all connected in one way or another

with trade. This commerce had long been in the hands of English and Americans, but now the aggressive

Germans were rapidly winning it away. Three consuls, representing the United States, Great Britain, and

Germany, spent their time in exaggerating their functions and in circumventing the plots of which they

suspected each other. The stage was set for comic opera, the treaty with the United States was part of the plot,

and several acts had already been played, when Bismarck suddenly injected a tragic element.

In 1884, at the time when the German statesman began to see the vision of a Teutonic world empire and went

about seeking places in the sun, the German consul in Samoa, by agreement with King Malietoa, raised the

German flag over the royal hut, with a significance which was all too obvious. In 1886 the American consul

countered this move by proclaiming a United States protectorate. The German consul then first pressed home

a quarrel with the native king at a time opportunely coinciding with the arrival of a German warship, the

Adler; he subsequently deposed him and put up Tamasese in his stead. The apparently more legitimate

successor, Mataafa, roused most of the population under his leadership. The Adler steamed about the islands

shelling Mataafa villages, and the American consul steamed after him, putting his launch between the Adler

and the shore. In the course of these events, on December 18, 1888, Mataafa ambushed a German landing

German public opinion thereupon vociferously demanded a punishment which would establish the place of

Germany as a colonial power in the Pacific. Great Britain, however, was not disposed to give her growing

rival a free hand. The United States was appealed to under the Treaty of 1878, and American sentiment

determined to protect the Samoans in their heroic fight for selfgovernment. All three nations involved sent

warships to Apia, and through the early spring of 1889 their chancelleries and the press were prepared to hear

momentarily that some one's temper had given way in the tropic heat and that blood had been shedwith

Very different, however, was the news that finally limped in, for there was no cable. On March 16, 1889, a

hurricane had swept the islands, wrecking all but one of the warships. The common distress had brought

about cooperation among all parties. Tales of mutual help and mutual praise of natives and the three nations

filled the dispatches. The play turned out to be a comedy after all. Yet difficulties remained which could be

met only by joint action. A commission of the three nations therefore was arranged to meet in Berlin. The

United States insisted on native government; Germany, on foreign control. Finally they agreed to a

compromise in the form of a General Act, to which Samoa consented. The native government was retained,

but the control was given to a Chief Justice and a President of the Municipal Council of Apia, who were to be

foreigners chosen by the three powers. Their relative authority is indicated by the fact that the king was to

Small as was the immediate stake, this little episode was remarkably significant of the trend of American

development. Begun under Grant and concluded under Blaine and Harrison, the policy of the United States

was the creation of no one mind or party nor did it accord with American traditions. Encountering European

powers in the Pacific, with no apparent hesitation though without any general intent, the United States

entered into cooperative agreements with them relating to the native governments which it would never have

thought proper or possible in other parts of the world. The United States seemed to be evolving a new policy

for the protection of its interests in the Pacific. This first clash with the rising colonial power of Germany has

an added interest because it revealed a fundamental similarity in colonial policy between the United States

and Great Britain, even though they were prone to quarrel when adjusting AngloAmerican relations.

While the Samoan affair seemed an accidental happening, there was taking shape in the Pacific another

episode which had a longer history and was more significant of the expansion of American interests in that

ocean. Indeed, with the Pacific coast line of the United States, with the superb harbors of San Francisco,

Portland, and Puget Sound, and with Alaska stretching its finger tips almost to Asia, even Blaine could not

resist the lure of the East, though he endeavored to reconcile American traditions of isolation with oceanic

expansion. Of all the Pacific archipelagoes, the Hawaiian Islands lie nearest to the shores of the United

States. Although they had been discovered to the European world by the great English explorer, Captain

Cook, their intercourse had, for geographic reasons, always been chiefly with the United States. Whalers

continually resorted to them for supplies. Their natives shipped on American vessels and came in numbers to

California in early goldmining days. American missionaries attained their most striking success in the

Hawaiian Islands and not only converted the majority of the natives but assisted the successive kings in their

government. The descendants of these missionaries continued to live on the islands and became the nucleus

of a white population which waxed rich and powerful by the abundant production of sugar cane on that

In view of this tangible evidence of intimacy on the part of the United States with the Hawaiian Islands,

Webster in 1842 brought them within the scope of the Monroe Doctrine by declaring that European powers

must not interfere with their government. Marcy, Secretary of State, framed a treaty of annexation in 1853,

but the Hawaiian Government withdrew its assent. Twenty years later Secretary Fish wrote: "There seems to

be a strong desire on the part of many persons in the islands, representing large interests and great wealth, to

become annexed to the United States and while there are, as I have already said, many and influential persons

in the country who question the policy of any insular acquisition, perhaps even any extension of territorial

limits, there are also those of influence and wise foresight who see a future that must extend the jurisdiction

and the limits of this nation, and that will require a resting spot in the midocean, between the Pacific coast

and the vast domains of Asia, which are now opening to commerce, and Christian civilization."

All immediate action, however, was confined to a specially intimate treaty of reciprocity which was signed in

1875, and which secured a substantial American domination in commerce. When Blaine became Secretary of

State in 1881, he was, or at least he affected to be, seriously alarmed at the possibility of foreign influence in

Hawaiian affairs, particularly on the part of Great Britain. The native population was declining, and should it

continue to diminish, he believed that the United States must annex the islands. "Throughout the continent,

north and south," he wrote, "wherever a foothold is found for American enterprise, it is quickly occupied, and

the spirit of adventure, which seeks its outlet, in the mines of South America and the railroads of Mexico,

would not be slow to avail itself of openings of assured and profitable enterprise even in midocean." As the

feeling grew in the United States that these islands really belonged to the American continent, Blaine even

invited Hawaii to send representatives to the PanAmerican Congress of 1889. When he again became

Secretary of State, he was prepared to give indirect support at least to American interests, for the new queen,

Liliuokalani, was supposed to be under British influence. On the arrival of a British gunboat in Honolulu, J.

L. Stevens, the American Minister, went so far as to write on February 8, 1892: "At this time there seems to

be no immediate prospect of its being safe to have the harbor of Honolulu left without an American vessel of

Revolution was, indeed, impending in Hawaii. On January 14, 1893, the Queen abolished the later

constitution under which the Americans had exercised great power, and in its place she proclaimed the

restoration of the old constitution which established an absolutism modified by native home rule. At two

o'clock on the afternoon of the 16th of January, the resident Americans organized a committee of safety; at

halfpast four United States marines landed at the call of Stevens. The Queen was thereupon deposed, a

provisional government was organized, and at its request Stevens assumed for the United States the

"protection" of the islands. Without delay, John W. Foster, who had just succeeded Blaine as Secretary of

State, drew up a treaty of annexation, which he immediately submitted to the Senate.

On March 4, 1893, Cleveland became President for the second time. He at once withdrew the treaty and

appointed James H. Blount special commissioner to investigate the facts of the revolt. While the report of

Commissioner Blount did not, indeed, convict Stevens of conspiring to bring about the uprising, it left the

impression that the revolt would not have taken place and certainly could not have succeeded except for the

presence of the United States marines and the support of the United States Minister. Cleveland recalled

Stevens and the marines, and requested the provisional government to restore the Queen. This Sanford

Ballard Dole, the President of the new republic, refused to do, on the contention that President Cleveland had

no right to interfere in the domestic affairs of Hawaii. On the legality or propriety of Stevens's conduct,

opinion in Congress was divided; but with regard to Dole's contention, both the Senate and the House were

agreed that the islands should maintain their own domestic government without interference from the United

States. Thus left to themselves, the Americans in Hawaii bided their time until public opinion in the United

Probably no President ever received so much personal abuse in his own day as did Grover Cleveland. In time,

however, his sterling integrity and fundamental courage, his firm grasp of the higher administrative duties of

his office, won the approval of his countrymen, and a repentant public sentiment has possibly gone too far in

the other direction of acclaiming his statesmanship. Unlike Blaine, Cleveland thought soundly and

consistently; but he was more obstinate, his vision was often narrower, and he was notably lacking both in

constructive power and in tact, particularly in foreign relations. In his first Administration, through his

Secretary of State, Thomas F. Bayard, Cleveland had negotiated fairly amicably with Great Britain, and when

he failed to secure the Senate's assent to a treaty on the irritating question of the northeastern fisheries, he

arranged a modus vivendi which served for many years. In American affairs he opposed not only the

annexation of Hawaii but also the development of the spirit of PanAmericanism. He was, however, no more

disposed than was Blaine to permit infractions of that negative side of the Monroe Doctrine which forbade

European interference in America. His second Administration brought to the forefront of world diplomacy an

The only European possession in South America at this time was Guiana, fronting on the Atlantic north of

Brazil and divided among France, Holland, and Great Britain. Beyond British Guiana, the westernmost

division, lay Venezuela. Between the two stretched a vast tract of unoccupied tropical jungle. Somewhere

there must have been a boundary, but where, no man could tell. The extreme claim of Great Britain would

have given her command of the mouth of the Orinoco, while that of Venezuela would practically have

eliminated British Guiana. Efforts to settle this longstanding dispute were unavailing. Venezuela had from

time to time suggested arbitration but wished to throw the whole area into court. Great Britain insisted upon

reserving a minimum territory and would submit to judicial decision only the land west of what was known

as the Schomburgk line of 1840. As early as 1876 Venezuela appealed to the United States, "the most

powerful and oldest of the Republics of the new continent," for its "powerful moral support in disputes with

European nations." Several times the United States proffered its good offices to Great Britain, but to no

effect. The satisfactory settlement of the question grew more difficult as time went on, particularly after the

President Cleveland took a serious view of this controversy because it seemed to involve more than a

boundary dispute. To his mind it called into question the portion of Monroe's message which, in 1823, stated

that "the American continents...are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any

European powers." According to this dictum, boundaries existed between all nations and colonies of

America; the problem was merely to find these boundaries. If a European power refused to submit such a

question to judicial decision, the inference must be made that it was seeking to extend its boundaries. In

December, 1894, Cleveland expressed to Congress his hope that an arbitration would be arranged and

instructed his Secretary of State to present vigorously to Great Britain the view of the United States.

Richard Olney of Boston, a lawyer of exceptional ability and of the highest professional standing, was then

Secretary of State. His Venezuela dispatch, however, was one of the most undiplomatic documents ever

issued by the Department of State. He did not confine himself to a statement of his case, wherein any amount

of vigor would have been permissible, but ran his unpracticed eye unnecessarily over the whole field of

American diplomacy. "That distance and three thousand miles of intervening ocean make any permanent

political union between a European and an American state unnatural and inexpedient," may have been a

philosophic axiom to many in Great Britain as well as in the United States, but it surely did not need

reiteration in this state paper, and Olney at once exposed himself to contradiction by adding the phrase, "will

hardly be denied." Entirely ignoring the sensitive pride of the Spanish Americans and thinking only of

Europe, he continued: "Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law

The President himself did not run into any such uncalledfor extravagance of expression, but his statement of

the American position did not thereby lose in vigor. When he had received the reply, of the British

Government refusing to recognize the interest of the United States in the case, Cleveland addressed himself,

on December 17, 1895, to Congress. In stating the position of the Government of the United States, he

declared that to determine the true boundary line was its right, duty, and interest. He recommended that the

Government itself appoint a commission for this purpose, and he asserted that this line, when found, must be

maintained as the lawful boundary. Should Great Britain continue to exercise jurisdiction beyond it, the

United States must resist by every means in its power. "In making these recommendations I am fully alive to

the responsibility incurred, and keenly realize all the consequences that may follow." Yet "there is no

calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and

injustice and the consequent loss of national selfrespect and honor beneath which axe shielded and defended

Perhaps no American document relating to diplomacy ever before made so great a stir in the world. Its

unexpectedness enhanced its effect, even in the United States, for the public had not been sufficiently aware

of the shaping of this international episode to be psychologically prepared for the imminence of war. Unlike

most AngloAmerican diplomacy, this had been a longrange negotiation, with notes exchanged between the

home offices instead of personal conferences. People blenched at the thought of war; stocks fell; the attention

of the whole world was arrested. The innumerable and intimate bonds of friendship and interest which would

thus have to be broken merely because of an insignificant jog in a boundary remote from both the nations

made war between the United States and Great Britain seem absolutely inconceivable, until people realized

that neither country could yield without an admission of defeat both galling to national pride and involving

Great Britain in particular stood amazed at Cleveland's position. The general opinion was that peace must be

maintained and that diplomats must find a formula which would save both peace and appearances. Yet before

this public opinion could be diplomatically formulated, a new episode shook the British sense of security.

Germany again appeared as a menace and, as in the case of Samoa, the international situation thus produced

tended to develop a realization of the kinship between Great Britain and the United States. Early in January,

1896, the Jameson raid into the Transvaal was defeated, and the Kaiser immediately telegraphed his

congratulations to President Krtiger. In view of the possibilities involved in this South African situation,

British public opinion demanded that her diplomats maintain peace with the United States, with or without

The British Government, however, was not inclined to act with undue haste. It became apparent even to the

most panicky that war with the United States could not come immediately, for the American Commission of

Inquiry must first report. For a time Lord Salisbury hoped that Congress would not support the Presidenta

contingency which not infrequently happened under Cleveland's Administration. On this question of foreign

relations, however, Congress stood squarely behind the President. Lord Salisbury then toyed with the hope

that the matter might be delayed until Cleveland's term expired, in the hope he might have an opportunity of

In the summer of 1896, John Hay, an intimate friend of Major McKinley, the probable Republican candidate

for the presidency, was in England, where he was a wellknown figure. There he met privately Arthur J.

Balfour, representing Lord Salisbury, and Sir William Harcourt, the leader of the Opposition. Hay convinced

them that a change in the Administration of his country would involve no retreat from the existing American

position. The British Government thereupon determined to yield but attempted to cover its retreat by merging

the question with one of general arbitration. This proposal, however, was rejected, and Lord Salisbury then

agreed to "an equitable settlement" of the Venezuela question by empowering the British Ambassador at

Washington to begin negotiations "either with the representative of Venezuela or with the Government of the

The achievement of the Administration consisted in forcing Great Britain to recognize the interest of the

United States in the dispute with Venezuela, on the ground that Venezuela was one of the nations of the

Western Hemisphere. This concession practically involved recognition of the interest of the United States in

case of future disputes with other American powers. The arbitration treaty thus arranged between Great

Britain and Venezuela under the auspices of the United States submitted the whole disputed area to judicial

decision but adopted the rule that fifty years of occupation should give a sufficient title for possession. The

arbitration tribunal, which met in Paris in 1899, decided on a division of the disputed territory but found that

the claim of Great Britain was, on the whole, more nearly correct than that of Venezuela.

Cleveland's startling and unconventional method of dealing with this controversy has been explained by all

kinds of conjectures. For example, it has been charged that his message was the product of a fishing trip on

which whisky flowed too freely; on the other hand, it has been asserted that the message was an astute

political play for the thunder of patriotic applause. More seriously, Cleveland has been charged by one set of

critics with bluffing, and by another with recklessly running the risk of war on a trivial provocation. The

charge of bluffing comes nearer the fact, for President Cleveland probably had never a moment's doubt that

the forces making for peace between the two nations would be victorious. If he may be said to have thrown a

bomb, he certainly had attached a safety valve to it, for the investigation which he proposed could not but

give time for the passions produced by his message to cool. It is interesting to note in passing that delay for

investigation was a device which that other great Democrat, William Jennings Bryan, Cleveland's greatest

political enemy, sought, during his short term as Secretary of State under President Wilson, to make universal

in a series of arbitration treatiestreaties which now bind the United States and many other countries, how

While, however, Cleveland's action was based rather on a belief in peace than on an expectation of war, it

cannot be dismissed as merely a bluff. Not only was he convinced that the principle involved was worth

establishing whatever the cost might be, but he was certain that the method he employed was the only one

which could succeed, for in no other way was it possible to wake England to a realization of the fact that the

United States was fullgrown and imbued with a new consciousness of its strength. So far was Cleveland's

message from provoking war that it caused the people of Great Britain vitally to realize for the first time the

importance of friendship with the United States. It marks a change in their attitude toward things American

which found expression not only in diplomacy, but in various other ways, and which strikingly revealed itself

in the international politics of the next few years. Not that hostility was converted into affection, but a former

condescension gave way to an appreciative friendliness towards the people of the United States.

The reaction in America was somewhat different. Cleveland had united the country upon a matter of foreign

policy, not completely, it is true, but to a greater degree than Blaine had ever succeeded in doing. More

important than this unity of feeling throughout the land, however, was the development of a spirit of inquiry

among the people. Suddenly confronted by changes of policy that might bring wealth or poverty, life or

death, the American people began to take the foreign relations of the United States more seriously than they

had since the days of the Napoleonic wars. Yet it is not surprising that when the Venezuela difficulty had

been settled and Secretary Olney and Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British Ambassador, had concluded a general

treaty of arbitration, the Senate should have rejected it, for the lesson that caution was necessary in

international affairs had been driven home. Time was needed for the new generation to formulate its foreign

Before the nineteenth century ended, the Samoan, Hawaiian, and Venezuelan episodes had done much to

quicken a national consciousness in the people of the United States and at the same time to break down their

sense of isolation from the rest of the world. Commerce and trade were also important factors in overcoming

this traditional isolation. Not only was American trade growing, but it was changing in character. Argentina

was beginning to compete with the United States in exporting wheat and meat, while American

manufacturers were reaching the point where they were anxious for foreign markets in which they felt they

In a thousand ways and without any loss of vigor the sense of American nationality was expressing itself. The

study of American history was introduced into the lower schools, and a new group of historians began

scientifically to investigate whence the American people had come and what they really were. In England,

such popular movements find instant expression in literature; in the United States they take the form of

societies. Innumerable patriotic organizations such as the "Daughters of the American Revolution" and a host

of others, sought to trace out American genealogy and to perpetuate the memory of American military and

naval achievements. Respect for the American flag was taught in schools, and the question was debated as to

whether its use in comic opera indicated respect or insult. This new nationalism was unlike the expansionist

movement of the fifties in that it laid no particular stress upon the incorporation of the neighboring republics

by a process of federation. On the whole, the people had lost their faith in the assimilating influence of

republican institutions and did not desire to annex alien territory and races. They were now more concerned

with the consolidation of their own country and with its place in the world. Nor were they as neglectful as

their fathers had been of the material means by which to accomplish their somewhat indefinite purposes.

The reconstruction of the American Navy, which had attained such magnitude and played so important a part

in the Civil War but which had been allowed to sink into the merest insignificance, was begun by William E.

Chandler, the Secretary of the Navy under President Arthur. William C. Whitney, his successor under

President Cleveland, continued the work with energy. Captain Alfred T. Mahan began in 1883 to publish that

series of studies in naval history which won him worldwide recognition and did so much to revolutionize

prevailing conceptions of naval strategy. A Naval War College was established in 1884, at Newport, Rhode

Island, where naval officers could continue the studies which they had begun at Annapolis.

The total neglect of the army was not entirely the result of indifference. The experience with volunteers in the

Civil War had given almost universal confidence that the American people could constitute themselves an

army at will. The presence of several heroes of that war in succession in the position of commanderinchief

of the army had served to diffuse a sense of security among the people. Here and there military drill was

introduced in school and college, but the regular army attracted none of the romantic interest that clung about

the navy, and the militia was almost totally neglected. Individual officers, such as young Lieutenant Tasker

Bliss, began to study the new technique of warfare which was to make fighting on land as different from that

of the wars of Napoleon as naval warfare was different from that of the time of Nelson. Yet in spite of

obviously changing conditions, no provision was made for the encouragement of young army officers in

advanced and uptodate Studies. While their contemporaries in other professions were adding graduate

training to the general education which a college gave, the graduates of West Point were considered to have

made themselves in four years sufficiently proficient for all the purposes of warfare.

By the middle nineties thoughtful students of contemporary movements were aware that a new epoch in

national history was approaching. What form this national development would take was, however, still

uncertain, and some great event was obviously required to fix its character. Blaine's PanAmericanism had

proved insufficient and, though the baiting of Great Britain was welcome to a vociferous minority, the forces

making for peace were stronger than those in favor of war. Whatever differences there were did not reach to

fundamentals but were rather in the nature of legal disputes between neighbors whom a real emergency

would quickly bring to the assistance of each other. A crisis involving interest, propinquity, and sentiment,

At the very time of the Venezuela difficulty, such a crisis was taking shape in the Caribbean. Cuba had

always been an object of immediate concern to the United States. The statesmen of the Jeffersonian period all

looked to its eventually becoming part of American territory. Three quarters of a century before, when the

revolt of the Spanish colonies had halted on the shores of the mainland, leaving the rich island of Cuba

untouched, John Quincy Adams, on April 28, 1823, in a lengthy and longconsidered dispatch to Mr. Nelson,

the American Minister to Spain, asserted that the United States could not consent to the passing of Cuba from

the flag of Spain to that of any other European power, that under existing conditions Cuba was considered

safer in the hands of Spain than in those of the revolutionaries, and that the United States stood for the

maintenance of the status quo, with the expectation that Cuba would ultimately become American territory.

By the late forties and the fifties, however, the times had changed, and American policy had changed with

them. It was becoming more and more evident that, although no real revolution had as yet broken out, the

"Pearl of the Antilles" was bound to Spain by compulsion rather than by love. In the United States there was

a general feeling that the time had at last come to realize the vision of Jefferson and Adams and to annex

Cuba. But the complications of the slavery question prevented immediate annexation. As a slave colony

which might become a slave state, the South wanted Cuba, but the majority in the North did not.

After the Civil War in the United States was over, revolution at length flared forth in 1868, from end to end

of the island. Sympathy with the Cubans was widespread in the United States. The hand of the Government,

however, was stayed by recent history. Americans felt keenly the right of governments to exert their full

strength to put down rebellion, for they themselves were prosecuting against Great Britain a case based on

what they contended was her too lax enforcement of her obligations to the American Government and on the

assistance which she had given to the South. The great issue determined the lesser, and for ten years the

United States watched the Cuban revolution without taking part in it, but not, however, without protest and

remonstrance. Claiming special rights as a close and necessarily interested neighbor, the United States

constantly made suggestions as to the manner of the contest and its settlement. Some of these Spain

grudgingly allowed, and it was in part by American insistence that slavery was finally abolished in the island.

Further internal reform, however, was not the wish and was perhaps beyond the power of Spain. Although the

revolution was seemingly brought to a close in 1878, its embers continued to smolder for nearly a score of

War in Cuba could not help affecting in a very intimate way the people of the United States. They bought

much the greater part of the chief Cuban crops, sugar and tobacco. American capital had been invested in the

island, particularly in plantations. For years Cubans of liberal tendencies had sent their sons to be educated in

the United States, very many of whom had been naturalized before returning home. Cuba was but ninety

miles from Florida, and much of our coastwise shipping passed in sight of the island. The people of the

United States were aroused to sympathy and to a desire to be of assistance when they saw that the Cubans, so

near geographically and so bound to them by many commercial ties, were engaged against a foreign

monarchy in a struggle for freedom and a republican form of government. Ethan Allen headed a Cuban

committee in New York and by his historic name associated the new revolution with the memory of the

American struggle for freedom. The Cuban flag was displayed in the United States, Cuban bonds were sold,

Owing to the nature of the country and the character of the people, a Cuban revolution had its peculiarities.

The island is a very long and rugged mountain chain surrounded by fertile, cultivated plains. The insurgents

from their mountain refuges spied out the land, pounced upon unprotected spots, burned crops and sugar

mills, and were off before troops could arrive. The portion of the population in revolt at any particular time

was rarely large. Many were insurgents one week and peaceful citizens the next. The fact that the majority of

the population sympathized with the insurgents enabled the latter to melt into the landscape without leaving a

sign. A provisional government hurried on muleback from place to place. The Spanish Government,

contrary to custom, acted at this time with some energy: it put two hundred thousand soldiers into the island;

it raised large levies of loyal Cubans; it was almost always victorious; yet the revolution would not down.

Martinez Campos, the "Pacificator" of the first revolution, was this time unable to protect the plains. In 1896

he was replaced by General Weyler, who undertook a new system. He started to corral the insurgents by a

chain of blockhouses and barbed wire fences from ocean to seathe first completely guarded crosscountry

line since the frontier walls of the Roman Empire in Europe and the Great Wall of China in Asia. He then

proceeded to starve out the insurgents by destroying all the food in the areas to which they were confined. As

the revolutionists lived largely on the pillage of plantations in their neighborhood, this policy involved the

destruction of the crops of the loyal as well as of the disloyal, of Americans as well as of Cubans. The

population of the devastated plantations was gathered into reconcentrado camps where, penned

promiscuously into small reservations, they were entirely dependent upon a Government which was poor in

supplies and as careless of sanitation as it was of humanity. The camps became pestholes, spreading

contagion to all regions having intercourse with Cuba, and in vain the interned victims were crying aloud for

This new policy of disregard for property and life deeply involved American interests and sensibilities. The

State Department maintained that Spain was responsible for the destruction of American property by

insurgents. This Spain denied, for, while she never officially recognized the insurgents as belligerents, the

insurrection had passed beyond her control. This was, indeed, the position which the Spanish Treaty Claims

Commission subsequently took in ruling that to establish a claim it would be necessary to show that the

destruction of property was the consequence of negligence upon the part of Spanish authorities or of military

orders. Of other serious grievances there was no doubt. American citizens were imprisoned, interned in

reconcentrado camps, and otherwise maltreated. The nationality of American sufferers was in some cases

disputed, and the necessity of dealing with each of these doubtful cases by the slow and roundabout method

of complaint to Madrid, which referred matters back to Havana, which reported to Madrid, served but to add

irritation to delay. American resentment, too, was fired by the sufferings of the Cubans themselves as much

One change of extreme importance had taken place since the Cuban revolt of 186878. This was the

development of the modern American newspaper. It was no longer possible for the people at large to remain

ignorant of what was taking place at their very doors. Correspondents braved the yellow fever and

imprisonment in order to furnish the last details of each new horror. Foremost in this work were William

Randolph Hearst, who made new records of sensationalism in his papers, particularly in the New York

Journal, and Joseph Pulitzer, proprietor of the New York World. Hearst is reported to have said that it cost

him three millions to bring on the Spanish American War. The net result of all this newspaper activity was

that it became impossible for the American people to remain in happy ignorance of what was going on in the

President Cleveland modeled his policy upon that of Grant and Grant's Secretary, Hamilton Fish. He did not

recognize the independence of the Cuban republic, for that would have meant immediate war with Spain; nor

did he recognize even its belligerency. Public men in the United States were still convinced that Great Britain

had erred in recognizing the belligerency of the Southern Confederacy, and consistency of foreign policy

demanded that the Government should not accord recognition to a Government without a navy, a capital, or

fixed territory. This decision made it particularly difficult for the President to perform his acknowledged duty

to Spain, of preventing aid being sent from the United States to the insurgents. He issued the proper

proclamations, and American officials were reasonably diligent, it is true, but without any of the special

powers which would have resulted from a recognized state of war they were unable to prevent a leakage of

supplies. As a result General Weyler had some ground for saying, though with characteristic Spanish

President Cleveland energetically pressed all cases involving American rights; he offered mediation; he

remonstrated against the cruelty of Weyler's methods; he pointed out that the United States could not forever

allow an island so near and so closely related to be in flames without intervention. Spain, however, assumed a

rather lofty tone, and Cleveland was able to accomplish nothing. Senator Lodge and other Republicans

violently attacked his policy as procrastinating, and the nation as a whole looked forward with interest to the

William McKinley, who became President on March 4, 1897, was not actively interested in foreign affairs.

This he illustrated in a striking way by appointing as Secretary of State John Sherman of Ohio, a man of

undoubtedly high ability but one whose whole reputation rested upon his financial leadership, and who now,

at the age of seventyfour, was known to be incapacitated for vigorous action. To the very moment of crisis,

McKinley was opposed to a war with Spain; he was opposed to the form of the declaration of war and he was

opposed to the terms of peace which ended the war. Emphatically not a leader, he was, however, unsurpassed

in his day as a reader of public opinion, and he believed his function to be that of interpreting the national

mind. Nor did he yield his opinion in a grudging manner. He grasped broadly the consequences of each new

position which the public assumed, and he was a master at securing harmonious cooperation for a desired

The platform of the Republican party had declared: "The Government of Spain having lost control of Cuba,

and being unable to protect the property or lives of resident American citizens, or to comply with its treaty

obligations, we believe that the Government of the United States should actively use its influence and good

offices to restore peace and give independence to the island." With this mandate, McKinley sought to free

Cuba, absolutely or practically, while at the same time maintaining peace with Spain. On June 26, 1897,

Secretary Sherman sent a note to the Spanish Minister, protesting against the Spanish methods of war and

asserting that "the inclusion of a thousand or more of our own citizens among the victims of this policy" gives

"the President the right of specific remonstrance, but in the just fulfillment of his duty he cannot limit himself

to these formal grounds of complaint. He is bound by the higher obligation of his representative office to

protest against the uncivilized and inhuman conduct of the campaign in the island of Cuba. He conceives that

he has a right to demand that a war, conducted almost within sight of our shores and grievously affecting

American citizens and their interests throughout the length and breadth of the land, shall at least be conducted

Negotiations between the United States and Spain have always been peculiarly irritating, owing to

temperamental differences between the two peoples. McKinley, however, had in mind a program for which

there was some hope of success. He was willing to agree to some form of words which would leave Spain in

titular possession of the island, thereby making a concession to Spanish pride, for he knew that Spain was

always more loath to surrender the form than the substance. This hope of the President was strengthened,

towards the end of 1897, by a dramatic incident in the political life of Spain. On the 8th of August, the

Spanish Prime Minister, the Conservative Antonio Canovas del Castillo, was assassinated, and was

The new Spanish Government listened to American demands and made large promises of amelioration of

conditions in Cuba. General Blanco was substituted for General Weyler, whose cruelty had made him known

in the American press as "the Butcher"; it was announced that the reconcentrado camps would be broken up;

and the Queen Regent decreed the legislative autonomy of Cuba. Arrangements had been made for the

handling of minor disputes directly with the GovernorGeneral of Cuba through the American Consul

General at Havana, General Fitzhugh Lee. On December 6, 1897, McKinley, in his annual message to

Congress, counseled patience. Convinced of the good intentions of the new Spanish Government, he sought

to induce American public sentiment to allow it time to act. He continued nevertheless to urge upon Spain the

Public sentiment against Spain grew every day stronger in the United States and was given startling impulse

in February, 1898, by two of those critical incidents which are almost sure to occur when general causes are

potent enough to produce a white heat of popular feeling. The Spanish Minister in the United States, Senor

Dupuy de Lome, had aroused the suspicion, during his summer residence on the north shore of Massachusetts

Bay, that he was collecting information which would be useful to a Spanish fleet operating on that coast.

Whether this charge was true or not, at any rate he wrote a letter to a friend, a Madrid editor visiting Havana,

in which he characterized McKinley as a vacillating and timeserving politician. Alert American newspaper

men, who practically constituted a secret service of some efficiency, managed to obtain the letter. On

February 9, 1898, De Lome saw a facsimile of this letter printed in a newspaper and at once cabled his

resignation. In immediately accepting De Lome's resignation Spain anticipated an American demand for his

recall and thus saved Spanish pride, though undoubtedly at the expense of additional irritation in the United

States, where it was thought that he should have been punished instead of being allowed to slip away.

Infinitely more serious than this diplomatic faux pas was the disaster which befell the United States battleship

Maine: On January 24, 1898, the Government had announced its intention of sending a warship on a friendly

visit to Havana; with the desire of impressing the local Cuban authorities with the imminence of American

power. Not less important was the purpose of affording protection to American citizens endangered by the

rioting of Spaniards, who were angry because they believed that Sagasta by his conciliatory policy was

betraying the interests of Spain. Accordingly the Maine, commanded by Captain Sigsbee, was dispatched to

Cuba and arrived on the 25th of January in the harbor of Havana. On the night of the 15th of February, an

explosion utterly wrecked the vessel and killed 260 of the crew, besides wounding ninety.

The responsibility for this calamity has never been positively determined. It may have resulted from an

accidental internal explosion, from the official action of the Spanish authorities, from the unofficial zeal of

subordinate Spanish officers, or evenas suggested by Speaker Reed who was an opponent of warby

action of the insurgents themselves with the purpose of embroiling the United States and Spain. The careful

investigations which were afterwards made brought to light evidence of both internal and external explosions;

it therefore seems probable that an external mine was the prime cause of the disaster and that the internal

explosion followed as a consequence. No direct evidence has been discovered which would fix the

responsibility for the placing of the mine, but it is reasonable to attribute it to the Spanish hotheads of

Havana. It is not impossible that the insurgents were responsible; but it is incredible that the Spanish

The hasty, though perhaps natural, conclusion to which American public sentiment at once leaped, however,

was that the disaster was the work of Spain, without making any discrimination between the Government

itself and the disaffected factions. A general sorrow and anger throughout the United States reinforced the

popular anxiety for national interests and the humane regard for the Cubans. Press and public oratory

demanded official action. "Remember the Maine!" was an admonition which everywhere met the eye and ear.

The venerable and trusted Senator Proctor, who visited Cuba, came back with the report that conditions on

the island were intolerable. On the 9th of March, "Uncle Joe" Cannon, the watchdog of the Treasury,

introduced a bill appropriating fifty million dollars to be used for national defense at the discretion of the

President. No doubt remained in the public mind that war would result unless the withdrawal of Spanish

Even in this final stage of the negotiations it is sufficiently obvious that the United States Government was

particularly desirous of preserving peace. There is also little doubt that the Spanish Government in good faith

had the same desire. The intelligent classes in Spain realized that the days of Spanish rule in Cuba were

practically over. The Liberals believed that, under the circumstances, war with the United States would be a

misfortune. Many of the Conservatives, however, believed that a war, even if unsuccessful, was the only way

of saving the dynasty, and that the dynasty was worth saving. Public opinion in Spain was therefore no less

inflamed than in America, but it was less wellinformed. Cartoons represented the American hog, which

would readily fall before the Spanish rapier accustomed to its nobler adversary the bull. Spanish pride,

impervious to facts and statistics, would brook no supine submission on the part of its people to foreign

demands. It was a question how far the Spanish Government could bring itself to yield points in season which

The negotiation waxed too hot for the aged John Sherman, and was conducted by the Assistant Secretary,

William Rufus Day, a close friend of the President, but a man comparatively unknown to the public. When

Day officially succeeded Sherman (April 26, 1898) he had to face as fierce a light of publicity as ever beat

upon a public man in the United States. Successively in charge of the Cuban negotiations, Secretary of State

from April to September, 1898, President of the Paris Peace Commission in October, in December, after a

career of prime national importance for nine months in which he had demonstrated his high competence, Day

retired to the relative obscurity of the United States circuit bench. Although later raised to the Supreme Court,

he has never since been a national figure. As an example of a meteoric career of a man of solid rather than

The acting Secretary of State telegraphed the ultimatum of the Government on March 27, 1898, to General

Stewart L. Woodford, then Minister to Spain. By the terms of this document, in the first place there was to be

an immediate amnesty which would last until the 1st of October and during which Spain would communicate

with the insurgents through the President of the United States; in the second place, the reconcentrado policy

was to cease immediately, and relief for the suffering Cubans was to be admitted from the United States.

Then, if satisfactory terms were not reached by the 1st of October, the President was to be recognized as

On the 30th of March, Spain abrogated the reconcentrado policy in the "western provinces of Cuba," and on

the following day offered to arbitrate the questions arising out of the sinking of the Maine. On Sunday, the 3d

of April, a cablegram from General Woodford was received by the State Department indicating that Spain

was seeking a formula for an armistice that should not too obviously appear to be submission and suggesting

that the President ask the Pope to intervene and that the United States abstain from all show of force. "If you

can still give me time and reasonable liberty of action," ran Woodford's message, "I will get you the peace

you desire so much and for which you have labored so hard." To this the Secretary of State immediately

replied that the President would not ask the intervention of the Pope, and that the Government would use the

fleet as it saw fit. "Would the peace you are so confident of securing," asked the Secretary, "mean the

independence of Cuba? The President cannot hold his message longer than Tuesday." On Tuesday, the 5th of

"Should the Queen proclaim the following before twelve o'clock noon of Wednesday, April 6th, will you

sustain the Queen, and can you prevent hostile action by Congress? "At the request of the Holy Father, in this

Passion Week and in the name of Christ, I proclaim immediate and unconditional suspension of hostilities in

the island of Cuba. This suspension is to become immediately effective as soon as accepted by the insurgents

of that island, and is to continue for the space of six months to the 5th day of October, 1898. I do this to give

time for passions to cease, and in the sincere hope and belief that during this suspension permanent and

honorable peace may be obtained between the insular government of Cuba and those of my subjects in that

island who are now in rebellion against the authority of Spain...." Please read this in the light of all my

previous telegrams and letters. I believe this means peace, which the sober judgment of our people will

approve long before next November, and which must be approved at the bar of final history."

"The President highly appreciates the Queen's desire for peace. He cannot assume to influence the action of

the American Congress beyond a discharge of his constitutional duty in transmitting the whole matter to them

On the 9th of April the Queen granted the amnesty, on the formula of a request by the European powers. On

the next day, General Woodford cabled that the United States could obtain for Cuba a satisfactory autonomy,

It was evident that there was no difference of opinion among those in authority in the United States as to the

fact that Cuba must be severed from Spain. There were, however, differences of judgment as to which of the

three methods suggested by Woodford was preferable, and there was a substantial disagreement as to the

means necessary to realize the aims of the American Government. General Woodford believed that Spain

would grant the demands of the United States, if she were given time and were not pressed to the point of

endangering her dignity. The overwhelming majority in Congress, and particularly the leaders of the

dominant Republican party with the exception of Speaker Reed, refused to believe in the sincerity of the

Spanish Government. The Administration could not overlook the fact that the Spanish Government, however

sincere it might be, might not be able to execute its promises. Great Britain had just recognized the United

States as intermediary in a dispute between herself and one of the American nations. Spain, in a dispute much

more serious to the United States, refused publicly to admit American intervention, while she did recognize

that of the Pope and the European powers. Was it then possible that a Government which was either

unwilling or afraid openly to acknowledge American interest in April would, by October, yield to the wishes

of the Administration? Was it certain or likely that if the Spanish Government did so yield, it would remain in

Reluctantly President McKinley decided that he could not announce to Congress that he had secured the

acceptance of the American policy. In his message to Congress on the 11th of April, he reviewed the

negotiation and concluded by recommending forcible intervention. On the 19th of April, Congress, by joint

resolution, called upon Spain to withdraw from Cuba and authorized the President to use force to compel her

to do so. Congress, however, was not content to leave the future of the island merely indefinite, but added

that the United States did not desire Cuba and that the "people of the island of Cuba are, and of right ought to

be, free and independent." This decision ruled out both autonomy and cession as solutions of the problem. It

put an end to the American centurylong dream of annexing Cuba, unless the people of the island themselves

desired such a relation; and it practically determined the recognition of the unstable Cuban Government then

in existence. This decision on the part of Congress, however, reflected the deepseated conviction of the

American people regarding freedom and plainly put the issue where the popular majority wished it to

The resolution was signed by the President on the 20th of April. On the following day, Admiral Sampson's

fleet left Key West with orders to blockade the coast of Cuba, and, in the absence of a formal declaration of

war, this strategic move may be considered as its actual beginning. On the 25th of April, Congress declared

"that, war be, and the same is hereby, declared to exist, and that war has existed since the twentyfirst of

April, Anno Domini, eighteen hundred and ninetyeight, including the said day, between the United States of

War had begun, but the majority of the American people had hardly considered seriously how they were to

fight. Fortunately their navy already existed, and it was upon it that they had to rely in the opening moments

of hostility. Ton for ton, gun for gun, it stood on fairly even terms with that of Spain. Captain, later Admiral,

Mahan, considered that the loss of the Maine shifted a slight paper advantage from the United States to Spain.

In personnel, however, the American Navy soon proved its overwhelming superiority, which was due not

The Secretary of the Navy, John D. Long, had a thorough appreciation of values. Although Congress had not

provided for a general staff, he himself appointed a Naval War Board, which served many of the same

purposes. Upon this Board he appointed Rear Admiral Sicard, who but for ill health would have commanded

the main fleet; Captain A. S. Crowninshield; and, most important, Captain A. T. Mahan, whose equal as

master of the theory and history of naval warfare no navy of the world could show. The spirit of the fighting

force was speedily exhibited by such exploits as that of Lieutenant Victor Blue in boldly plunging into the

Cuban wilderness to obtain information regarding the position of Admiral Cervera's fleet, though in this

dangerous sort of work the individual palm must be given to Lieutenant A. S. Rowan of the army, whose

energy and initiative in overcoming obstacles are immortalized in Elbert Hubbard's "Message to Garcia," the

Efficient, however, as was the navy, it was far from being a complete fighting force. Its fighting vessels were

totally unsupplied with that cloud of serverscolliers, mother ships, hospital ships, and scoutswhich we

now know must accompany a fleet. The merchant marine, then at almost its lowest point, was not in a

position entirely to fill the need. The United States had no extensive store of munitions. Over all operations

there hung a cloud of uncertainty. Except for the short campaign of the ChinoJapanese War of 1894,

modern implements of sea war remained untested. Scientific experiment, valuable and necessary as it was,

did not carry absolute conviction regarding efficient service. Would the weapons of offense or defense prove

most effective? Accidents on shipboard and even the total destruction of vessels had been common to all

navies during times of peace. That the Maine had not been a victim of the failure of her own mechanism was

not then certain. Such misgivings were in the minds of many officers. Indeed, a report of the total

disappearance of two battling fleets would not have found the watchful naval experts of the world absolutely

incredulous. So much the higher, therefore, was the heroism of those who led straight to battle that complex

While negotiations with Spain were in their last stages, at the orders of Secretary Long a swift vessel left San

Francisco for Honolulu. There its precious cargo was transferred to the warship Baltimore, which then made

hurriedly for Hongkong. It contained the ammunition which was absolutely necessary if Commodore George

Dewey, in command of the Asiatic squadron, was to play a part in the war. The position of his squadron, even

after it received its ammunition, was indeed singular. After the war began, it was unable to obtain coal or

other supplies from any neutral port and at the same time it was equally unable to remain in any such port

without being interned for the duration of the war. There remained but one course of action. It must not be

forgotten that the Spanish empire stretched eastward as well as westward. Already William Pitt, when he had

foreseen in 1760 the entrance of Spain into the war which England was then waging with France, had planned

expeditions against both Cuba and the Philippines. Now in 1898 the Navy Department of the United States,

anticipating war, saw in the proximity of the American squadron to the Spanish islands of the Philippines an

opportunity rather than a problem. Commodore George Dewey, the commander of the Asiatic squadron, was

fully prepared to enter into the plan. As early as the seventies, when the Virginius affair* threatened war

between Spain and the United States, Dewey, then a commander on the west coast of Mexico, had proposed,

in case war were declared, that he sail for the Philippines and capture Manila. Now he was prepared to seek

in the hostile ports of those islands the liberty that international law forbade him in the neutral ports of Asia.

How narrow a margin of time he had in which to make this bold stroke may be realized from the fact that the

Baltimore, his second vessel in size, reached Hongkong on the 22d of April and went into dry dock on the

23d, and that on the following day the squadron was ordered either to leave the port or to intern.

* A dispute between the United States and Spain, arising out of the capture of the Virginius, an American

vessel engaged in filibustering off the coast of Cuba, and the execution at Santiago of the captain and a

number of the crew and passengers. The vessel and the surviving passengers were finally restored by the

Spanish authorities, who agreed to punish the officials responsible for the illegal acts.

The little armada of six vessels with which Dewey started for the Philippines was puny enough from the

standpoint of today; yet it was strong enough to cope with the larger but more oldfashioned Spanish fleet, or

with the harbor defenses unless these included minesof whose absence Dewey was at the moment

unaware. If, however, the Spanish commander could unite the strength of his vessels and that of the coast

defenses, Dewey might find it impossible to destroy the Spanish fleet. In that case, the plight of the American

squadron would be precarious, if its ultimate selfdestruction or internment did not become necessary.

Commodore Dewey belonged to that school of American naval officers who combine the spirit of Farragut's

"Damn the torpedoes" with a thorough knowledge of the latest scientific devices. Though he would take all

precautions, he would not allow the unknown to hold him back. After a brief rendezvous for tuning up at

Mirs Bay near Hongkong on the Chinese coast, Dewey steered straight for Subig Bay in the Philippines,

where he expected to meet his opponent. Finding the Bay empty, he steamed on without pause and entered

the Boca Grande, the southern channel leading to Manila Bay, at midnight of the 30th of April. Slowly,

awaiting daylight, but steadily he approached Manila. Coming within three miles of the city, he discovered

the Spanish fleet, half a dozen miles to the southeast, at the naval station of Cavite. Still without a pause, the

The Spanish Admiral Montojo tried, though ineffectually, to come to close quarters, for his guns were of

smaller caliber than those of the American ships, but he was forced to keep his vessels for the most part in

line between the Americans and the shore. Commodore Dewey sailed back and forth five times, raking the

Spanish ships and the shore batteries with his fire. Having guns of longer range than those of the Spaniards,

he could have kept out of their fire and slowly hammered them to pieces; but he preferred a closer position

where he could use more guns and therefore do quicker work. How well he was justified in taking this risk is

shown by the fact that no man was killed on the American fleet that day and only a few were wounded. After

a few hours' fighting, with a curious interval when the Americans withdrew and breakfasted, Dewey

completed the destruction or capture of the Spanish fleet, and found himself the victor with his own ships

uninjured and in full fighting trim. By the 3d of May, the naval station at Cavite and the batteries at the

entrance of Manila Bay were in the hands of Commodore Dewey, and the Asiatic squadron had wrested a

Secure for the moment and free, Dewey found himself in as precarious a strategic position as has ever

confronted a naval officer. With his six war vessels and 1707 men, he was unsupported and at least a month's

voyage from America. It was two months, indeed, before any American troops or additional ships reached

him. Meanwhile the Spaniards held Manila, and a Spanish fleet, formidable under the circumstances, began

to sail for the Philippines. Nevertheless Dewey proceeded to blockade Manila, which was besieged on the

land side by the Filipino insurgents under Aguinaldo. This siege was indeed an advantage to the Americans

as it distressed the enemy and gave an opportunity to obtain supplies from the mainland. Dewey, however,

placed no confidence in Aguinaldo, and further was instructed by Secretary Long on the 26th of May as

follows: "It is desirable, as far as possible, and consistent for your success and safety, not to have political

alliances with the insurgents or any faction in the islands that would incur liability to maintain their cause in

the future." Meanwhile foreign nations were rushing vessels to this critical spot in the Pacific. On the 17th of

June, Dewey sent a cable, which had to be relayed to Hongkong by boat, reporting that there were collected,

in Manila Bay, a French and a Japanese warship, two British, and three German. Another German

manofwar was expected, which would make the German squadron as strong as the American.

The presence of so large a German force, it was felt, could hardly fail to have definite significance, and

therefore caused an anxiety at home which would, indeed, have been all the keener had Admiral Dewey not

kept many of his troubles to himself. European sympathy was almost wholly with Spain. The French, for

instance, had invested heavily in Spanish bonds, many of which were secured on the Cuban revenues. There

was also perhaps some sense of solidarity among the Latin races in Europe and a feeling that the United

States was a colossus willfully exerting itself against a weak antagonist. It was not likely that this feeling was

strong enough to lead to action, but at least during that summer of 1898 it was somewhat unpleasant for

American tourists in Paris, and an untoward episode might easily have brought unfriendly sentiment to a

dangerous head. Austria had never been very friendly to the United States, particularly since the execution of

the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico, which his brother Francis Joseph believed the United States could have

prevented, and was tied to Spain by the fact that the Queen Regent was an Austrian Hapsburg.

It was evident, moreover, that in Europe there was a vague but nevertheless real dread of the economic

potentialities of the United Statesa fear which led, in the next few years, to the suggestion that the

American invasion of trade should be resisted by a general European economic organization which would

even overrule the natural tendency of powers to group themselves into hostile camps. In 1898 it seemed

possible that the United States was consciously planning to become a world military power also, and a

feeling, not exactly like Blaine's "America for the Americans" but rather of "the world for Europeans,"

Even before war had broken out between Spain and the United States, this sentiment had sufficiently

crystallized to result in a not quite usual diplomatic action. On April 6, 1898, the representatives of Great

Britain, Germany, France, AustroHungary, Russia, and Italy, presented a note to the Government of the

United States making "a pressing appeal to the feelings of humanity and moderation of the President and of

the American people in their differences with Spain. They earnestly hope that further negotiations will lead to

an agreement which, while securing the maintenance of peace, will afford all necessary guarantees for the

Of all the European powers none was more interested than Germany in the situation in the Western

Hemisphere. There seems to be no doubt that the Kaiser made the remark to an Englishman with reference to

the Spanish American War: "If I had had a larger fleet I would have taken Uncle Sam by the scruff of his

neck." Though the reason for Germany's attitude has never been proven by documents, circumstantial

evidence points convincingly to the explanation. The quest for a colonial empire, upon which Bismarck had

embarked rather reluctantly and late, had been taken up with feverish zeal by William II, his successor in the

direction of German policy. Not content with the commercial conquests which German trade was making in

all countries of the earth, the Kaiser wanted a place in the sun exclusively his own. The world seemed,

however, as firmly closed to the latecomer in search of colonies as it was open to him as the bearer of cheap

and useful goods. Such remnants of territory as lay on the counter he quickly seized, but they hardly made an

It is not, therefore, a daring conjecture that the Kaiser was as carefully watching the decrepit empire of Spain

as he was the traditional sick man of Europe, the empire of Turkey. In 1898 revolutions were sapping both

the extremities of the Spanish dominions. The Kaiser, while he doubtless realized that Cuba would not fall to

him, in all probability expected that he would be able to get the Philippines. Certain it is that at the close of

the Spanish American War he bought all the remaining Spanish possessions in the Pacific. If such had been

his expectations with regard to the Philippines, the news of Dewey's victory must have brought him a bitter

disappointment, while at the same time the careless and indiscreet remark of an American official to certain

Germans"We don't want the Philippines; why don't you take them?"may well have given him a feeling

Under such circumstances, with Europe none too welldisposed and the Kaiser watching events with a

jealous eye, it was very important to the United States not to be without a friend. In England sympathy for

America ran strong and deep. The British Government was somewhat in alarm over the political solitude in

which Great Britain found herself, even though its head, Lord Salisbury, described the position as one of

"splendid isolation." The unexpected reaction of friendliness on the part of Great Britain which had followed

the Venezuela affair continued to augment, and relations between the two countries were kept smooth by the

new American Ambassador, John Hay, whom Queen Victoria described as "the most interesting of all the

ambassadors I have known." More important still, in Great Britain alone was there a public who appreciated

the real sentiment of humanity underlying the entrance of the United States into the war with Spain; and this

public actually had some weight in politics. The people of both Great Britain and the United States were

easily moved to respond with money and personal service to the cry of suffering anywhere in the world. Just

before the Spanish American War, Gladstone had made his last great campaign protesting against the new

massacres in Armenia; and in the United States the Republican platform of 1896 had declared that "the

massacres in Armenia have aroused the deep sympathy and just indignation of the American people, and we

believe that the United States should exercise all the influence it can properly exert to bring these atrocities to

John Hay wrote to Henry Cabot Lodge, of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, April 5, 1898, as

follows: "For the first time in my life I find the drawingroom sentiment altogether with us. If we wanted

itwhich, of course, we do notwe could have the practical assistance of the British Navyon the do ut

des principle, naturally." On the 25th of May he added: "It is a moment of immense importance, not only for

the present, but for all the future. It is hardly too much to say the interests of civilization are bound up in the

direction the relations of England and America are to take in the next few months." Already on the 15th of

May, Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, had said to the Birmingham Liberal Unionists: "What is

our next duty? It is to establish and to maintain bonds of permanent amity with our kinsmen across the

Atlantic. There is a powerful and a generous nation.... Their laws, their literature, their standpoint upon every

In Manila Harbor, where Dewey lay with his squadron, these distant forces of European colonial policy were

at work. The presence of representative foreign warships to observe the maintenance of the blockade was a

natural and usual naval circumstance. The arrival of two German vessels therefore caused no remark,

although they failed to pay the usual respects to the blockading squadron. On the 12th of May a third arrived

and created some technical inconvenience by being commanded by an officer who outranked Commodore

Dewey. A German transport which was in the harbor made the total number of German personnel superior to

that of the Americans, and the arrival of the Kaiser on the 12th of June gave the Germans distinct naval

The presence of so powerful a squadron in itself closely approached an international discourtesy.

Disregarding the laws of blockade, as Dewey, trained in the Civil War blockade of the South, interpreted

them, the German officers were actively familiar both with the Spanish officials of Manila and with the

insurgents. Finally they ensconced themselves in the quarantine station at the entrance of the Bay, and

Admiral Diedrichs took up land quarters. Further, they interfered between the insurgents and the Spaniards

outside of Manila Bay. In the controversy between Diedrichs and Dewey which grew out of these difficulties,

Captain Chichester, commanding the British squadron, supported Dewey's course unqualifiedly and,

moreover, let it be clearly known that, in the event of hostilities, the British vessels would take their stand

While the first victory of the war was in the Far East and the possibility of events of worldwide significance

hung upon the levelheadedness of Commodore Dewey at Manila, it was realized that the war must really be

fought in the West. Both President McKinley and the Queen Regent of Spain had issued proclamations

stating that they would adhere to the rules of the Declaration of Paris and not resort to the use of privateers.

The naval contest, therefore, was confined to the regular navies. Actually the American fleet was superior in

battleships, monitors, and protected cruisers; the Spanish was the better equipped in armored cruisers,

Both Spain and the United States hastily purchased, in the last days of peace, a few vessels, but not enough

seriously to affect their relative strength. Both also drew upon their own merchant marines. Spain added 18

mediumsized vessels to her navy; the United States added in all 123, most of which were small and used for

scouting purposes. The largest and most efficient of these additional American ships were the subsidized St.

Paul, St. Louis, New York, and Paris of the American line, of which the last two, renamed the Harvard and

Yale, proved to be of great service. It was characteristic of American conditions that 28 were private yachts,

of which the Mayflower was the most notable. To man these new ships, the personnel of the American Navy

was increased from 13,750 to 24,123, of whom a large number were men who had received some training in

The first duty of the navy was to protect the American coast. In 1885 the War Department had planned and

Congress had sanctioned a system of coast defense. Up to 1898, however, only one quarter of the sum

considered necessary had been appropriated. Mines and torpedoes were laid at the entrances to American

harbors as soon as war broke out, but there was a lack of highpower guns. Rumors of a projected raid by the

fast Spanish armored cruisers kept the coast cities in a state of high excitement, and many sought, by petition

and political pressure, to compel the Navy Department to detach vessels for their defense. The Naval War

Board, however, had to remember that it must protect not only the coast but commerce also, and that the

United States was at war not to defend herself but to attack. Cuba was the objective; and Cuba must be cut off

from Spain by blockade, and the seas must be made safe for the passage of the American Army. If the navy

were to accomplish all these purposes, it must destroy the Spanish Navy. To achieve this end, it would have

For several months before the actual declaration of war with Spain, the Navy Department had been effecting

this concentration. On the 21st of April, Captain William T. Sampson was appointed to command the forces

on the North Atlantic station. This included practically the whole fleet, except the Pacific squadron under

Dewey, and the Oregon, a new battleship of unusual design, which was on the Pacific coast. On the 1st of

March she was ordered from the Bremerton Yard, in the State of Washington, to San Francisco, and thence to

report in the Atlantic. Her voyage was the longest emergency run undertaken up to that time by a modern

battleship. The outbreak of the war with Spain meant the sealing of all ports in which she might have been

repaired in case of emergency. Rumors were rife of Spanish vessels ready to intercept her, and the eyes not

only of the United States but of the world were upon the Oregon. A feeling of relief and rejoicing therefore

passed through the country when this American warship arrived at Key West on the 26th of May, fit for

The fleet, though concentrated in the Atlantic within the region of immediate hostility, was divided for

purposes of operation into a major division under the immediate command of Admiral Sampson and a flying

squadron under Commodore Schley.* The first undertook the enforcement of the blockade which was

declared on the 21st of April against Cuba, and patrolled the northern coast from Gardenas to Bahia. Key

West was soon filled with Spanish prizes. On the 27th of April a brush took place between batteries at

Matanzas and some of the American vessels, without loss of life on either side, except for a mule which bids

fair to become immortal in history through being reported by the Spanish as their only casualty and the first

of the war. Admiral Sampson, following the tradition of the American Navy of aiming at a vital spot, wished

to attack Havana; and a careful study of its fortifications seems to show that he would have had a good

chance of success. Chance, however, might have caused the loss of some of his vessels, and, with the small

margin of naval superiority at its disposal the Naval War Board was probably wise in not allowing him to

* A patrol squadron of cruisers under Commodore Howell was also established to protect the coast from the

Delaware capes to eastern Maine. "It can scarcely be supposed," writes Admiral Chadwick, "that such action

It was, in fact, Spain which took the initiative and decided the matter. Her West India Squadron was weak,

even on paper, and was in a condition which would have made it madness to attempt to meet the Americans

without reenforcement. She therefore decided to dispatch a fighting fleet from her home forces. Accordingly

on the 29th of April, Admiral Cervera left the Cape Verde Islands and sailed westward with one fast

secondclass battleship, the Cristobal Colon, three armored cruisers, and two torpedo boat destroyers. It was

a reasonably powerful fleet as fleets went in the Spanish War, yet it is difficult to see just what good it could

accomplish when it arrived on the scene of action. The naval superiority in the West Indies would still be in

the hands of the concentrated American Navy, for the Spanish forces would still be divided, only more

equally, between Spanish and Caribbean waters. The American vessels, moreover, would be within easy

distance of their home stations, which could supply them with every necessity. The islands belonging to

Spain, on the other hand, were ill equipped to become the base of naval operations. Admiral Cervera realized

to the full the difficulty of the situation and protested against an expedition which he feared would mean the

fall of Spanish power, but public opinion forced the ministry, and he was obliged to put to sea.

For nearly a month the Spanish fleet was lost to sight, and dwellers on the American coast were in a panic of

apprehension. Cervera's objective was guessed to be everything from a raid on Bar Harbor to an attack on the

Oregon, then on its shrouded voyage from the Pacific coast. Cities on the Atlantic seaboard clamored for

protection, and the Spanish fleet was magnified by the mist of uncertainty until it became a national terror.

Sampson, rightly divining that Cervera would make for San Juan, the capital and chief seaport of Porto Rico,

detached from his blockading force a fighting squadron with which he sailed east, but not finding the Spanish

fleet he turned back to Key West. Schley, with the Flying Squadron, was then ordered to Cienfuegos. In the

meantime Cervera was escaping detection by the American scouts by taking an extremely southerly course;

and with the information that Sampson was off San Juan, the Spanish Admiral sailed for Santiago de Cuba,

Though Cervera was safe in harbor, the maneuver of the American fleet cannot be called unsuccessful.

Cervera would have preferred to be at San Juan, where there was a navy yard and where his position would

have obliged the American fleet either to split into two divisions separated by eight hundred miles or to leave

him free range of action. Next to San Juan he would have preferred Havana or, Cienfuegos, which were

connected by railroad and near which lay the bulk of the Spanish Army. He found himself instead at the

extreme eastern end of Cuba in a port with no railroad connection with Havana, partly blocked by the

Unless Cervera could leave Santiago, his expedition would obviously have been useless. Though it was the

natural function of the American fleet to blockade him, for a week after his arrival there was an interesting

game of hide and seek between the two fleets. The harbors of Cienfuegos and of Santiago are both landlocked

by high hills, and Cervera had entered Santiago without being noticed by the Americans, as that part of the

coast was not under blockade. Schley thought Cervera was at Cienfuegos; Sampson was of the opinion that

he was at Santiago. When it became known that the enemy had taken refuge in Santiago, Schley began the

blockade on the 28th of May, but stated that he could not continue long in position owing to lack of coal. On

With the bottling up of Cervera, the first stage of the war passed. The navy had performed its primary

function: it had established its superiority and had obtained the control of the seas. The American coast was

safe; American commerce was safe except in the vicinity of Spain; and the sea was open for the passage of an

American expeditionary force. Nearly the whole island of Cuba was now under blockade, and the insurgents

were receiving supplies from the United States. It had been proved that the fairly even balance of the two

fleets, so anxiously scanned when it was reported in the newspapers in April, was entirely deceptive when it

came to real efficiency in action. Moreover, the skillful handling of the fleets by the Naval War Board as well

as by the immediate commanders had redoubled the actual superiority of the American naval forces.

A fleet in being, even though inferior and immobilized, still counts as a factor in naval warfare, and Cervera,

though immobilized by Sampson, himself immobilized the greater number of American vessels necessary to

blockade him. The importance of this fact was evident to every one when, in the middle of June, the

remainder of the Spanish home fleet, whipped hastily into a semblance of fighting condition, set out eastward

under Admiral Camara to contest the Philippines with Dewey. It was impossible for the United States to

detach a force sufficient to cross the Atlantic and, without a base, meet this fleet in its home waters. Even if a

smaller squadron were dispatched from the Atlantic round Cape Horn, it would arrive in the Philippines too

late to be of assistance to Dewey. The two monitors on the Pacific coast, the Monterey and the Monadnock,

had already been ordered across the Pacific, a voyage perilous for vessels of their structure and agonizing to

their crews; but it was doubtful whether they or Camara would arrive first in the Philippines.

The logic of the situation demanded that the main American fleet be released. Cervera must be destroyed or

held in some other way than at the expense of inactivity on the part of the American warships. Santiago could

not be forced by the navy. Two methods remained. The first and simpler expedient was to make the harbor

mouth impassable and in this way to bottle up the Spanish fleet. It was decided to sink the collier Merrimac at

a narrow point in the channel, where, lying full length, she would completely prevent egress. It was a delicate

task and one of extraordinary danger. It was characteristic of the spirit of the fleet that, as Admiral Chadwick

says, practically all the men were volunteers. The honor of the command was given to Lieutenant Richmond

Pearson Hobson, Assistant Naval Constructor, who had been in charge of the preparations. With a crew of six

men he entered the harbor mouth on the night of the 3d of June. A shell disabled the steering gear of the

Merrimac, and the ship sank too far within the harbor to block the entrance entirely. Admiral Cervera himself

rescued the crew, assured Sampson of their safety in an appreciative note; and one of the best designed and

The failure of the Merrimac experiment left the situation as it had been and forced the American command to

consider the second method which would release the American fleet. This new plan contemplated the

reduction of Santiago by a combined military and naval attack. Cervera's choice of Santiago therefore

practically determined the direction of the first American overseas military expedition, which had been in

When one compares the conditions under which the Spanish American War was fought with those of the

Great War, he feels himself living in a different age. Twenty years ago hysteria and sudden panics swept the

nation. Cheers and waving handkerchiefs and laughing girls sped the troops on their way. It cannot be denied

that the most popular song of the war time was "There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight," though it

may be believed that the energy and swing of the music rather than the words made it so. The atmosphere of

the country was one of a great national picnic where each one was expected to carry his own lunch. There

was apparent none of the concentration of effort and of the calm foresight so necessary for efficiency in

modern warfare. For youth the Spanish American War was a great adventure; for the nation it was a diversion

This abandon was doubtless in part due to a comfortable consciousness of the vast disparity in resources

between Spain and the United States, which, it was supposed, meant automatically a corresponding difference

in fighting strength. The United States did, indeed, have vast superiorities which rendered unnecessary any

worry over many of the essentials which gripped the popular mind during the Great War. People believed that

the country could supply the munitions needed, and that of facilities for transport it had enough. If the United

States did not have at hand exactly the munitions needed, if the transportation system had not been built to

launch an army into Cuba, it was popularly supposed that the wealth of the country rendered such trifles

negligible, and that, if insufficient attention had been given to the study of such matters in the past, American

ingenuity would quickly offset the lack of skilled military experience. The fact that American soldiers

traveled in sleeping cars while European armies were transported in freight cars blinded Americans for a

while to the significant fact that there was but a single track leading to Tampa, the principal point of

Nothing so strongly marks the amateur character of the conduct of the Spanish War as the activity of the

American press. The navy was dogged by press dispatch boats which revealed its every move. When Admiral

Sampson started upon his cruise to San Juan, he requested the press boats to observe secrecy, and Admiral

Chadwick comments with satisfaction upon the fact that this request was observed "fully and honorably...by

every person except one." When Lieutenant Whitney risked his life as a spy in order to investigate conditions

in Porto Rico; his plans and purpose were blazoned in the press. Incredible as it may now seem, the

newspaper men appear to have felt themselves part of the army. They offered their services as equals, and

William Randolph Hearst even ordered one of his staff to sink a vessel in the Suez Canal to delay Camara on

his expedition against Dewey. This order, fortunately for the international reputation of the United States,

was not executed. With all their blare and childish enthusiasm, the reporters do not seem to have been so

successful in revealing to Americans the plans of Spain as they were in furnishing her with itemized accounts

While the press not only revealed but formulated courses of action in the case of the army, the navy, at least,

was able to follow its own plans. For this difference there were several causes, chief of which was the fact

that the navy was a fully professional arm, ready for action both in equipment and in plans, and able to take a

prompt initiative in carrying out an aggressive campaign. The War Department had a more difficult task in

adjusting itself to the new conditions brought about by the Spanish American War. The army was made up on

the principle traditionally held in the United States that the available army force in time of peace should be

just sufficient for the purposes of peace, and that it should be enlarged in time of war. To allow a fair amount

of expansion without too much disturbance to the organization in increasing to war strength, the regular army

was overofficered in peace times. The chief reliance in war was placed upon the militia. The organization

and training of this force was left, however, under a few very general directions, to the various States. As a

result, its quality varied and it was nowhere highly efficient in the military sense. Some regiments, it is true,

were impressive on parade, but almost none of the officers knew anything of actual modern warfare. There

had been no preliminary sifting of ability in the army, and it was only as experience gave the test that the

capable and informed were called into positions of importance. In fact, the training of the regular officers was

inferior to that of the naval officers. West Point and Annapolis were both excellent in the quality of their

instruction, but what they offered amounted only to a college course, and in the army there was no provision

for systematic graduate study corresponding to the Naval War College at Newport.

These difficulties and deficiencies, however, cannot fully explain the woeful inferiority of the army to the

navy in preparedness. Fundamentally the defect was at the top. Russell A. Alger, the Secretary of War, was a

veteran of the Civil War and a silvervoiced orator, but his book on the "SpanishAmerican War," which

was intended as a vindication of his record, proves that even eighteen months of as grueling denunciation as

any American official has ever received could not enlighten him as to what were the functions of his office.

Nor did he correct or supplement his own incompetence by seeking professional advice. There existed no

general staff, and it did not occur to him, as it did to Secretary Long, to create one to advise him unofficially.

He was on bad terms with Major General Nelson A. Miles, who was the general in command. He discussed

even the details of questions of army strategy, not only with Miles but with the President and members of the

Cabinet. One of the most extraordinary decisions made during his tenure of office was that the act of the 9th

of March, appropriating $50,000,000 "for national defense," forbade money to be spent or even contracts to

be made by the quartermaster, the commissary, or the surgeon general. In his book Secretary Alger records

with pride the fact that all this money was spent for coast defense. In view of the fact that the navy did its

task, this expenditure was absolutely unnecessary and served merely to solace coast cities and munition

The regular army on April 1, 1898, consisted of 28,183 officers and men. An act of the 26th of April

authorized its increase to about double that size. As enlistment was fairly prompt, by August the army

consisted of 56,365 officers and men, the number of officers being but slightly increased. It was decided not

to use the militia as it was then organized, but to rely for numbers as usual chiefly upon a volunteer army,

authorized by the Act of the 22d of April, and by subsequent acts raised to a total of 200,000, with an

additional 3000 cavalry, 3500 engineers, and 10,000 "immunes," or men supposed not to be liable to tropical

diseases. The war seemed equally popular all over the country, and the million who offered themselves for

service were sufficient to allow due consideration for equitable state quotas and for physical fitness. There

were also sufficient KragJorgensen rifles to arm the increased regular army and Springfields for the

To provide an adequate number of officers for the volunteer army was more difficult. Even though a

considerable number were transferred from the regular to the volunteer army, they constituted only a small

proportion of the whole number necessary. Some few of those appointed were graduates of West Point, and

more had been in the militia. The great majority, however, had purely amateur experience, and many not even

so much. Those who did know something, moreover, did not have the same knowledge or experience. This

raw material was given no officer training whatsoever but was turned directly to the task of training the rank

and file. Nor were the appointments of new officers confined to the lower ranks. The country, still mindful of

its earlier wars, was charmed with the sentimental elevation of confederate generals to the rank of major

general in the new army, though a public better informed would hardly have welcomed for service in the

tropics the selection of men old enough to be generals in 1865 and then for thirtythree years without military

experience in an age of great development in the methods of warfare. The other commanding officers were as

old and were mostly chosen by seniority in a service retiring at sixtyfour. The unwonted strain of active

service naturally proved too great. At the most critical moment of the campaign in Cuba, the commanding

general, William R. Shafter, had eaten nothing for four days, and his plucky second in command, the wiry

Georgian cavalry leader of 1864 and 1865, General "Joe" Wheeler, was not physically fit to succeed him.

There is not the least doubt that the fighting spirit of the men was strong and did not fail, but the defect in

those branches of knowledge which are required to keep an army fit to fight is equally certain. The primary

cause for the melting of the American army by disease must be acknowledged to be the insufficient training

This hit or miss method, however, had its compensations, for it brought about some appointments of unusual

merit. Conspicuous were those of Colonel Leonard Wood and Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. The

latter had resigned as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a position in which he had contributed a great deal to

the efficiency of that Department, in order to take a more tangible part in the war. After raising among his

friends and the cowboys of the West a regiment of "Rough Riders," he declined its command on plea of

military inexperience. Roosevelt made one of those happy choices which are a mark of his administrative

ability in selecting as colonel Leonard Wood, an army surgeon whose quality he knew through common

To send into a midsummer tropical jungle an American army, untrained to take care of its health, for the most

part clothed in the regulation army woolens, and tumbled together in two months, was an undertaking

whichcould be justified only on the ground that the national safety demanded immediate action. In 1898,

however, it seemed to be universally taken for granted by people and administration, by professional soldier

as well as by public sentiment, that the army must invade Cuba without regard to its fitness for such active

service. The responsibility for this decision must rest upon the nation. The experience of centuries had proved

conspicuously that climate was the strongest defense of the Caribbean islands against invasion, and it was in

large measure the very sacrifice of so many American soldiers that induced the study of tropical diseases. In

1898 it could hardly be expected that the American command, inexperienced and eager for action, should

have recognized the mosquito as the carrier of yellow fever and the real enemy, or should have realized the

Fixed as was the determination to send an army into Cuba at the earliest possible moment, there had been a

wide diversity of opinion as to what should be the particular objective. General Miles wavered between the

choice of the island of Porto Rico and Puerto Principe, a city in the interior and somewhat east of the middle

of Cuba; the Department hesitated between Tunas on the south coast of Cuba, within touch of the insurgents,

and Mariel on the north, the seizure of which would be the first step in a siege of Havana. The situation at

Santiago, however, made that city the logical objective of the troops, and on the 31st of May, General Shafter

was ordered to be prepared to move. On the 7th of June he was ordered to sail with "not less than 10,000

men," but an alarming, though unfounded, rumor of a Spanish squadron off the north coast of Cuba delayed

the expedition until the 14th. With an army of seventeen thousand on thirtytwo transports, and accompanied

by eightynine newspaper correspondents, Shafter arrived on the 20th of June off Santiago.

The Spanish troops in Cubathe American control of the sea made it unnecessary to consider those

available in Spainamounted, according to returns in April, 1898, to 196,820. This formidable number,

however, was not available at any one strategic spot owing to the difficulty of transporting either troops or

supplies, particularly at the eastern end of the island, in the neighborhood of Santiago. It was estimated that

the number of men of use about Santiago was about 12,000, with 5000 approaching to assist. Perhaps 3000

insurgents were at hand under General Garcia. The number sent, then, was not inadequate to the task. Equal

numbers are not, indeed, ordinarily considered sufficient for an offensive campaign against fortifications, but

the American commanders counted upon a difference in morale between the two armies, which was justified

In planning the campaign against Santiago, Admiral Sampson wished the army immediately to assault the

defenses at the harbor mouth in order to open the way for the navy. General Shafter, however, after

conferring with General Garcia, the commander of the insurgents, decided to march overland against the city.

The army did not have sufficient small vessels to effect a landing; but the navy came to its assistance, and on

the 22d of June the first American troops began to disembark at Daiquiri, though it was not until the 26th that

the entire expedition was on shore. On the second day Siboney, which had a better anchorage and was some

six miles closer to Santiago, was made the base. From Siboney there stretched for eight or ten miles a rolling

country covered with heavy jungle brush and crossed by mere threads of roads. There was indeed a railroad,

but this followed a roundabout route by the coast. Through this novel and extremely uncomfortable country,

The first engagement took place at Las Guasimas, on the 24th of June. Here a force of about a thousand

dismounted cavalry, partly regulars and partly Rough Riders, defeated nearly twice their number of

Spaniards. This was the only serious resistance which the Americans encountered until they reached the

advanced defenses of Santiago. The next week they spent in getting supplies ashore, improving the roads, and

reconnoitering. The newspapers considered this interval entirely too long! The 30th of June found the

Americans confronting the main body of Spaniards in position, and on the 1st of July, the two armies joined

Between the opposing forces was the little river San Juan and its tributaries. The Spanish left wing was at El

Caney, supported by a stone blockhouse, rifle pits, and barbed wire, but with no artillery. About four miles

away was San Juan Hill, with more formidable works straddling the main road which led to Santiago.

Opposite El Caney, General Lawton was in command of about seven thousand Americans. The fight here

began at halfpast six in the morning, but the American artillery was placed at too great a distance to be very

effective. The result was a long and galling exchange of rifle firing, which is apt to prove trying to raw

troops. The infantry, however, advanced with persistency and showed marked personal initiative as they

pushed forward under such protection as the brush and grass afforded until they finally rushed a position

which gave opportunity to the artillery. After this they speedily captured the blockhouse.

The fight lasted over eight hours instead of two, as had been expected, and thus delayed General Lawton,

who was looked for at San Juan by the American left. The losses, too, were heavy, the total casualties

amounting to seven per cent of the force engaged. The Americans, however, had gained the position, and

after a battle which had been long and serious enough to test thoroughly the quality of the personnel of the

army. Whatever deficiencies the Americans may have had in organization, training, and military education,

they undoubtedly possessed fighting spirit, courage, and personal ingenuity, and these are, after all, the

The battle of El Caney was perhaps unnecessary, for the position lay outside the main Spanish line anal

would probably have been abandoned when San Juan fell. For that more critical movement General Shafter

kept about eight thousand troops and the personal command. Both he and General Wheeler, however, were

suffering from the climate and were unable to be with the troops. The problem of making a concerted

advance through the thick underbrush was a difficult one, and the disposition of the American troops was at

once revealed by a battery of artillery which used black powder, and by a captive balloon which was

The right wing here, after assuming an exposed position, was unable to act, as Lawton, by whom it was

expecting to be reinforced, was delayed at El Caney. The advance regiments were under the fire of the

artillery, the infantry, and the skillful sharpshooters of an invisible enemy and were also exposed to the fierce

heat of the sun, to which they were unaccustomed. The wounded were carried back on litters, turned over to

the surgeons, who worked manfully with the scantiest of equipment, and were then laid, often naked except

for their bandages, upon the damp ground. Regiment blocked regiment in the narrow road, and officers

carrying orders were again and again struck, as they emerged from cover, by the sharpshooters' fire. The want

of means of communication paralyzed the command, for all the equipment of a modern army was lacking:

Throughout the morning the situation grew worse, but the nerve of the men did not give way, and American

individual initiative rose to the boiling point. Realizing that safety lay only in advance, the officers on the

spot began to take control. General Hawkins, with the Sixth and Sixteenth Regulars, advanced against the

main blockhouse, which crested a slope of two hundred feet, and the men of the Seventyfirst New York

To the right rose Kettle Hill, jutting out and Banking the approach to the main position. Facing it and

dismounted were the First and Ninth Regular Cavalry, the latter a negro regiment, and the Rough Riders

under Colonel Roosevelt. The Tenth Infantry was between the two wings, and divided in the support of both.

A battery of Gatling guns was placed in position. The Americans steadily advanced in an irregular line,

though kept in some sort of formation by their officers. Breaking down brush and barbed wire and sheltering

themselves in the high grass, the men on the right wing worked their way up Kettle Hill, but before they

reached the rifle pits of the enemy, they saw the Spaniards retreating on the run. The audacity of the

Americans at the critical moment had insured the ultimate success of their attack and they found the final

The longer charge against the center of the enemy was in the meantime being pressed home, under the gallant

leadership of General Hawkins, who at times was far in advance of his line. The men of the right wing who

looked down from their new position on Kettle Hill, a quarter of a mile distant, saw the Spaniards give way

and the American center dash forward. In order to support this advance movement, the Gatlings were brought

to Kettle Hill, and General S.S. Sumner and Colonel Roosevelt led their men down Kettle and up San Juan

Hill, where they swept over the northern jut only a moment after Hawkins had carried the main blockhouse.

The San Juan position now in the hands of the Americans was the key of Santiago, but that entrenched city

lay a mile and a quarter distant and had still to be unlockeda task which presented no little difficulty. The

Americans, it is true, had an advantageous position on a hilltop, but the enemy had retired only a quarter of a

mile and were supported by the complete system of fortifications which protected Santiago. The American

losses totaled fifteen hundred, a number just about made good at this moment by the arrival of General

Duffield's brigade, which had followed the main expedition. The number of the Spanish force, which was

unknown to the Americans, was increased on the 3d of July by the arrival of a relief expedition under Colonel

Escario, with about four thousand men whom the insurgent forces had failed to meet and block, as had been

On the 2d of July there was desultory fighting, and on the 3d, General Shafter telegraphed to the Secretary of

War that he was considering the withdrawal of his troops to a strong position, about five miles in the rear.

The Secretary immediately replied: "Of course you can judge the situation better than we can at this end of

the line. If, however, you could hold your present position, especially San Juan Heights, the effect upon the

The Spanish commanders, however, did not share General Shafter's view as to the danger involving the

Americans. Both Admiral Cervera and General Blanco considered that the joint operations of the American

Army and Navy had rendered the reduction of Santiago only a question of time, but they differed as to the

course to be pursued. In the end, General Blanco, who was in supreme command, decided, after an exchange

of views with the Spanish Government and a consultation with the Captain of the German cruiser Geier, then

at Havana, to order the Spanish squadron to attempt an escape from Santiago harbor. Cervera's sailors had

hitherto been employed in the defense of the city, but with the arrival of the reinforcements under Escario he

found it possible to reman his fleet. An attempt to escape in the dark seemed impossible because of the

unremitting glare of the searchlights of the American vessels. Cervera determined upon the desperate

The blockade systematically planned by Admiral Sampson was conducted with a high degree of efficiency.

Each American ship had its definite place and its particular duty. When vessels were obliged to coal at

Guantanamo, forty miles distant, the next in line covered the cruising interval. The American combined

squadron was about double Cervera's in strength; his ships, however, were supposed to have the advantage in

speed, and it was conceivable that, by turning sharply to the one side or the other, they might elude the

blockading force. On the very day that Cervera made his desperate dash out of the harbor, as it happened, the

New York, Admiral Sampson's flagship, was out of line, taking the Admiral to a conference with General

Shafter at Siboney, a few miles to the eastward. The absence of the flagship, however, in no way weakened

the blockade, for, if Cervera turned westward he would find the squadron of Schley and the other vessels

designated to prevent his escape in that direction, while if he turned eastward he would almost at once be

engaged with the New York, which would then be in an advantageous position ahead of the chase.

At halfpast nine on the morning of the 3d of July, the first vessel of the Spanish fleet emerged from

Santiago Harbor. By 10:10 A.M. all the Spanish ships were outside of the harbor mouth. Commodore Schley,

on the Brooklyn, hoisted the signal to "close up," apparently on the understanding that Sampson's signal on

leaving for Siboney to "Disregard motions of the commanderinchief" had delegated the command to him.

Though this question of command later involved a bitter dispute, it was at the time of little moment, for

clouds of smoke obscured the signals so frequently that no complicated maneuver could have been guided by

them, and, as far as concerted action was concerned, the whole squadron was under exactly similar contingent

orders from Admiral Sampson. As a matter of fact, the thing to do was so obvious that the subsequent dispute

really raged on the point of who actually gave an order, the sense of which every one of the commanders

would have executed without order. If, therefore, the layman feels some annoyance at such a controversy

over naval red tape, he may have the consolation of knowing that all concerned, admirals and captains, did

the right and sensible thing at the time. If there be an exception, it was the curious maneuver of Schley, the

commander of the Brooklyn, who turned a complete circle away from the enemy after the battle had begun.

This action of his was certainly not due to a desire to escape, for the Brooklyn quickly turned again into the

fight. A controversy, too, has raged over this maneuver. Was it undertaken because the Brooklyn was about

to be rammed by the Vizcaya, or because Schley thought that his position blocked the fire of the other

American vessels? It is not unlikely that the commander of the Spanish ship hoped to ram the Brooklyn,

which was, because of her speed, a most redoubtable foe. But unless this maneuver saved the Brooklyn, it

had little result except to scare the Texas, upon whom she suddenly bore down out of a dense cloud of smoke.

Steering westward, the Spanish ships attempted to pass the battle line, but the American vessels kept pace

with them. For a short time the engagement was very severe, for practically all vessels of both fleets took

part, and the Spanish harbor batteries added their fire. At 10:15 A.M. the Maria Teresa, Admiral Cervera's

flagship, on fire and badly shattered by heavy shells, turned toward the beach. Five minutes later the

Oquendo, after something of a duel with the Texas, also turned inshore. The Brooklyn was in the lead of the

Americans, closely followed by the Oregon, which developed a wonderful burst of speed in excess of that

called for in her contract. These two ships kept up the chase of the Vizcaya and the Cristobal Colon, while the

slower vessels of the fleet attended to the two Spanish destroyers, Furor and Pluton. At 11:15 A.M. the

By this time, Sampson in the New York was rapidly approaching the fight, and now ordered the majority of

the vessels back to their stations. The Colon, fleeing westward and far ahead of the American ships, was

pursued by the Brooklyn, the Oregon, the Texas, the New York, and the armed yacht Vixen. It was a stern

chase, although the American vessels had some advantage by cutting across a slight concave indentation of

the coast, while the Colon steamed close inshore. At 1:15 P.M. a shot from the Oregon struck ahead of the

Colon, and it was evident that she was covered by the American guns. At 1:30 P.M. she gave over her flight

and made for shore some fortyfive miles west of Santiago. The victory was won. It has often been the good

fortune of Americans to secure their greatest victories on patriotic anniversaries and thereby to enhance the

psychological effect. Admiral Sampson was able to announce to the American people, as a Fourth of July

present, the destruction of the Spanish fleet with the loss of but one of his men and but slight damage to his

On the hills above Santiago the American Army had now only the land forces of the Spaniards to contend

with. Shafter's demand for unconditional surrender met with a refusal, and there ensued a week of military

quiet. During this time General Shafter conducted a correspondence with the War Department, in judging

which it is charitable to remember that the American commander weighed three hundred pounds, that he was

sweltering under a hot sun, and that he was sixtythree years old, and sick. Too humane to bombard Santiago

while Hobson and his men were still in Spanish hands, he could not forgive Sampson for not having forced

the narrow and wellmined channel at the risk of his fleet. The War Department, sharing Shafter's

indignation, prepared to attempt the entrance with one of its own transports protected by baled hay, as had

been done on the Mississippi during the Civil War. Shafter continued to be alarmed at the situation. Without

reenforcements he could not attack, and he proposed to allow the Spaniards to evacuate. The War Department

forbade this alternative and, on the 10th of July, he began the bombardment of Santiago.

The Secretary of War then hit upon the really happy though quite unmilitary device of offering, in return for

unconditional surrender, to transport the Spanish troops, at once and without parole, back to their own

country. Secretary Alger was no unskillful politician, and he was right in believing that this device, though

unconventional, would make a strong appeal to an army three years away from home and with dwindling

hopes of ever seeing Spain again. On the 15th of July a capitulation was agreed upon, and the terms of

surrender included not only the troops in Santiago but all those in that military districtabout twentyfour

thousand men, with cannon, rifles, ammunition, rations, and other military supplies. Shafter's

recommendation that the troops be allowed to carry their arms back to Spain with them was properly refused

by the War Department. Arrangements were made for Spanish ships paid by the United States to take the men

immediately to Spain. This extraordinary operation was begun on the 8th of August, while the war was still in

The Santiago campaign, like the Mexican War, was fought chiefly by regulars. The Rough Riders and the

Seventyfirst New York Regiment were the only volunteer units to take a heavy share. Yet the absence of

effective staff management was so marked that, as compared with the professional accuracy shown by the

navy, the whole campaign on land appears as an amateur undertaking. But the individual character of both

volunteers and regulars was high. The American victory was fundamentally due to the fighting spirit of the

In the meantime the health of the American Army was causing grave concern to its more observant leaders.

Six weeks of Cuban climate had taken out of the army all that exuberant energy which it had brought with it

from the north. The army had accomplished its purpose only at the complete sacrifice of its fighting strength.

Had the Spanish commander possessed more nerve and held out a little longer, he might well have seen his

victorious enemies wither before his eyes, as the British had before Cartagena in 1741. On the 3d of August a

large number of the officers of the Santiago army, including Generals Wheeler, Sumner, and Lawton, and

Colonel Roosevelt, addressed a round robin to General Shafter on the alarming condition of the army. Its

substance is indicated in the following sentences: "This army must be moved at once or it will perish. As an

army it can be safely moved now. Persons responsible for preventing such a move will be responsible for the

unnecessary loss of many thousands of lives." Already on the 1st of August, General Shafter had reported

4255 sick, of whom 3164 were cases of yellow fever, that deadly curse of Cuba, which the lack of proper

quarantine had so often allowed to invade the shores of the United States. On the 3d of August, even before

General Shafter had received the round robin, the Secretary of War authorized the withdrawal of at least a

portion of the army, which was to be replaced by supposedly immune regiments. By the middle of August,

the soldiers began to arrive at Camp Wikoff at Montauk Point, on the eastern end of Long Island. Through

this camp, which had been hastily put into condition to receive them, there passed about thirtyfive thousand

soldiers, of whom twenty thousand were sick. When the public saw those who a few weeks before had been

healthy and rollicking American boys, now mere skeletons, borne helpless in stretchers and looking old and

shriveled, a wave of righteous indignation against Secretary Alger swept over the country, and eventually

The distressing experience of the army was too real not to have its constructive effect. Men like William

Crawford Gorgas were inspired to study the sanitation and the diseases of the tropics and have now made it

possible for white men to live there safely. Men of affairs like Elihu Root were stimulated to give their talents

to army administration. Fortunately the boys were brought north just in time to save their lives, and the

majority, after a recuperation of two or three years, regained their normal health.

The primary responsibility for this gamble with death rested with those who sent an expedition from the

United States to the tropics in midsummer when the measures necessary to safeguard its health were not yet

known. This responsibility rested immediately upon the American people themselves, all too eager for a war

for which they were not prepared and for a speedy victory at all costs. For this national impatience they had

to pay dearly. The striking contrast, however, between the efficiency of the navy and the lack of preparation

on the part of the army shows that the people as a whole would have supported a more thorough preparation

of the army, had the responsible officials possessed sufficient courage and intelligence to have demanded it;

nor would the people have been unwilling to defer victory until autumn, had they been honestly informed of

the danger of tropical disease into which they were sending the flower of their youth. Such a postponement

would not only have meant better weather but it would have given time to teach the new officers their duty in

safeguarding the health of their men as far as possible, and this precaution alone would have saved many

lives. Owing to the greater practical experience of the officers in the regular regiments, the death rate among

the men in their ranks fell far below that among the volunteers, even though many of the men with the

regulars had enlisted after the declaration of war. On the other hand, speed as well as sanitation was an

element in the war, and the soldier who was sacrificed to lack of preparation may be said to have served his

country no less than he who died in battle. Strategy and diplomacy in this instance were enormously

facilitated by the immediate invasion of Cuba, and perhaps the outcome justified the cost. The question of

No such equation of values, however, can hold the judgment in suspense in the case of the host of secondary

errors that grew out of the indolence of Secretary Alger and his worship of politics. Probably General Miles

was mistaken in his charges concerning embalmed beef, and possibly the canned beef was not so bad as it

tasted; but there can be no excuse for a Secretary of War who did not consider it his business to investigate

the question of proper rations for an army in the tropics simply because Congress had, years before, fixed a

ration for use within the United States. There was no excuse for sending many of the men clad in heavy army

woolens. There was no excuse for not providing a sufficient number of surgeons and abundant hospital

service. There was little excuse for the appointment of General Shafter, which was made in part for political

reasons. There was no excuse for keeping at the head of the army administration General Nelson A. Miles,

The navy did not escape controversy. In fact, a war fought under the eyes of hundreds of uncensored

newspaper correspondents unskilled in military affairs could not fail to supply a daily grist of scandal to an

appreciative public. The controversy between Sampson and Schley, however, grew out of incompatible

personalities stirred to rivalry by indiscreet friends and a quarrelsome public. Captain Sampson was chosen to

command, and properly so, because of his recognized abilities. Commodore Schley, a genial and

openhearted man, too much given to impulse, though he outranked Sampson, was put under his command.

Sampson was not gracious in his treatment of the Commodore, and ill feeling resulted. When the time came

to promote both officers for their good conduct, Secretary Long by recommending that Sampson be raised

eight numbers and Schley six, reversed their relative positions as they had been before the war. This

recommendation, in itself proper, was sustained by the Senate, and all the vitality the controversy ever had

then disappeared, though it remains a bone of contention to be gnawed by biographers and historians.

While the American people were concentrating their attention upon the blockade of Santiago near their own

shores, the situation in the distant islands of the Pacific was rapidly becoming acute. All through June, Dewey

had been maintaining himself, with superb nerve, in Manila Harbor, in the midst of uncertain neutrals. A

couple of unwieldy United States monitors were moving slowly to his assistance from the one side, while a

superior Spanish fleet was approaching from the other. On the 26th of June, the Spanish Admiral Camara had

reached Port Said, but he was not entirely happy. Several of his vessels proved to be in that ineffective

condition which was characteristic of the Spanish Navy. The Egyptian authorities refused him permission to

refit his ships or to coal, and the American consul had with foresight bought up much of the coal which the

Spanish Admiral had hoped to secure and take aboard later from colliers. Nevertheless the fleet passed

Fully alive to the danger of the situation, the Naval War Board gave orders on the 29th of June for a squadron

under Commodore Watson to start for the Spanish coast in hope of drawing Camara back.

The alarm which had previously been created on the American coast by the shrouded approach of Cervera

naturally suggested that the Americans themselves might win one of those psychological victories now

recognized as such an important factor in modern warfare. The chief purpose of future operations was to

convince the Spanish people that they were defeated, and nothing would more conduce to this result than to

bring war to their doors. This was, moreover, an operation particularly suited to the conditions under which

the United States was waging war, for publicity was here a helping factor. Admiral Sampson, more intent on

immediate business than on psychological pressure, was not enthusiastically in favor of the plan.

Nevertheless preparation proceeded with that deliberation which in this case was part of the game, and

presently the shadow of an impending American attack hung heavy over the coasts of Spain. The Spanish

Government at first perhaps considered the order a bluff which the United States would not dare to carry out

while Cervera's fleet was so near its own shores; but with the destruction of Cervera's ships the plan became

plainly possible, and on the 8th of July the Spanish Government ordered Camara back to parade his vessels

But, before Camara was called home, the public were watching his advance against the little American fleet

at Manila, with an anxiety perhaps greater than Dewey's own. Nothing in modern war equals in dramatic

tension the deadly, slow, inevitable approach of a fleet from one side of the world against its enemy on the

other. Both beyond the reach of friendly help, each all powerful until it meets its foe, their home countries

have to watch the seemingly never coming, but nevertheless certain, clash, which under modern conditions

means victory or destruction. It is the highest development of that situation which has been so exploited in a

myriad forms by the producers of dramas for the moving pictures and which nightly holds audiences silent;

but it plays itself out in war, not in minutes but in months. No one who lived through that period can ever

forget the progress of Camara against Dewey, or that of Rozhestvensky with the Russian fleet, six years later,

Meanwhile another move was made in the Caribbean. General Miles had from the first considered Porto Rico

the best immediate objective: it was much nearer Spain than Cuba, was more nearly selfsufficing if left

alone, and less defensible if attacked. The War Department, on the 7th of June, had authorized Miles to

assemble thirty thousand troops for the invasion of Porto Rico, and preparations for this expedition were in

progress throughout the course of the Santiago campaign. Miles at the time of the surrender of Santiago was

actually off that city with reinforcements, which thereupon at once became available as a nucleus to be used

against Porto Rico. On the 21st of July he left Guantanamo Bay and, taking the Spaniards as well as the War

Department completely by surprise as to his point of attack, he effected a landing on the 26th at Guanica, near

The expeditionary force to Porto Rico, however, consisted not of 30,000 men but of only about 15,000; and it

was not fully assembled on the island until the 8th of August. The total Spanish forces amounted to only

about 10,000, collected on the defensible ground to the north and in the interior, so that they did not disturb

the disembarkation. The American Army which had been dispatched from large Atlantic ports, such as

Charleston and Newport News, seems to have been better and more systematically equipped than the troops

sent to Santiago. The Americans occupied Guanica, Ponce, and Arroyo with little or no opposition, and were

Between the American forces and the main body of the enemy stretched a range of mountains running east

and west through the length of the island. San Juan, the only fortress, which was the main objective of the

American Army, lay on the opposite side of this mountain range, on the northern coast of the island. The

approach to the fortress lay along a road which crossed the hills and which possessed natural advantages for

defense. On the 7th of August a forward movement was begun. While General Wilson's army advanced from

Ponce along the main road toward San Juan and General Brooke moved north from Arroyo, General Schwan

was to clear the western end of the island and work his way around to Arecibo, toward which General Henry

was to advance through the interior. The American armies systematically worked forward, with an occasional

skirmish in which they were always victorious, and were received with a warm welcome by the teeming

native population. On the 13th of August, General Wilson was on the point of clearing his first mountain

range, General Schwan had occupied Mayaguez, and General Henry had passed through the mountains and

was marching down the valley of the Arecibo, when orders arrived from Washington to suspend operations.

The center of interest, however, remained in the faraway Philippines. Dewey, who had suddenly burst upon

the American people as their first hero, remained a fixed star in their admiration, a position in which his own

good judgment and the fortunate scarcity of newspaper correspondents served to maintain him. From him

action was expected, and it had been prepared for. Even before news arrived on the 7th of May of Dewey's

victory on the 1st of May, the Government had anticipated such a result and had decided to send an army to

support him. San Francisco was made a rendezvous for volunteers, and on the l2th of May, General Wesley

Merritt was assigned to command the expedition. Dewey reported that he could at any time command the

surrender of Manila, but that it would be useless unless he had troops to occupy the city.

On the 19th of May, General Merritt received the following orders: "The destruction of the Spanish fleet at

Manila, followed by the taking of the naval station at Cavite, the paroling of the garrisons, and the acquisition

of the control of the bay, have rendered it necessary, in the further prosecution of the measures adopted by

this Government for the purpose of bringing about an honorable and durable peace with Spain, to send an

army of occupation to the Philippines for the twofold purpose of completing the reduction of the Spanish

power in that quarter and giving order and security to the islands while in the possession of the United

On the 30th of June the first military expedition, after a bloodless capture of the island of Guam, arrived in

Manila Bay. A second contingent arrived on the 17th of July, and on the 25th, General Merritt himself with a

third force, which brought the number of Americans up to somewhat more than 10,000. The Spaniards had

about 13,000 men guarding the rather antiquated fortifications of old Manila and a semicircle of blockhouses

It would have been easy to compel surrender or evacuation by the guns of the fleet, had it not been for an

additional element in the situation. Manila was already besieged, or rather blockaded, on the land side, by an

army of nearly ten thousand Philippine insurgents under their shrewd leader, Emilio Aguinaldo. It does not

necessarily follow that those who are fighting the same enemy are fighting together, and in this case the

relations between the Americans and the insurgents were far from intimate, though Dewey had kept the

General Merritt decided to hold no direct communication with Aguinaldo until the Americans were in

possession of the city, but landed his army to the south of Manila beyond the trenches of the Filipinos. On the

30th of July, General F. V. Greene made an informal arrangement with the Filipino general for the removal of

the insurgents from the trenches directly in front of the American forces, and immediately advanced beyond

their original position. The situation of Manila was indeed desperate and clearly demanded a surrender to the

American forces, who might be relied upon to preserve order and protect property. The Belgian Consul, M.

Eduard Andre, urged this course upon the Spanish commander. The GovernorGeneral, Fermin Jaudenes,

exhibited the same spirit which the Spanish commanders revealed throughout the war: though

constitutionally indisposed to take any bold action, he nevertheless considered it a point of honor not to

recognize the inevitable. He allowed it to be understood that he could not surrender except to an assault,

although well knowing that such a melee might cause the city to be ravaged by the Filipinos. M. Andre,

however, succeeded by the 11th of August in arranging a verbal understanding that the fleet should fire upon

the city and that the troops should attack, but that the Spaniards should make no real resistance and should

The chief contestants being thus amicably agreed to a spectacular but bloodless battle, the main interest lay in

the future action of the interested and powerful spectators in the harbor. Admiral Dewey, though relieved by

the arrival of the monitor Monterey on the 4th of August, was by no means certain that the German squadron

would stand by without interference and see the city bombarded. On the 9th of August he gave notice of the

impending action and ordered foreign vessels out of the range of fire. On the 13th of August Dewey steamed

into position before the city. As the American vessels steamed past the British Immortalite, her guard paraded

and her band played Admiral Dewey's favorite march. Immediately afterwards the British commander,

Captain Chichester, moved his vessels toward the city and took a position between our fleet and the German

squadron. The foreign vessels made no interference, but the Filipinos were more restless. Eagerly watching

the American assault, they rushed forward when they saw it successful, and began firing on the Spaniards just

as the latter hoisted the white flag. They were quieted, though with difficulty, and by nightfall the city was

under the Stars and Stripes, with American troops occupying the outworks facing the forces of Aguinaldo,

While the dispatch of Commodore Watson's fleet to Spain was still being threatened and delayed, while

General Miles was rapidly approaching the capital of Porto Rico, and on the same day that Admiral Dewey

and General Merritt captured Manila, Spain yielded. On the 18th of July Spain had taken the first step toward

peace by asking for the good offices of the French Government. On the 26th of July, M. Cambon, the French

Ambassador at Washington, opened negotiations with the United States. On the 12th of August, a protocol

was signed, but, owing to the difference in time on the opposite side of the globe, to say nothing of the

absence of cable communication, not in time to prevent Dewey's capture of Manila. This protocol provided

for the meeting of peace commissioners at Paris not later than the 1st of October. Spain agreed immediately

to evacuate and relinquish all claim to Cuba; to cede to the United States ultimately all other islands in the

West Indies, and one in the Ladrones; and to permit the United States to "occupy and hold the city, bay, and

harbor of Manila pending the conclusion of a treaty of peace which shall determine the control, disposition,

President McKinley appointed the Secretary of State, William R. Day, as president of the peace commission,

and summoned John Hay home from England to take his place. The other commissioners were Senators

Cushman K. Davis and William P. Frye, Republicans, Senator George Gray, Democrat, and Whitelaw Reid,

the editor of the New York "Tribune". The secretary of the commission was the distinguished student of

international law, John Bassett Moore. On most points there was general agreement as to what they were to

do. Cuba, of course, must be free. It was, moreover, too obvious to need much argument that Spanish rule on

the American continent must come altogether to an end. As there was no organized local movement in Porto

Rico to take over the government, its cession to the United States was universally recognized as inevitable.

Nevertheless when the two commissions met in Paris, there proved to be two exciting subjects of

controversy, and at moments it seemed possible that the attempt to arrange a peace would prove unsuccessful.

However reassured the people were by the successful termination of the war, for those in authority the period

The first of these points was raised by the Spanish commissioners. They maintained that the separation of

Cuba from Spain involved the rending of the Empire, and that Cuba should therefore take responsibilities as

well as freedom. The specific question was that of debts contracted by Spain, for the security of which Cuban

revenues had been pledged. There was a manifest lack of equity in this claim, for Cuba had not been party to

the contracting of the obligations, and the money had been spent in stifling her own desire to be free rather

than on the development of her resources. Nevertheless the Spanish commissioners could feel the support of a

sustaining public opinion about them, for the bulk of these obligations were held in France and investors were

doubtful of the ability of Spain, if bereft of her colonies, to carry her enormous financial burdens. The point,

then, was stoutly urged, but the American commissioners as stoutly defended the interests of their clients, the

Cubans, and held their ground. Thanks to their efforts, the Cuban republic was born free of debt.

The other point was raised by the American commissioners, and was both more important and more

complicated, for when the negotiation began the United States had not fully decided what it wanted. It was

necessary first to decide and then to obtain the consent of Spain with regard to the great unsettled question of

the disposition of the Philippines. Dewey's victory came as an overwhelming surprise to the great majority of

Americans snugly encased, as they supposed themselves to be, in a separate hemisphere. Nearly all looked

upon it as a military operation only, not likely to lead to later complications. Many discerning individuals,

however, both in this country and abroad, at once saw or feared that occupation would lead to annexation.

Carl Schurz, as early as the 9th of May, wrote McKinley expressing the hope that "we remain true to our

promise that this is a war of deliverance and not one of greedy ambition, conquest, selfaggrandizement." In

August, Andrew Carnegie wrote in "The North American Review" an article on "Distant PossessionsThe

Sentiment in favor of retaining the islands, however, grew rapidly in volume and in strength. John Hay wrote

to Andrew Carnegie on the 22d of August: "I am not allowed to say in my present fix (ministerial

responsibility) how much I agree with you. The only question in my mind is how far it is now POSSIBLE for

us to withdraw from the Philippines. I am rather thankful it is not given to me to solve that momentous

question." On the 5th of September, he wrote to John Bigelow: "I fear you are right about the Philippines, and

I hope the Lord will be good to us poor devils who have to take care of them. I marvel at your suggesting that

we pay for them. I should have expected no less of your probity; but how many except those educated by you

in the school of morals and diplomacy would agree with you? Where did I pass you on the road of life? You

used to be a little my senior [twentyone years]; now you are ages younger and stronger than I am. And yet I

Not all those who advocated the retention of the Philippines did so reluctantly or under the pressure of a

feeling of necessity. In the very first settlers of our country, the missionary impulse beat strong. John

Winthrop was not less intent than Cromwell on the conquest of all humanity by his own ideals; only he

believed the most efficacious means to be the power of example instead of force. Just now there was a

renewed sense throughout the AngloSaxon public that it was the duty of the civilized to promote the

civilization of the backward, and the Cromwellian method waxed in popularity. Kipling, at the summit of his

influence, appealed to a wide and powerful public in his "White Man's Burden," which appeared in 1899.

Take up the White Man's burden Send forth the best ye breed Go bind your sons to exile To serve your

captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild Your new caught, sullen peoples,

Take up the White Man's burden And reap his old reward The blame of those ye better, The hate of those

ye guard The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah, slowly!) towards the light: Why brought ye us from bondage,

McKinley asked those having opinions on the subject of this burden to write to him, and a strong call for the

United States to take up her share in the regeneration of mankind came from important representatives of the

religious public. Nor was the attitude of those different who saw the possibilities of increased traffic with the

East. The expansion of the area of home distribution seemed a halfway house between the purely nationalistic

policy, which was becoming a little irksome, and the competition of the open world.

It was not, however, the urging of these forces alone which made the undecided feel that the annexation of

the Philippines was bound to come. The situation itself seemed to offer no other solution. Gradually evidence

as to the local conditions reached America. The Administration was anxious for the commissioners to have

the latest information, and, as Admiral Dewey remained indispensable at Manila, General Merritt was

ordered to report at Paris, where he arrived on the 6th of October. He was of the opinion that the Americans

must remain in the Philippines, and his reports were sustained by a cablegram from Dewey on the 14th of

October reading: "Spanish authority has been completely destroyed in Luzon, and general anarchy prevails

without the limits of the city and Bay of Manila. Strongly probable that islands to the south will fall into the

same state soon." The history of the previous few years and existing conditions made it highly improbable

that Spanish domination could ever be restored. The withdrawal of the United States would therefore not

As to the regime which would result from our withdrawal, Admiral Dewey judged from the condition of

those areas where Spanish authority had already ceased and that of the Americans had not yet been

established. "Distressing reports," he cabled, "have been received of inhuman cruelty practised on religious

and civil authorities in other parts of these islands. The natives appear unable to govern." It was highly

probable, in fact, that if the United States did not take the islands, Spain would sell her vanishing equity in

the property to some other power which possessed the equipment necessary to conquer the Philippines. To

many this eventuality did not seem objectionable, as is indicated by the remark, already quoted, of an

American official to certain Germans: "We don't want the Philippines; why don't you take them?" That this

attitude was foolishly Quixotic is obvious, but more effective in the molding of public opinion was the

In such a changing condition of public sentiment, McKinley was a better index of what the majority wanted

than a referendum could have been. In August he stated: "I do not want any ambiguity to be allowed to

remain on this point. The negotiators of both countries are the ones who shall resolve upon the permanent

advantages which we shall ask in the archipelago, and decide upon the intervention, disposition, and

government of the Philippines." His instructions to the commissioners actually went farther:

"Avowing unreservedly the purpose which has animated all our effort, and still solicitous to adhere to it, we

cannot be unmindful that, without any desire or design on our part, the war has brought us new duties and

responsibilities which we must meet and discharge as becomes a great nation on whose growth and career

from the beginning the Ruler of Nations has plainly written the high command and pledge of civilization.

"Incidental to our tenure in the Philippines is the commercial opportunity to which American statesmanship

cannot be indifferent.... Asking only the open door for ourselves, we are ready to accord the open door to

"In view of what has been stated, the United States cannot accept less than the cession in full rights and

The American commissioners were divided. Day favored the limited terms of the instructions; Davis, Frye,

and Reid wished the whole group of the Philippines; Gray emphatically protested against taking any part of

the islands. On the 26th of October, Hay telegraphed that the President had decided that "the cession must be

of the whole Archipelago or none." The Spanish commissioners objected strongly to this new development,

and threatened to break off the negotiations which otherwise were practically concluded. This outcome would

have put the United States in the unfortunate position of continuing a war which it had begun in the interests

of Cuba for the quite different purpose of securing possession of the Philippines. The Spanish were probably

not without hopes that under these changed conditions they might be able to bring to their active assistance

that latent sympathy for them which existed so strongly in Europe. Nor was the basis of the claim of the

United States entirely clear. On the 3d of November the American commissioners cabled to the President that

they were convinced that the occupation of Manila did not constitute a conquest of the islands as a whole.

By this time, however, the President had decided that the United States must have the islands. On the 13th of

November, Hay telegraphed that the United States was entitled to an indemnity for the cost of the war. This

argument was not put forward because the United States wished indemnity but to give a technical basis for

the American claim to the Philippines. In the same cablegram, Hay instructed the commissioners to offer

Spain ten or twenty millions for all the islands. Upon this financial basis the treaty was finally concluded; it

was signed on December 10, 1898; and ratifications were exchanged on April 11, 1899.

The terms of the treaty provided, first, for the relinquishment of sovereignty over Cuba by Spain. The island

was to be occupied by the United States, in whose hands its subsequent disposition was left. All other

Spanish islands in the West Indies, together with Guam in the Ladrones, were ceded to the United States. The

whole archipelago of the Philippines, with water boundaries carefully but not quite accurately drawn, was

ceded to the United States, which by the same article agreed to pay Spain $20,000,000. All claims for

indemnity or damages between the two nations, or either nation and the citizens of the other, were mutually

relinquished, the United States assuming the adjudication and settlement of all claims of her own citizens

This treaty, even more than the act of war, marked a turning point in the relation of the United States to the

outside world. So violent was the opposition of those who disapproved, and so great the reluctance of even

the majority of those who approved, to acknowledge that the United States had emerged from the isolated

path which it had been treading since 1823, that every effort was made to minimize the significance of the

beginning of a new era in American history. It was argued by those delving into the past that the Philippines

actually belonged to the Western Hemisphere because the famous demarcation line drawn by Pope Alexander

VI, in 1493, ran to the west of them; it was, indeed, partly in consequence of that line that Spain had

possessed the islands. Before Spain lost Mexico her Philippine trade had actually passed across the Pacific,

through the Mexican port of Acapulco, and across the Atlantic. Yet these interesting historical facts were

scarcely related in the mind of the public to the more immediate and tangible fact that the annexation of the

Philippines gave the United States a farflung territory situated just where all the powerful nations of the

In opposition to those who disapproved of this extension of territory, it was argued more cogently that, in

spite of the prevailing belief of the thirty preceding years, the United States had always been an expanding

power, stretching its authority over new areas with a persistency and rapidity hardly equaled by any other

nation, and that this latest step was but a new stride in the natural expansion of the United States. But here

again the similarity between the former and the most recent steps was more apparent than real. Louisiana,

Florida, Texas, California, and Oregon, had all been parts of an obvious geographical whole. Alaska, indeed,

was detached, but its acquisition had been partly accidental, and it was at least a part of the American

continent and would, in the opinion of many, eventually become contiguous by the probable annexation of

Canada. Moreover, none of the areas so far occupied by the United States had been really populated. It had

been a logical expectation that American people would soon overflow these acquired lands and assimilate the

inhabitants. In the case of the Philippines, on the other hand, it was fully recognized that Americans could at

most be only a small governing class, and that even Porto Rico, accessible as it was, would prove too thickly

The terms of the treaty with Spain, indeed, recognized these differences. In all previous instances, except

Alaska, the added territory had been incorporated into the body of the United States with the expectation,

now realized except in Hawaii, of reaching the position of selfgoverning and participating States of the

Union. Even in the case of Alaska it had been provided that all inhabitants remaining in residence, except

uncivilized Indians, should become citizens of the United States. In the case of these new annexations

resulting from the war with Spain, provision was made only for the religious freedom of the inhabitants. "The

civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded to the United States

shall be determined by the Congress." There could therefore be no doubt that for the first time the United

States had acquired colonies and that the question whether they should develop into integral parts of the

country or into dependencies of an imperialistic republic was left to the future to decide.

It was but natural that such striking events and important decisions should loom large as factors in the

following presidential campaign. The Republicans endorsed the Administration, emphatically stated that the

independence and selfgovernment of Cuba must be secured, and, with reference to the other islands,

declared that "the largest measure of selfgovernment consistent with their welfare and our duties shall be

secured to them by law." The Democrats asserted that "no nation can long endure half republic and half

empire," and favored "an immediate declaration of the Nation's purpose to give the Filipinos, first, a stable

form of government; second, independence; and third, protection from outside interference such as has been

given for nearly a century to the republics of Central and South America." The Democrats were at a

disadvantage owing to the fact that, since so much had been irrevocably accomplished, they could not raise

the whole issue of colonial expansion but only advocate a different policy for the handling of what seemed to

most people to be details. The distrust which their financial program of 1896 had excited, moreover, still

hung over them and repelled many voters who might have supported them on questions of foreign and

colonial policies. Nevertheless the reflection of President McKinley by a greatly increased majority must be

taken as indicating that the American people generally approved of his policies and accepted the momentous

changes which had been brought about by the successful conclusion of the war with Spain.

In a large way, ever since the Spanish War, the United States has been adjusting its policy to the world

conditions of which that struggle first made the people aware. The period between 1898 and 1917 will

doubtless be regarded by the historian a hundred years from now as a time of transition similar to that

between 1815 and 1829. In that earlier period John Marshall and John Quincy Adams did much by their

wisdom and judgment to preserve what was of value in the old regime for use in the new. In the later period

John Hay had an acquaintance with the best traditions of American statesmanship which falls to the lot of few

men. He was private secretary to Lincoln during the Civil War, he had as his most intimate friend in later life

Henry Adams, the historian, who lived immersed in the memories and traditions of a family which has taken

a distinguished part in the Government of the United States from its beginning. Possessed of an ample

fortune, Hay had lived much abroad and in the society of the men who governed Europe. He was experienced

in newspaper work and in diplomacy, and he came to be Secretary of State fresh from a residence in England

where as Ambassador he had enjoyed wide popularity. With a lively wit and an engaging charm of manner,

he combined a knowledge of international law and of history which few of our Secretaries have possessed.

Moreover he knew men and how to handle them. Until the death of McKinley in 1901 he was left almost free

in the administration of his office. He once said that the President spoke to him of his office scarcely once a

month. In the years from 1901 to 1905 he worked under very different conditions, for President Roosevelt

discussed affairs of state with him daily and took some matters entirely into his own hands.

Hay found somewhat better instruments to work with than most Americans were inclined to believe probable.

It is true that the American diplomatic service abroad has not always reflected credit upon the country. It has

contained extremely able and distinguished men but also many who have been stupid, ignorant, and

illmannered. The State Department in Washington, however, has almost escaped the vicissitudes of politics

and has been graced by the long and disinterested service of competent officials. From 1897 to 1913,

moreover, the service abroad was built up on the basis of continuity and promotion.

One sign of a new epoch was the changed attitude of the American public toward annexation. While the war

was in progress the United States yielded to the desires of Hawaii, and annexed the islands as a part of the

United States, with the hope of their eventual statehood. In 1899 the United States consented to change the

cumbrous and unsuccessful arrangement by which, in partnership with Great Britain and Germany, it had

supervised the native government of Samoa. No longer unwilling to acquire distant territories, the United

States took in full possession the island of Tutuila, with its harbor of Pago Pago, and consented to Germany's

taking the remainder of the islands, while Great Britain received compensation elsewhere. In 1900 the

Government paid over to Spain $100,000 for Sibutu and Cagayan Sulu, two islands really belonging to the

Philippines but overlooked in the treaty. Proud of the navy and with a new recognition of its necessities, the

United States sought naval stations in those areas where the fleet might have to operate. In the Pacific the

Government obtained Midway and Wake islands in 1900. In the West Indies, the harbor of Guantanamo was

secured from Cuba, and in 1903 a treaty was made with Denmark for the purchase of her islandswhich,

By her policy toward Cuba, the United States gave the world a striking example of observing the plighted

word even when contrary to the national interest. For a century the United States had expected to acquire the

"Pearl of the Antilles." Spain in the treaty of peace refused to recognize the Cuban Government and

relinquished the island into the hands of the United States. The withdrawal of the Spanish troops left the

Cuban Government utterly unable to govern, and the United States was forced to occupy the island.

Nevertheless the Government had begun the war with a recognition of Cuban independence and to that

declaration it adhered. The country gave the best of its talent to make the islands selfgoverning as quickly as

possible. Harvard University invited Cuban teachers to be its guests at a summer session. American medical

men labored with a martyr's devotion to stamp out disease. General Wood, as military governor, established

order and justice and presided over the evolution of a convention assembled to draft a constitution for the

people of Cuba and to determine the relations of the United States and Cuba. These relations, indeed, were

already under consideration at Washington and were subsequently embodied in the Platt Amendment.* This

measure directed the President to leave the control of Cuba to the people of the island as soon as they should

agree to its terms. It also required that the Government of Cuba should never allow a foreign power to impair

its independence; that it would contract no debt for which it could not provide a sinking fund from the

ordinary revenue; that it would grant to the United States "lands necessary for coaling or naval stations"; that

it would provide for the sanitation of its cities; and that the United States should have the right to intervene,

"for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of

life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging" certain obligations with respect to Spanish subjects

which the United States had assumed in the treaty signed at Paris. After some hesitation the convention added

these provisions to the new constitution of Cuba. On May 20, 1902, the American troops withdrew, leaving

Cuba in better condition than she had ever been before. Subsequently the United States was forced to

intervene to preserve order, but, though the temptation was strong to remain, the American troops again

withdrew after they had done their constructive work. The voluntary entrance of Cuba into the Great War in

cooperation with the United States was a tribute to the generosity and honesty of the American people.

Porto Rico presented a problem different from that which the United States had to solve in Cuba. There

existed no native organization which could supply even the basis for the formation of a government. The

people seemed, indeed, to have no desire for independence, and public sentiment in the United States

generally favored the permanent possession of the island. After a period of rule entirely at the discretion of

the President, Congress established in 1900 a form of government based on that of the American territories.

Porto Rico remained, however, unincorporated into the Union, and it was long doubtful whether it would

remain a dependency or would ultimately attain statehood. In 1917, however, the degree of selfgovernment

was increased, and the inhabitants were made American citizens. It now seems probable that the island will

Meanwhile on the other side of the world the United States had a more unpleasant task. The revolted

Filipinos, unlike the Cubans, had not declared themselves for independence but for redress of grievances. The

United States had assisted Aguinaldo, at the moment in exile, to return to the islands after the Battle of

Manila Bay but had not officially recognized him as having authority. When he saw Spanish power

disappearing under American blows, he declared himself in favor of the abolition of all foreign rule. This

declaration, of course, in no way bound the United States, to whom the treaty with Spain, the only recognized

sovereign, ceded the island absolutely. There was no flaw in the title of the United States, and there were no

obligations, save those of humanity, to bind the Americans in their treatment of the natives. Nevertheless, the

great majority of Americans would doubtless have gladly favored a policy similar to that pursued in the case

of Cuba, had it seemed in any way practicable. Unfortunately, however, the Filipinos did not constitute a

nation but only a congeries of peoples and tribes of differing race and origin, whom nearly four centuries of

Spanish rule had not been able to make live at peace with one another. Some were Christians, some

Mohammedans, some heathen savages; some wore European clothes, some none at all. The particular tribe

which formed the chief support of Aguinaldo, the Tagalogs, comprised less than one half of the population of

the island of Luzon. The United States had taken the islands largely because it did not see any one else to

whom it could properly shift the burden. The shoulders of the Tagalogs did not seem broad enough for the

The United States prepared, therefore, to carry on the task which it had assumed, while Aguinaldo, with his

army circling Manila, prepared to dispute its title. On February 4, 1899, actual hostilities broke out. By this

time Aguinaldo had a capital at Malolos, thirty miles north of Manila, a government, thirty or forty thousand

troops, and an influence which he was extending throughout the islands by means of secret organizations and

superstitious appeals. This seemed a puny strength to put forth against the United States but various

circumstances combined to make the contest less unequal than it seemed, and the outcome was probably

The United States had at the moment but fourteen thousand men in the islands, under the command of

General Otis. Some of these were volunteers who had been organized to fight Spain and who could not be

held after the ratification of peace. Congress had, indeed, provided for an increase in the regular army, but not

sufficient to provide the "40,000 effectives for the field," whom Otis had requested in August, 1899. There

were, of course, plenty of men available in America for service in the Philippines, and finally twelve

regiments of volunteers were raised, two of which were composed of negroes. Aguinaldo's strength lay in the

configuration of the country, in its climate, which for four centuries had prevented a complete conquest by

the Spaniards, and in the uncertainty which he knew existed as to how far the American people would support

a war waged apparently for conquest, against the wishes of the Filipinos. On the other hand, the chief

advantages of the American forces lay in Aguinaldo's lack of arms and in the power of the American Navy,

In March, General MacArthur began to move to the north, and on the last day of that month he entered

Malolos. On the 23d of April he pushed farther northward toward Calumpit, where the Filipino

generalissimo, Luna, had prepared a position which he declared to be impregnable. This brief campaign

added a new favorite to the American roll of honor, for it was here that Colonel Funston, at the head of his

gallant Kansans, crossed the rivers Bagbag and Rio Grande, under circumstances that gave the individual

American soldier a prestige in the eyes of the Filipinos and a reputation which often ran far ahead of the

General Luna had torn up the ties and rails of the steel railroad bridge over the Bagbag, and had let down

the span next the far bank. Thus cut off from attack by a deep river two hundred feet wide, the Filipino

commander had entrenched his forces on the farther side. Shielded by fields of young corn and bamboo

thickets, the Americans approached the bank of the river. A naval gun on an armored train bombarded the

Filipinos but could not silence their trenches. It was therefore necessary to cross an the bridge, and under fire.

General Wheaton ordered Colonel Funston to seize the bridge. With about ten men Funston rushed the nearer

end which stood in the open. Working themselves along the girders, the men finally reached the broken span.

Beyond that, swimming was the only method of reaching the goal. Leaving their guns behind them, Colonel

Funston and three others swung themselves off the bridge and into the stream. Quite unarmed, the four landed

and rushed the nearest trenches. Fortunately these had been abandoned under American fire, and rifles and

cartridges had been left behind. Thus this aquatic charge by unarmed men secured the bridge and enabled the

Not far beyond was the Rio Grande, four hundred feet broad and crossed by another railroad bridge that must

be taken. Here again the task was entrusted to Colonel Funston and the Twentieth Kansas. This time they

found an old raft. Two privates stripped and swam across with a rope. Landing unarmed on the enemy's side

of the river, they fastened their rope to a part of the very trench works of the Filipinos. With this connection

established, Colonel Funston improvised a ferry and was soon on the enemy's side with supports. A stiff,

unequal fight remained, as the ferry carried but six men on each trip. The bank was soon won, however, and

the safe crossing of the army was assured. Such acts gave the natives a respect for Americans as fighting

men, which caused it to be more and more difficult for the Filipino commanders to bring their forces to battle

General Lawton in the meantime was conducting a brilliant movement to the eastward. After breaking the

enemy forces, he returned to Manila and then marched southward into the Tagalog country, where on the

13th of June, at Zapoti Bridge, he won the most stoutly contested battle of the insurrection. The successful

conclusion of these operations brought the most civilized part of the island under American control.

The fighting now became scattered and assumed gradually a guerrilla character. The abler commanders of the

American forces found their way to the top, and the troops, with their natural adaptability, constantly devised

new methods of meeting new situations. A war of strangely combined mountain and sea fighting, involving

cavalry and infantry and artillery, spread over the islands in widening circles and met with lessening

resistance. An indication of the new character of the war was given by the change of the military

organization, in April, 1900, from one of divisions and brigades, to a geographical basis. Each commander

was now given charge of a certain area and used his men to reduce this district to order.

The insurgents fought in small groups and generally under local chieftains. Their advantage lay in their

thorough knowledge of the country and in the sympathy of a part of the population and the fear of another

part, for outlaws living in concealment and moving in the dark can often inspire a terror which regular troops

under discipline fail to engender. The Americans could not trust the natives, as it was impossible to tell the

truthful from the treacherous. Nevertheless it was a kind of fighting which gave unusual scope for that

American individualism, so strongly represented in the army, to which the romance of precisely this sort of

thing had drawn just the class of men best fitted for the work. Scouting, counter scouting, surprise attacks,

and ambuscades formed the daily news transmitted from the front affairs not of regiments and companies

but of squads and individuals. When face to face, however, the Filipinos seldom stood their ground, and the

American ingenuity and eager willingness to attempt any new thing gradually got the better of the local

knowledge and unscrupulousness as to the laws of war which had at first, given the natives an advantage.

Funston, now Brigadier General, and his "suicide squad" continued to play an active part, but a similar spirit

Broken as were the Filipino field forces and widening as was the area of peace, the result of the island

campaign was still uncertain. It rested upon two unknown quantities. The first was the nature of the Filipinos.

Would they remain irreconcilable, ever ready to take advantage of a moment of weakness? If such were to be

the case, we could look for no real conquest, but only a forcible occupation, which the people of the United

States would never consent to maintain. The second unknown quantity was the American people themselves.

Would they sustain the occupation sufficiently long to give a reasonable test of the possibilities of success?

Two events brought these uncertainties to an end. In the first place, William Jennings Bryan was defeated for

the presidency in November, 1900, and President McKinley was given four more years in which to complete

the experiment. In the second place, on March 23, 1901, Aguinaldo, who had been long in concealment, was

captured. Though there had long been no possibility of really commanding the insurgent forces as a whole,

Aguinaldo had remained the center of revolt and occasionally showed his hand, as in the attempt to negotiate

a peace on the basis of independence. In February an intercepted letter had given a clue to his hiding place.

Funston, in spite of his new rank, determined personally to undertake the capture. The signature of Lacuna,

one of the insurgent leaders, was forged and letters were sent to Aguinaldo informing him of the capture of

five Americans, who were being sent to headquarters. Among the five was Funston himself. The "insurgent"

guard, clad in captured uniforms, consisted for the most part of Macabebes, hereditary enemies of the

Tagalogsfor the Americans had now learned the Roman trick of using one people against another. The ruse

succeeded perfectly. The guard and its supposed prisoners were joyfully received by Aguinaldo, but the

On the 19th of April, Aguinaldo wrote: "After mature deliberation, I resolutely proclaim to the world that I

cannot refuse to heed the voice of a people longing for peace, nor the lamentations of thousands of families

yearning to see their dear ones enjoying the liberty and promised generosity of the great American nation. By

acknowledging and accepting the sovereignty of the United States throughout the Philippine Archipelago, as I

now do, and without any reservation whatsoever, I believe that I am serving thee, my beloved country."

On the 19th of May, General Wheaton, Chief of Staff in the Philippines, sent the following dispatch to

Washington: "Lacuna having surrendered with all his officers and men today, I report that all insurrectionary

leaders in this department have been captured or have surrendered. This is the termination of the state of war

in this department so far as armed resistance to the authority of the United States is concerned."

There was subsequent fighting with other tribes and in other islands, particularly with the Moros of the Sulu

group, but by the time Aguinaldo had accepted American rule, the uncertainty of the American people had

been resolved, and the execution of the treaty with Spain had been actually accomplished. As seventy

thousand troops were no longer needed in the islands, the volunteers and many of the regulars were sent

home, and there began an era of peace such as the Philippines had never before known.

During the suppression of the insurrection the American Army had resorted to severe measures, though they

by no means went to the extremes that were reported in the press. It was realized, however, that the

establishment of a permanent peace must rest upon an appeal to the good will and selfinterest of the natives.

The treatment of the conquered territories, therefore, was a matter of the highest concern not only with

reference to the public opinion at home but to the lasting success of the military operations which had just

There was as yet no law in the United States relating to the government of dependencies. The entire control

of the islands therefore rested, in the first instance, with the President and was vested by him, subject to

instructions, in the Military Governor. The army fortunately reflected fully the democratic tendencies of the

United States as a whole. In June, 1899, General Lawton encouraged and assisted the natives in setting up in

their villages governing bodies of their own selection. In August, he issued a general order, based upon a law

of the islands, providing for a general system of local government into which there was introduced for the

first time the element of really popular election. In 1900, a new code of criminal procedure, largely the work

of Enoch Herbert Crowder, at that time Military Secretary, was promulgated, which surrounded the accused

with practically all the safeguards to which the AngloSaxon is accustomed except jury trial, for which the

To advise with regard to a permanent system of government for the Philippines President McKinley

appointed in January, 1899, a commission consisting of Jacob G. Schurman, President of Cornell University,

Dean C. Worcester, who had long been engaged in scientific research in the Philippines, Colonel Charles

Denby, for many years previously minister to China, Admiral Dewey, and General E. S. Otis. Largely upon

their recommendation, the President appointed a second commission, headed by Judge William Howard Taft

to carry on the work of organizing civil government which had already begun under military direction and

gradually to take over the legislative power. The Military Governor was to continue to exercise executive

power. In 1901, Congress at length took action, vesting all military, civil, and judicial powers in such persons

as the President might appoint to govern the islands. McKinley immediately appointed Judge Taft to the new

governorship thus authorized. In 1901 in the "Insular Cases" the Supreme Court also gave its sanction to what

had been done. In legislation for the territories, it held that Congress was not bound by all the restrictions of

the Constitution, as, for instance, that requiring jury trial; that Porto Rico and the Philippines were neither

foreign countries nor completely parts of the United States, though Congress was at liberty to incorporate

There was, however, no disposition to incorporate the Philippines into the United States, but there has always

been a widespread sentiment that the islands should ultimately be given their independence, and this

sentiment has largely governed the American attitude toward them. A native Legislature was established in

1907 under Governor Taft,* and under the Wilson Administration the process toward independence has been

accelerated, and dates begin to be considered. The process of preparation for independence has been

threefold: the development of the physical wellbeing of the islands, the education of the islanders, and the

gradual introduction of the latter into responsible positions of government. With little of the encouragement

which might have come from appreciative interest at home, thousands of Americans have now labored in the

Philippines for almost twenty years, but with little disposition to settle there permanently. Their efforts to

develop the Filipinos have achieved remarkable success. It has of late been found possible to turn over such a

large proportion of the governmental work to the natives that the number of Americans in the islands is

steadily diminishing. The outbreak of the war with Germany found the natives loyal to American interests

and even saw a son of Aguinaldo taking service under the Stars and Stripes. Such a tribute, like the services

of Generals Smuts and Botha to Great Britain, compensates for the friction and noise with which democracy

works and is the kind of triumph which carries reassurance of its ultimate efficiency and justice.

* By the Act of July 1, 1902, the Legislature was to consist of two houses, the Commission acting as an upper

house and an elective assembly constituting a lower house. The Legislature at its first session was to elect two

delegates who were to sit, without the right to vote, in the House of Representatives at Washington. An Act

of August 29, 1916, substituted an elective Senate for the Philippine Commission as the upper house of the

The United States arrived in the Orient at a moment of high excitement. Russia was consolidating the

advance of two centuries by the building of the transSiberian railroad, and was looking eagerly for a port in

the sun, to supplement winterbound Vladivostok. Great Britain still regarded Russia as the great enemy and,

pursuing her policy of placing buffer states between her territories and her enemies, was keenly interested in

preventing any encroachment southward which might bring the Russian bear nearer India. France, Russia's

ally, possessed IndoChina, which was growing at the expense of Siam and which might grow northwards into

China. Germany saw in eastern Asia the richest prize remaining in the world not yet possessed by her rivals,

and it was for this that she was seeking power in the Pacific. Having missed the Philippines, she quickly

secured Samoa and purchased from Spain the Caroline Islands, east of the Philippines, and all that the United

These latent rivalries had been brought into the open by the ChinoJapanese War of 18941895, which

showed the powerlessness of China. The western world was, indeed, divided in opinion as to whether this

colossus of the East was essentially rotten, old, decrepit, and ready to disintegrate, or was merely weak

because of arrested development, which education and training could correct. At any rate, China was

regarded as sick and therefore became for the moment even more interesting than Turkey, the traditional sick

man of Europe. If China were to die, her estate would be divided. If she were really to revitalize her vast bulk

by adapting her millions to modern ways, she had but to stretch herself and the toilfully acquired Asiatic

possessions of the European powers would shiver to pieces; and if she awoke angry, Europe herself might

well tremble. The really wise saw that the important thing was to determine the kind of education which

China should receive, and in solving this problem the palm of wisdom must be given to the missionaries who

represented the great Christian societies of Europe and America. To smallminded statesmen it seemed that

the situation called for conquest. No nation was willing to be late at the division, if division it was to be;

while if China was to awake, the European powers felt that she should awake shackled. By no one was this

latter view so clearly held as by the Kaiser. With his accustomed versatility, he designed a cartoon showing

the European powers, armed and with Germania in the forefront, confronting the yellow peril. On sending his

troops to China in 1900, he told them to imitate the methods of the Huns, in order to strike lasting terror to

the hearts of the yellow race. By such means he sought to direct attention to the menace of the Barbarian,

when he was himself first stating that doctrine of Teutonic frightfulness which has proved, in our day at least,

It was Japan who had exposed the weakness of the giant, but her victory had been so easy that her own

strength was as yet untested. Japan had come of age in 1894 when, following the example of Great Britain,

the various powers had released her from the obligation of exterritoriality imposed upon her by treaties when

their subjects were unwilling to trust themselves to her courts. It was still uncertain, however, whether the

assumption of European methods by Japan was real, and her position as a great power was not yet

established. In the very moment of her triumph over China she was forced to submit to the humiliation of

having the terms of peace supervised by a concert of powers and of having many of the spoils of her victory

The chief fruits that remained to Japan from her brilliant military victory were Formosa and the recognition

of the separation of Korea from China: These acquisitions gave her an opportunity to show her capacity for

real expansion, but whether she would be able to hold her prize was yet to be proven. The European states,

however, claimed that by the Japanese victories the balance of power in the Orient had been upset and that it

must be adjusted. The obvious method was for each power to demand something for itself. In 1898 Germany

secured a lease of Kiaochau Bay across the Yellow Sea from Korea, which she at once fortified and where

she proceeded to develop a port with the hope of commanding the trade of all that part of China. Russia in the

same way secured, somewhat farther to the north, Port Arthur and Talienwan, and proceeded to build Dalny

as the commercial outlet of her growing railroad. Great Britain immediately occupied Weihaiwei, which

was midway between the German and Russian bases and commanded from the south the entrance to Pekin,

and also, much farther to the south, Mirs Bay, which gave security to her commercial center at Hongkong.

France took Kwangchau, still farther to the south, and Italy received Sanmen, somewhat to the south of the

Yangtszekiang. From these ports each power hoped to extend a sphere of influence. It was axiomatic that

such a sphere would be most rapidly developed and most solidly held if special tariff regulations were

devised to throw the trade into the hands of the merchants of the nation holding the port. The next step,

therefore, in establishing the solidity of an Asiatic base, would be the formulation of special tariffs. The result

would be the practical division of China into districts having different and opposed commercial interests.

The United States did not arrive in this energetic company as an entire stranger. With both China and Japan

her relations had long been intimate and friendly. American merchants had traded ginseng and furs for China

silks and teas ever since the United States had been a nation. In 1786 the Government had appointed a

commercial agent at Canton and in 1844 had made one of the first commercial treaties with China. In 1854

the United States had been the point of the foreign wedge that opened Japan to western civilization and

inaugurated that amazing period of national reorganization and assimilation which has given the Japanese

Empire her place in they world today. American missionaries had labored long and disinterestedly for the

moral regeneration of both China and Japan with results which are now universally recognized as beneficial,

though in 1900 there was still among the Chinese much of that friction which is the inevitable reaction from

an attempt to change the fundamentals of an ancient faith and longstanding habits. American merchants, it is

true, had been of all classes, but at any rate there had always been a sufficient leaven of those of the highest

The conduct of the American Government in the Far East had been most honorable and friendly. The treaty

with Japan in 1858 contained the clause: "The President of the United States, at the request of the Japanese

Government, will act as a friendly mediator in such matters of difference as may arise between the

Government of Japan and any European power." Under Seward the United States did, indeed, work in

concert with European powers to force the opening of the Shimonoseki Straits in 1864, and a revision of the

tariff in 1866. Subsequently, however, the United States cooperated with Japan in her effort to free herself

from certain disadvantageous features of early treaties. In 1883 the United States returned the indemnity

received at the time of the Shimonoseki affairan example of international equity almost unique at the time

but subsequently paralleled in American relations with China. The one serious difficulty existing in the

relationships of the United States with both China and Japan resulted from an unwillingness to receive their

natives as immigrants when people of nearly every other country were admitted. The American attitude had

already been expressed in the Chinese Exclusion Act. As yet the chief difficulty was with that nation, but it

was inevitable that such distinctions would prove particularly galling to the rising spirit of the Japanese.

John Hay was keenly aware of the possibilities involved in these Far Eastern events. Of profound moment

under any circumstances, they were doubly so now that the United States was territorially involved. To take a

slice of this Eastern area was a course quite open to the United States and one which some of the powers at

least would have welcomed. Hay, however, wrote to Paul Dana on March 16, 1899, as follows: "We are, of

course, opposed to the dismemberment of that empire [China], and we do not think that t2he public opinion

of the United States would justify this Government in taking part in the great game of spoliation now going

on." He felt also that the United States should not tie its hands by "formal alliances with other Powers

interested," nor was he prepared "to assure China that we would join her in repelling that demand by armed

It remained, then, for the Secretary of State to find a lever for peaceful interference on the part of his country

and a plan for future operations. The first he found in the commercial interest of the United States. Since the

Government refrained from pressing for special favors in any single part of the Chinese Empire, it could

demand that American interests be not infringed anywhere. The Secretary of State realized that in a

democracy statesmen cannot overlook the necessity of condensing their policies into popular catchwords or

slogans. Today such phrases represent in large measure the power referred to in the old saying: "Let me make

the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws." The single phrase, "scrap of paper," probably cost

Germany more than any one of her atrocious deeds in the Great War. Hay's policy with regard to China had

the advantage of two such phrases. The "golden rule," however, proved less lasting than the "open door,"

which was coined apparently in the instructions to the Paris Peace Commission. This phrase expressed just

what the United States meant. The precise plan of the American Government was outlined and its execution

undertaken in a circular note of September 6, 1899, which the Secretary of State addressed to London, Berlin,

and St. Petersburg. In this he asked the powers to agree to respect all existing open ports and established

interests within their respective spheres, to enforce the Chinese tariff and no other, and to refrain from all

discrimination in port and railroad charges. To make such a proposal to the European powers required

courage. In its essential elements the situation in the Far East was not unlike the internal economic condition

prevailing at the same time in the United States. In this country great transportation monopolies had been

built up, having an enormous capitalization, and many of them were dependent for their profits on the

advantage of price fixing that monopoly may be expected to bring. Then state and nation stepped in and

asserted their right to fix prices in the interest of the consumer. The consequent political struggles illustrate

the difficulties besetting the Secretary of State in his somewhat similar attempt to take the chief fruits from

the powers which had just acquired Chinese territoryan undertaking in which he had none of the support of

That Hay so promptly succeeded in putting at least a toe in the door which he wished to open was due to a

number of circumstances. Great Britain, devoted to the principle of free trade, heartily approved of his

proposal and at once accepted its terms. The other powers expressed their sympathy with the ideas of the

note, but, in the case of Russia at least, without the faintest intention of paying any heed to it. Hay promptly

notified each power of the others' approval and stated that, with this unanimous consent, he would regard its

The force which Hay had used was the moral influence of world opinion. None of the powers dared, with its

hands fresh filled with Chinese plunder, openly to assert that it had taken the spoils for selfish reasons

aloneat least, after another power had denied such purpose. Hay saw and capitalized the force of

conventional morality which, however superficial in many cases, had influenced the European powers,

particularly since the time of the Holy Alliance. Accustomed to clothe their actions in the garb of

humanitarianism, they were not, when caught thus redhanded, prepared to be a mark of scorn for the rest of

the world. The cult of unabashed might was still a closet philosophy which even Germany, its chief devotee,

was not yet ready to avow to the world. Of course Hay knew that the battle was not won, for the bandits still

held the booty. He was too wise to attempt to wrench it from them, for that indeed would have meant battle

for which the United States was not prepared in military strength or popular intention. He had merely pledged

these countries to use their acquisitions for the general good. Though the promises meant little in themselves,

In the meantime the penetration of foreign influences into China was producing a reaction. A wave of protest

against the "foreign devils" swept through the population and acquired intensity from the acts of fanatic

religious leaders. That strange character, the Dowager Empress, yielded to the "Boxers," who obtained

possession of Pekin, cut off the foreigners from the outside world, and besieged them in the legations. That

some such movement was inevitable must have been apparent to many European statesmen, and that it would

give them occasion, by interference and punishment, to solidify their "spheres of influence" must have

occurred to them. The "open door" was in as immediate peril as were the diplomats in Pekin.

Secretary Hay did not, however, yield to these altered circumstances. Instead, he built upon the leadership

which he had assumed. He promptly accepted the international responsibility which the emergency called for.

The United States at once agreed to take its share, in cooperation with the Great Powers, in whatever

measures should be judged necessary. The first obvious measure was to relieve the foreign ministers who

were besieged in Pekin. American assistance was active and immediate. By the efforts of the American

Government, communication with the legations was opened; the American naval forces were soon at

Tientsin, the port of Pekin; and five or six thousand troops were hastily sent from the Philippines. The United

States therefore bore its full proportion of the task. The largest contingent of the land forces was, indeed,

from Germany, and the command of the whole undertaking was by agreement given to the German

commander, Graf von Waldersee. Owing, however, to his remoteness from the scene of action, he did not

arrive until after Pekin had been reached and the relief of the legations, which was the first if not the main

object of the expedition, had been accomplished. After this, the resistance of the Chinese greatly decreased

By thus bearing its share in the responsibilities of the situation, the United States had won a vote in

determining the result. Secretary Hay, however, had not waited for the military outcome, and he aimed not at

a vote in the concert of powers but at its leadership. While the international expedition was gathering its

forces, he announced in a circular note that "the policy of the Government of the United States is to seek a

solution which may bring about permanent safety and peace to China, preserve Chinese territorial and

administrative entity, protect all rights guaranteed to friendly powers by treaty and international law, and

safeguard for the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese Empire." To

Again Hay had hit upon a formula which no selfrespecting power could deny. Receiving from practically all

a statement of their purpose to preserve the "integrity" of China and the "Open Door" just when they were

launching the greatest military movement ever undertaken in the Far East by the western world, he made it

impossible to turn punishment into destruction and partition. The legations were saved and so was China.

After complicated negotiations an agreement was reached which exacted heavy pecuniary penalties, and in

the case of Germany, whose minister had been assassinated, a conspicuous and what was intended to be an

enduring record of the crime and its punishment. China, however, remained a nationwith its door open.

Once more in 1904 the fate of China, and in fact that of the whole Far East, was thrown into the ring. Japan

and Russia entered into a war which had practically no cause except the collision of their advancing interests

in Chinese territory. Every land battle of the war, except those of the Saghalien campaign, was fought in

China, Chinese ports were blockaded, Chinese waters were filled with enemy mines and torpedoes, and the

prize was Chinese territory or territory recently taken from her. To deny these facts was impossible; to admit

them seemed to involve the disintegration of the empire. Here again Secretary Hay, devising a middle course,

gained by his promptness of action the prestige of having been the first to speak. On February 8, 1904, he

asked Germany, Great Britain, and France to join with the United States in requesting Japan and Russia to

recognize the neutrality of China, and to localize hostilities within fixed limits. On January 10, 1905,

remembering how the victory of Japan in 1894 had brought compensatory grants to all the powers, he sent

out a circular note expressing the hope on the part of the American Government that the war would not result

in any "concession of Chinese territory to neutral powers." Accustomed now to these invitations which

decency forbade them to refuse, all the powers assented to this suggestion. The results of the war, therefore,

were confined to Manchuria, and Japan promised that her occupation of that province should be temporary

and that commercial opportunity therein should be the same for all. The culmination of American prestige

came with President Roosevelt's offer of the good offices of the United States, on June 8, 1905. As a result,

peace negotiations were concluded in the Treaty of Portsmouth (New Hampshire) in 1905. For this

conspicuous service to the cause of peace President Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel prize.

Secretary Hay had therefore, in the seven years following the real arrival of the United States in the Far East,

evolved a policy which was clear and definite, and one which appealed to the American people. While it

constituted a variation from the precise methods laid down by President Monroe in 1823, in that it involved

concerted and equal cooperation with the great powers of the world, Hay's policy rested upon the same

fundamental bases: a belief in the fundamental right of nations to determine their own government, and the

reduction to a minimum of intervention by foreign powers. To have refused to recognize intervention at all

would have been, under the circumstances, to abandon China to her fate. In protecting its own right to trade

with her, the United States protected the integrity of China. Hay had, moreover, so ably conducted the actual

negotiations that the United States enjoyed for the moment the leadership in the concert of powers and

exercised an authority more in accord with her potential than with her actual strength. Secretary Hay's death

in 1905 brought American leadership to an end, for, though his policies continued to be avowed by all

concerned, their application was thereafter restricted. The integrity of Chinese territory was threatened,

though not actually violated, by the action of Great Britain in Tibet and of Japan in Manchuria. Japan,

recognized as a major power since her war with Russia, seemed in the opinion of many to leave but a crack of

the door open in Manchuria, and her relationship with the United States grew difficult as she resented more

and more certain discriminations against her citizens which she professed to find in the laws of some of the

In 1908 Elihu Root, who succeeded Hay as Secretary of State, effected an understanding with Japan.

Adopting a method which has become rather habitual in the relationship between the United States and Japan,

Root and the Japanese ambassador exchanged notes. In these they both pointed out that their object was the

peaceful development of their commerce in the Pacific; that "the policy of both governments, uninfluenced

by any aggressive tendencies, is directed to the maintenance of the existing status quo in the region above

mentioned, and to the defense of the principle of equal opportunity for commerce and industry in China"; that

they both stood for the independence and integrity of China; and that, should any event threaten the stability

of existing conditions, "it remained for the two governments to communicate with each other in order to

arrive at an understanding as to what measures they may consider it useful to take."

The immigration problem between Japan and the United States was even more serious than that of the open

door and the integrity of China. The teeming population of Japan was swarming beyond her island empire,

and Korea and Manchuria did not seem to offer sufficient opportunity. The number of Japanese immigrants to

this country, which before the Spanish War had never reached 2000 in any one year, now rose rapidly until in

1907 it reached 30,226. American sentiment, which had been favorable to Japan during her war with Russia,

began to change. The public and particularly the laboring classes in the West, where most of the Japanese

remained, objected to this increasing immigration, while a number of leaders of American opinion devoted

themselves to converting the public to a belief that the military ambitions of Japan included the Philippines

and possibly Hawaii, where the Japanese were a formidable element in the population. As a consequence

there arose a strong demand that the principles of the Chinese Exclusion Act be applied to the Japanese. The

situation was made more definite by the fact that the board of education in San Francisco ruled in 1906 that

orientals should receive instruction in special schools. The Japanese promptly protested, and their demand for

their rights under the treaty of 1894 was supported by the Tokio Government. The international consequences

of thus discriminating against the natives of so rising and selfconfident a country as Japan, and one

conscious of its military strength, were bound to be very different from the difficulties encountered in the

case of China. The United States confronted a serious situation, but fortunately did not confront it alone.

Australia and British Columbia, similarly threatened by Japanese immigration, were equally opposed to it.

Out of deference to Great Britain, with which she had been allied since 1902, Japan consented that her

immigrants should not force their way into unwilling communities. This position facilitated an arrangement

between the United States and Japan, and an informal agreement was made in 1907. The schools of San

Francisco were to be open to oriental children not over sixteen years of age, while Japan was to withhold

passports from laborers who planned to emigrate to the United States. This plan has worked with reasonable

success, but minor issues have kept alive in both countries the bad feeling on the subject. Certain States,

particularly California, have passed laws, especially with regard to the ownership and leasing of farm lands,

apparently intended to discriminate against Japanese who were already residents. These laws Japan has held

to be violations of her treaty provision for consideration on the "most favored nation" basis, and she has felt

them to be opposed in spirit to the "gentlemen's agreement" of 1907. The inability of the Federal Government

to control the policy of individual States is not accepted by foreign countries as releasing the United States

from international obligations, so that, although friendly agreements between the two countries were reached

Philander C. Knox, who succeeded Root as Secretary of State, devoted his attention rather to the fostering of

American interests in China than to the development of the general policies of his Department. While he

refrained from asking for an American sphere of influence, he insisted that American capitalists obtain their

fair share of the concessions for railroad building, mining, and other enterprises which the Chinese

Government thought it necessary to give in order to secure capital for her schemes of modernization. As these

concessions were supposed to carry political influence in the areas to which they applied, there was active

rivalry for them, and Russia and Japan, which had no surplus capital, even borrowed in order to secure a

share. This situation led to a tangled web of intrigue, perhaps inevitable but decidedly contrary to the usual

American diplomatic habits; and at this game the United States did not prove particularly successful. In 1911

there broke out in China a republican revolution which was speedily successful. The new Government, as yet

unrecognized, needed money, and the United States secured a share in a sixpower syndicate which was

organized to float a national loan. The conditions upon which this syndicate insisted, however, were as much

political as they were pecuniary, and the new Government refused to accept them.

On the accession of President Wilson, the United States promptly led the way in recognizing the new republic

in China. On March 18, 1913, the President announced: "The conditions of the loan seem to us to touch

nearly the administrative independence of China itself; and this administration does not feel that it ought,

even by implication, to be a party to those conditions." The former American policy of noninterference was

therefore renewed, but it still remained uncertain whether the entrance of the United States into Far Eastern

politics would do more than serve to delay the European dominance which seemed to be impending in 1898.

While American troops were threading the mountain passes and the morasses of the Philippines, scaling the

walls of Pekin, and sunning themselves in the delectable pleasances of the Forbidden City, and while

American Secretaries of State were penning dispatches which determined the fate of countries on the opposite

side of the globe, the old diplomatic problems nearer home still persisted. The Spanish War, however, had so

thoroughly changed the relationship of the United States to the rest of the world that the conditions under

which even these old problems were to be adjusted or solved gave them entirely new aspects. The American

people gradually but effectually began to take foreign affairs more seriously. As time went on, the

Government made improvements in the consular and diplomatic services. Politicians found that their

irresponsible threatenings of other countries had ceased to be politically profitable when public opinion

realized what was at stake. Other countries, moreover, began to take the United States more seriously. The

open hostility which they had shown on the first entrance of this nation into world politics changed, on

second thought, to a desire on their part to placate and perhaps to win the support of this new and formidable

The attitude of Germany in particular was conspicuous. The Kaiser sent his brother, Prince Henry, to visit the

United States. He presented the nation with a statue of Frederick the Great and Harvard with a Germanic

museum; he ordered a Herreshoff yacht, and asked the President's daughter, Alice Roosevelt, to christen it; he

established exchange professorships in the universities; and he began a campaign aimed apparently at

securing for Germany the support of the entire American people, or, failing that, at organizing for German

purposes the Germanborn element within the United States. France sought to revive the memory of her

friendship for the United States during the Revolution by presenting the nation with a statue of Rochambeau,

and she also established exchange professorships. In England, Cecil Rhodes, with his great dream of drawing

together all portions of the British race, devoted his fortune to making Oxford the mold where all its leaders

of thought and action should be shaped; and Joseph Chamberlain and other English leaders talked freely and

enthusiastically of an alliance between Great Britain and the United States as the surest foundation for world

It need not be supposed, however, that these international amenities meant that the United States was to be

allowed to have its own way in the world. The friendliness of Great Britain was indeed sincere. Engaged

between 1899 and 1901 in the Boer War, she appreciated ever more strongly the need for the friendship of

the United States, and she looked with cordial approbation upon the development of Secretary Hay's policy in

China. The British, however, like the Americans, are legalistically inclined, and disputes between the two

nations are likely to be maintained to the limit of the law. The advantage of this legal mindedness is that there

has always been a disposition in both peoples to submit to judicial award when ordinary negotiations have

reached a deadlock. But the real affection for each other which underlay the eternal bickerings of the two

nations had as yet not revealed itself to the American consciousness. As most of the disputes of the United

States had been with Great Britain, Americans were always on the alert to maintain all their claims and were

It was, therefore, in an atmosphere by no means conducive to yielding on the part of the United States,

though it was one not antagonistic to good feeling, that the representatives of the two countries met. John Hay

and Sir Julian Pauncefote, whose long quiet service in this country had made him the first popular British

ambassador, now set about clearing up the problems confronting the two peoples. The first question which

pressed for settlement was one of boundary. It had already taken ninety years to draw the line from the

Atlantic to the Pacific, and now the purchase of Alaska by the United States had added new uncertainties to

the international boundary. The claims of both nations were based on a treaty of 1825 between Great Britain

and Russia. Like most attempts to define boundaries running through unexplored territories, the treaty terms

admitted of two interpretations. The boundary line from Portland Channel to Mount St. Elias was stipulated

to run everywhere a distance of ten marine leagues from the coast and to follow its sinuosities. This particular

coast, however, is bitten into by long fiords stretching far into the country. Great Britain held that these were

not part of the sea in the sense of the treaty and that the line should cut across them ten marine leagues from

the outer coast line. On the other hand, the United States held that the line should be drawn ten marine

The discovery of gold on the Yukon in 1897 made this boundary question of practical moment. Action now

became an immediate necessity. In 1899 the two countries agreed upon a modus Vivendi and in 1903

arranged an arbitration. The arbitrating board consisted of three members from each of the two nations. The

United States appointed Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, exSenator George Turner, and Elihu Root, then

Secretary of War. Great Britain appointed two Canadians, Louis A. Jette and A. B. Aylesworth, and Lord

Alverstone, Chief Justice of England. Their decision was in accordance with the principle for which the

United States had contended, though not following the actual line which it had sketched. It gave the

Americans, however, full control of the coast and its harbors, and the settlement provided a mutually

With the discovery of gold in the far North, Alaska began a period of development which is rapidly making

that territory an important economic factor in American life. Today the time when this vast northern coast

was valuable only as the breeding ground for the fur seal seems long past. Nevertheless the fur seal continued

to be sought, and for years the international difficulty of protecting the fisheries remained. Finally, in 1911,

the United States entered into a joint agreement with Great Britain, Japan, and Russia, which is actually

serving as a sort of international game law. The problems of Alaska that remain are therefore those of internal

Diplomacy, however, is not concerned solely with sensational episodes. American ministers and the State

Department are engaged for the most part in the humdrum adjustment of minor differences which never find

their way into the newspapers. Probably more such cases arise with Great Britain, in behalf of Canada, than

with any other section of the globe. On the American continent rivers flow from one country into the other;

railroads carry goods across the border and back again; citizens labor now in one country, now in the other;

corporations do business in both. All these ties not only bind but chafe and give rise to constant negotiation.

More and more Great Britain has left the handling of such matters to the Canadian authorities, and, while

there can be no interchange of ministers, there is an enormous transaction of business between Ottawa and

While there has of late years been little talk of annexation, there have been many in both countries who have

desired to reduce the significance of the boundary to a minimum. This feeling led in 1911 to the formulation

of a reciprocity agreement, which Canada, however, was unwilling to accept. Yet, if tariff restrictions were

not removed, other international barriers were as far as possible done away with. In 1898 a commission was

appointed to agree upon all points of difference. Working slowly but steadily, the commissioners settled one

question after another, until practically all problems were put upon a permanent working basis. Perhaps the

most interesting of the results of this activity was the appointment in 1908 of a permanent International

Another source of international complication arose out of the Atlantic fisheries off Newfoundland, which is

not part of Canada. It is off these shores that the most important deepsea fishing takes place. This fishery

was one of the earliest American sources of wealth, and for nearly two centuries formed a sort of keystone of

the whole commercial life of the United States. When in 1783 Great Britain recognized American

independence, she recognized also that American fishermen had certain rights off these coasts. These rights,

however, were not sufficient for the conduct of the fisheries, and so in addition certain "liberties" were

granted, which allowed American fishers to land for the purpose of drying fish and of doing other things not

generally permitted to foreigners. These concessions in fact amounted to a joint participation with the British.

The rights were permanent, but the privileges were regarded as having lapsed after the War of 1812. In 1818

they were partially renewed, certain limited privileges being conceded. Ever since that date the problem of

securing the additional privileges desired has been a subject for discussion between Great Britain and the

United States. Between 1854 and 1866 the American Government secured them by reciprocity; between 1872

and 1884 it bought them; after 1888 it enjoyed them by a temporary modus vivendi arranged under President

In 1902 Hay arranged with Sir Robert Bond, Prime Minister of Newfoundland, a new reciprocity agreement.

This, however, the Senate rejected, and the Cleveland agreement continued. Newfoundland, angry at the

rejection of the proposed treaty, put every obstacle possible in the way of American fishermen and used

methods which the Americans claimed to be contrary to the treaty terms. After long continued and rather

acrimonious discussions, the matter was finally referred in 1909 to the Hague Court. As in the Bering Sea

case, the court was asked not only to judge the facts but also to draw up an agreement for the future. Its

decision, on the whole, favored Newfoundland, but this fact is of little moment compared with the likelihood

that a dispute almost a century and a half old has at last been permanently settled.

None of these international disputes and settlements to the north, however, excited anything like the popular

interest aroused by one which occurred in the south. The Spanish War made it abundantly evident that an

isthmian canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific must be built. The arguments of naval strategy which

Captain Mahan had long been urging had received striking demonstration in the long and roundabout voyage

which the Oregon was obliged to take. The pressure of railroad rates on the trade of the country caused wide

commercial support for a project expected to establish a water competition that would pull them down. The

The first obstacle to such a project lay in the ClaytonBulwer Treaty with Great Britain. That obstacle Blaine

had attempted in vain to remove; in fact his bungling diplomacy had riveted it yet more closely by making

Great Britain maintain it as a point of honor. To this subject Hay now devoted himself, and as he encountered

no serious difficulties, a treaty was drawn up in 1900 practically as he wished it. It was not, however, popular

in the United States. Hay preferred and arranged for a canal neutralized by international guarantee, on the

same basis as the Suez Canal; but American public sentiment had come to insist on a canal controlled

absolutely by the United States. The treaty was therefore rejected by the Senate, or rather was so amended as

Hay believed that he had obtained what was most desirable as well as all that was possible, that the majority

of the American people approved, and that he was beaten only because a treaty must be approved by

twothirds of the Senate. He therefore resigned. President McKinley, however, refused to accept his

resignation, and he and Lord Pauncefote were soon at work again on the subject. In 1901 a new treaty was

presented to the Senate. This began by abrogating the ClaytonBulwer Treaty entirely and with it brushing

away all restrictions upon the activity of the United States in Central America. It specifically permitted the

United States to "maintain such military police along the canal as may be necessary to protect it against

lawlessness and disorder." By interpreting this clause as allowing complete fortification, the United States has

made itself the guardian of the canal. In return for the release from former obligations which Great Britain

thus allowed, the United States agreed that any canal constructed should be regulated by certain rules which

were stated in the treaty and which made it "free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all

nations observing these Rules, on terms of entire equality," in time of war as well as of peace. This time the

treaty proved satisfactory and was accepted by the Senate. Thus one more source of trouble was done away

The ClaytonBulwer Treaty was, however, only a bit of the tangled jungle which must be cleared before the

first American shovel could begin its work. For over twenty years a contest had been waged between experts

in the United States as to the relative merits of the Panama and the Nicaragua routes. The latter was the more

popular, perhaps because it seemed at one time that Panama was preempted by De Lesseps' French company.

This contest as to the better route led to the passage of a law, in 1902, which authorized the President to

acquire the rights and property needed to construct a canal by the Panama route, on condition that he could

make satisfactory arrangements "within a reasonable time and upon reasonable terms." Otherwise, Nicaragua

was to be chosen. Theodore Roosevelt was now President and, though at one time not favoring Panama, he

decided that there the canal should be constructed and with his accustomed vigor set himself to the task.

The first difficulty presented by this route was the prior right which the French company still retained,

although it had little, if any, hope of carrying on the construction itself. It possessed not only rights but also

much equipment on the spot, and it had actually begun excavation at certain points. The purchase of all its

properties complete for $40,000,000 was, therefore, not a bad investment on the part of the Government. By

this purchase the United States was brought directly into relation with Colombia, through one of whose

While the French purchase had removed one obstacle, the De Lesseps charter alone would not suffice for the

construction of the canal, for the American Government had definite ideas as to the conditions necessary for

the success of the work. The Government required a zone which should be under its complete control, for not

otherwise could satisfactory sanitary regulations be enforced. It insisted also on receiving the right to fortify

the canal. It must have these and other privileges on a long time grant. For them, it was willing to pay

generously. Negotiations would be affected, one could not say how, by the Treaty of 1846 with Colombia,*

by which the United States had received the right of free use of the isthmus, with the right of maintaining the

neutrality of the district and in return had guaranteed to Colombia sovereignty over the isthmus.

Hay took up the negotiations with the Colombian charge d'affaires, Dr. Herran, and arranged a treaty, which

gave the United States a strip of land six miles wide across the isthmus, on a ninetynine year lease, for

which it should pay ten million dollars and, after a period of nine years for construction, a quarter of a million

a year. This treaty, after months of debate in press and Congress, was rejected by the Colombian Senate on

August 12, 1903, though the people of Panama, nervously anxious lest this opportunity to sit on the bank of

the world's great highway should slip into the hands of their rivals of Nicaragua, had urged earnestly the

acceptance of the terms. The majority of the Colombians probably expected to grant the American requests in

time but were determined to force the last penny from the United States. As Hay wrote: "The Isthmus is

looked upon as a financial cow to be milked for the benefit of the country at large. This difficulty might be

President Roosevelt at this point took the negotiations into his own hands. Knowing that the price offered was

more than just, he decided to depend no longer on bartering. He ordered the American minister to leave

Colombia, and he prepared a message to Congress proposing that the Americans proceed to dig the canal

under authority which he claimed to find in the Treaty of 1846. It was, however, doubtful if Congress would

find it there, particularly as so many Congressmen preferred the Nicaragua route. The President therefore

listened with pleased attention to the rumors of a revolution planned to separate Panama from Colombia.

Most picturesquely this information was brought by M. Philippe BunauVarilla, a former engineer of the De

Lesseps company, who glowed with the excitement of coming events. Roosevelt, however, relied more upon

the information furnished by two American officers, who reported "that various revolutionary movements

On October 10, 1903, the President wrote to Dr. Albert Shaw, of the "Review of Reviews":

"I enclose you, purely for your own information, a copy of a letter of September 5th, from our minister to

Colombia. I think it might interest you to see that there was absolutely not the slightest chance of securing by

treaty any more than we endeavored to secure. The alternatives were to go to Nicaragua against the advice of

the great majority of competent engineers some of the most competent saying that we had better have no

canal at this time than go thereor else to take the territory by force without any attempt at getting a treaty. I

cast aside the proposition made at the time to foment the secession of Panama. Whatever other governments

can do, the United States cannot go into the securing, by such underhand means, the cession. Privately, I

freely say to you that I should be delighted if Panama were an independent state; or if it made itself so at this

moment; but for me to say so publicly would amount to an instigation of a revolt, and therefore I cannot say

Nothing, however, prevented the President from keeping an attentive eye on the situation. On the 16th of

October he directed the Navy Department to send ships to the Isthmus to protect American interests in case of

a revolutionary outbreak. On the 2d of November, he ordered the squadron to "maintain free and

uninterrupted transit.... Prevent the landing of any armed force with hostile intent, either government or

insurgent, at any point within fifty miles of Panama." At 3:40 P.M., on the 3d of November, the acting

Secretary of State telegraphed to the Isthmus for confirmation of a report to the effect that an uprising was in

progress. A reply dated 8:15 P.M. stated that there had been none as yet, but that it was rumored one would

take place during the night. On the 4th of November independence was proclaimed. The only fatality was a

Chinaman killed in the City of Panama by a shell from the Colombian gunboat Bogota. Its commander was

warned not to fire again. On the 6th of November, Secretary Hay instructed our consul to recognize the new

republic, and on the 13th of November, President Roosevelt received BunauVarilla as its representative at

This prompt recognition of a new state, without waiting to allow the parent Government time to assert itself,

was contrary to American practice. The United States had regarded as a most unfriendly act Great Britain's

mere recognition of the belligerency of the Southern Confederacy. The right of the United States to preserve

the neutrality of the isthmus, as provided by the Treaty of 1846, certainly did not involve the right to

intervene between the Government and revolutionists. On the other hand, the guarantee of possession which

the United States had given to Colombia did involve supporting her Government to a reasonable extent; yet

there could be little doubt that it was the presence of American ships which had made the revolution

The possible implications of these glaring facts were cleverly met by President Roosevelt in his message to

Congress and by the Secretary of State in the correspondence growing out of the affair. The Government

really relied for its justification, however, not upon these technical pleas but upon the broad grounds of

equity. America has learned in the last few years how important it is for its safety that "scraps of paper" be

held sacred and how dangerous is the doctrine of necessity. Nevertheless it is well to observe that if the

United States did, in the case of Panama, depart somewhat from that strict observance of obligations which it

has been accustomed to maintain, it did not seek any object which was not just as useful to the world at large

as to itself, that the situation had been created not by a conflict of opposing interests but by what the

Government had good reason to believe was the bad faith of Colombia, and that the separation of Panama

was the act of its own people, justly incensed at the disregard of their interests by their compatriots. This

revolution created no tyrannized subject population but rather liberated from a galling bond a people who

With the new republic negotiation went on pleasantly and rapidly, and as early as November 18, 1903, a

convention was drawn up, in which the United States guaranteed the independence of Panama and in return

received in perpetuity a grant of a zone ten miles wide within which to construct a canal from ocean to ocean.

As the acquisition of the Philippines made all Far Eastern questions of importance to the United States, so the

investment of American millions in a canal across the Isthmus of Panama increased popular interest in the

problems of the Caribbean. That fascinating sheet of water, about six hundred miles from north to south by

about fifteen hundred from east to west, is ringed around by the possessions of many powers. In 1898 its

mainland shores were occupied by Mexico, British Honduras, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica,

Colombia, and Venezuela; its islands were possessed by the negro states of Hayti and the Dominican

Republic, and by Spain, France, Great Britain, Holland, and Denmark. In the Caribbean had been fought

some of the greatest and most significant naval battles of the eighteenth century and, when the canal was

opened, across its waters would plough a great share of the commerce of the world. As owner of the canal

and professed guardian of its use, the United States was bound to consider its own strategic relation to this

Gradually the situation which existed in 1898 has changed. Spain has been removed from the Caribbean. Of

her former possessions the United States holds Porto Rico; Cuba is independent, but is in a way under the

protection of the United States, which possesses on her coast the naval station of Guantanamo. The American

treaty with the new republic of Panama practically created another American protectorate, and the

fortification of the canal gave the United States another strategic position. The negotiation for the purchase of

the Danish islands has been completed successfully. But these obvious footholds are of less importance than

the more indirect relationships which the United States has been steadily establishing, through successive

Administrations, with the various other powers located on the borders of the Caribbean.

The Spanish War did not lull the suspicions of the United States regarding the dangerous influence which

would be exerted should the ambitions of European powers be allowed a field of action in the American

continents, and the United States remained as intent as ever on preventing any opportunity for their gaining

admittance. One such contingency, though perhaps a remote one, was the possibility of a rival canal, for there

are other isthmuses than that of Panama which might be pierced with the aid of modern resources of capital

and genius. To prevent any such action was not selfish on the part of the United States, for the American

canal was to have an open door, and there was no economic justification for another seaway from the Atlantic

There might, however, be some temptation in the political and military influence which such a prospective

second canal could exert. Negotiations were begun, therefore, with all the transcontinental powers of Central

America, offering liberal compensation for the control of all possible canal routes. These negotiations have

been long drawn out and are only lately coming to fruition. They have served, however, to taboo all projects

by other nations, and one of these treaties negotiated with Colombia, but not yet ratified, holds out the

prospect of winning back her friendship which was so seriously alienated by the recognition of the republic of

In one respect the changing world has rendered quite obsolete the pronouncements of President Monroe. In

the case of Japan there has grown up a great power which is neither European nor American. American

policy in the Far East has made it abundantly evident that the United States does not regard the selfimposed

limitations upon its activity as extending to Asia. In her case there is lacking the quid pro quo by which the

United States has justified its demand that European powers refrain from interfering in America. By no

means, however, has the Government admitted the right of Asia to impinge on the American continents.

In 1912 Washington heard that Japan was negotiating with Mexico for a concession on Magdalena Bay.

Senator Lodge promptly introduced a resolution in the Senate, declaring that "when any harbor or other place

in the American continents is so situated that the occupation thereof for naval or military purposes might

threaten the communication or the safety of the United States, the Government of the United States could not

see, without grave concern, the possession of such harbor or other place by any corporation or association

which has such relation to another government, not American, as to give that government practical power of

control for naval or military purposes" This resolution, which passed the Senate by a vote of 51 to 4,

undoubtedly represented American sentiment, at least with regard to the foreign occupation of any territory

A more subtle danger lay in the financial claims of European powers against the various states in Central

America, and the possibility of these claims being used as levers to establish permanent control. Most of

these foreign demands had a basis in justice but had been exaggerated in amount. They were of two kinds:

first, for damage to persons or property resulting from the numerous revolutions and perpetual brigandage

which have scourged these semitropic territories; second, for debts contracted in the name of the several

countries for the most part to conduct revolutions or to gild the aftercareer of defeated rulers in

Paris,debts with a face value far in excess of the amount received by the debtor and with accumulated

interest in many cases far beyond the capacity of the several countries to pay. The disputes as to the validity

of such claims have been without end, and they have furnished a constant temptation to the cupidity of

In 1902 Germany induced Great Britain and Italy to join her in an attempt to collect the amount of some of

these claims from Venezuela. A joint squadron undertook a "pacific blockade" of the coast. Secretary Hay

denied that a "pacific blockade" existed in international law and urged that the matter be submitted to

arbitration. Great Britain and Italy were willing to come to an understanding and withdrew; but Germany,

probably intent on ulterior objects, was unwilling and preferred to take temporary possession of certain ports.

President Roosevelt then summoned the German Ambassador, Dr. Holleben, and told him that, unless

Germany consented to arbitrate, Admiral Dewey would be ordered at noon ten days later to proceed to

Venezuela and protect its coast. A week passed with no message. Holleben called on the President but rose to

go without mentioning Venezuela. President Roosevelt thereupon informed the Ambassador that he had

changed his mind and had decided to send Admiral Dewey one day earlier than originally planned; he further

explained that in the event the Kaiser should decide to arbitrate, as not a word had been put on paper, there

would be nothing to indicate coercion. Within thirtysix hours Holleben reported that Germany would

arbitrate. Only once before, when Seward was dealing with Napoleon III concerning Mexico, had forcible

It was perfectly clear that if the United States sat idly by and allowed European powers to do what they

would to collect their Latin American debts, the Monroe Doctrine would soon become a dead letter. It was

not, however, so plain how American interference could be justified. The problem was obviously a difficult

one and did not concern the United States alone. Latin America was even more vitally concerned with it, and

her statesmen, always lucid exponents of international law, were active in devising remedies. Carlos Calvo of

Argentina advanced the doctrine that "the collection of pecuniary claims made by the citizens of one country

against the government of another country should never be made by force." Senior Drago, Minister of

Foreign Affairs in the same country in 1902, urged upon the United States a modification of the same view

President Roosevelt handled the matter in his messages of 1903 and 1904. "That our rights and interests are

deeply concerned in the maintenance of the [Monroe] Doctrine is so clear as hardly to need argument. This is

especially true in view of the construction of the Panama Canal. As a mere matter of self defense we must

exercise a close watch over the approaches to this canal, and this means we must be thoroughly alive to our

interests in the Caribbean Sea." "When we announce a policy... we thereby commit ourselves to the

consequences of the policy." "Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of

the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized

nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force

the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of

To prevent European intervention for the purpose of securing just claims in America, then, the United States

would undertake to handle the case, and would wield the "Big Stick" against any American state which

should refuse to meet its obligations. This was a repetition, in a different tone, of Blaine's "Elder Sister"

program. As developed, it had elements also of Cleveland's Venezuela policy. In 1907 the United States

submitted to the Hague Conference a modified form of the Drago doctrine, which stated that the use of force

to collect contract debts claimed from one government by another as being due to its citizens should be

regarded as illegal, unless the creditor nation first offered to submit its claims to arbitration and this offer

were refused by the nation against which the claim was directed. The interference of the United States,

Around the Caribbean, however, were several nations not only unwilling but unable to pay their debts. This

inability was not due to the fact that national resources were lacking, but that constant revolution scared away

conservative capital from seeking constructive investment or from developing their natural riches, while

speculators loaned money at ruinous rates of discount to tottering presidents, gambling on the possibility of

some turn in fortune that would return them tenfold. The worst example of an insolvent and recalcitrant state

was the Dominican Republic, whose superb harbors were a constant temptation to ambitious powers willing

to assume its debts in return for naval stations, and whose unscrupulous rulers could nearly always be bribed

to sell their country as readily as anything else. In the case of this country President Roosevelt made a still

further extension of the Monroe Doctrine when, in 1905, he concluded a treaty whereby the United States

agreed to undertake the adjustment of the republic's obligations and the administration of its custom houses,

and at the same time guarantee the territorial integrity of the republic. This arrangement was hotly attacked in

the United States as an indication of growing imperialism, and, though it was defended as necessary to

prevent the entrance of new foreign influences into the Caribbean, the opposition was so strong that the treaty

was not accepted by the Senate until 1907, and then only in a modified form with the omission of the

For the United States thus to step into a foreign country as an administrator was indeed a startling innovation.

On the other hand, the development of such a policy was a logical sequence of the Monroe Doctrine. That it

was a step in the general development of policy on the part of the United States and not a random leap is

indicated by the manner in which it has been followed up. In 1911 treaties with Nicaragua and Honduras

somewhat similar to the Dominican protocol were negotiated by Secretary Knox but failed of ratification.

Subsequently under President Wilson's Administration, the treaty with Nicaragua was redrafted and was

ratified by both parties. Hayti, too, was in financial difficulties and, at about the time of the outbreak of the

Great War, it was reported that Germany was about to relieve her needs at the price of harbors and of control.

In 1915, however, the United States took the island under its protection by a treaty which not only gave the

Government complete control of the fiscal administration but bound it to "lend an efficient aid for the

preservation of Haitian independence and the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of

Since 1898, then, the map of the Caribbean has completely changed its aspect. The sea is not an American

lake, nor do the Americans wish it to be such. In time, as the surrounding countries become better able to

stand alone, direct interference on the part of the United States will doubtless become less than it is today.

There is, however, practically no present opportunity for a nonAmerican power to establish itself and to

Few people in the United States and perhaps fewer in the countries involved realize from what American

influence has saved these small states. A glance at Africa and Asia will suggest what would otherwise have

been the case. Without the United States and its leadership, there can be little doubt that giant semisovereign

corporations owing allegiance to some great power would now possess these countries. They would bristle

with forts and police, and their populations would be in a state of absolute political and of quasieconomic

servitude. They might today be more orderly and perhaps wealthier, but unless the fundamental American

belief in democracy and selfgovernment is wrong they would be infinitely farther from their true goal,

The Caribbean is but a portion of the whole international problem of the Americas, and the methods used by

the United States in solving its problems seemed likely to postpone that sympathetic union of the whole to

which it has been looking forward for a century. Yet this country has not been unappreciative of the larger

aspects of PanAmericanism. In 1899 President McKinley revived Blaine's project and proposed a

PanAmerican congress. To popularize this idea, a PanAmerican Exposition was arranged at Buffalo in

1901. Here, just after he had expounded his views of the ties that might bind the continents together,

McKinley was assassinated. The idea, however, lived and in the same year a congress was held at the City of

Mexico, where it was proposed that such meetings be held regularly. As a result, congresses were held at Rio

de Janeiro in 1906 and at Buenos Aires in 1910, at which various measures of common utility were discussed

The movement of PanAmericanism has missed achieving the full hopes of its supporters owing not so much

to a difference of fundamental ideas and interests as to suspicion and national pride. The chief powers of

southern South AmericaArgentina, Brazil, and Chilihad by the end of the nineteenth century in large

measure successfully worked out their own problems. They resented the interference of a power of alien race

such as the United States, and they suspected its good intentions in wielding the "Big Stick," especially after

the cavalier treatment which Colombia had received. They observed with alarm the strengthening of the grip

of the United States about the Caribbean. United in a group, known from their initials as the "A.B.C."

powers, they sought to assume the leadership of Latin America, basing their action, indeed, upon the

fundamentals of the Monroe Doctrinethe exclusion of foreign influence and the independence of

Many of the publicists of these three powers, however, doubted their capacity to walk entirely alone. On the

one hand they noted the growing influence of the Germans in Brazil and the indications of Japanese interest

in many places, and on the other they divined the fundamental sincerity of the professions of the United

States and were anxious to cooperate with this nation. Not strong enough to control the policy of the various

countries, these men at least countered those chauvinists who urged that hostility to the United States was a

first duty compared with which the danger of nonAmerican interference might be neglected.

Confronted by this divided attitude, the United States sought to win over but not to compel. Nothing more

completely met American views than that each power should maintain for itself the principles of the Monroe

Doctrine by excluding foreign influences. Beyond that the United States sought only friendship, and, if it

were agreeable, such unity as should be mutually advantageous. In 1906 Elihu Root, the Secretary of State,

made a tour of South America with a view of expressing these sentiments; and in 19131914 exPresident

Roosevelt took occasion, on the way to his Brazilian hunting trip, to assure the people of the great South

American powers that the "Big Stick" was not intended to intimidate them. PanAmerican unity was still,

when President Taft went out of office in 1913, an aspiration rather than a realized fact, though the tangible

evidences of unity had vastly multiplied since 1898, and the recurring congresses provided a basis of

The United States had sincerely hoped that Mexico, like the "A.B.C." powers, was another Latin American

power which had found itself. Of all it was certainly the most friendly and the most intimate. The closeness of

its relations with the United States is indicated by the fact that in the forty years between 1868 and 1908,

forty agreements, treaties, and conventions had been concluded between the two countries. Nor was intimacy

confined to the Governments. The peace arranged by President Diaz had brought foreign capital by the billion

to aid the internal development of the country, and of this money more had come from the United States than

from any other nation. Nor was it financial aid alone which had gone across the border. There was but little

American colonization, it is true, but business managers, engineers, mine foremen, and ranch superintendents

formed thousands of links binding the nations together. The climax of intimacy seemed reached when, in

1910, a general treaty of arbitration was made after President Taft and President Diaz had met at El Paso on

the Mexican border in a personal conference. A personal interview between the President of the United States

and the chief of a foreign state was almost unique in American history, owing to the convention that the

It was, therefore, with a bitter sense of disappointment that Americans heard of the revolution inaugurated in

1910 by Francisco Madero. In common with France, Spain, Great Britain, and Germany, the United States

was disturbed for the safety of the investments and persons of its citizens. The Government was also

concerned because the points of first and most persistent fighting were where the various railroads crossed

the American boundary. This circumstance brought the whole border within the range of disturbance. The

Government was apprehensive, too, as to the effect of longcontinued war upon territories within the circle

of its chief interest, the Caribbean area. Yet, when the first surprise caused by the revolution had passed and

the reason for the outbreak was perceived,the fact that the order and apparent prosperity of the Diaz regime

had been founded upon the oppression and exploitation of the masses,public sympathy in the United States

The Diaz Government collapsed with surprising suddenness. The resignation of President Diaz in May, 1911,

was accepted as a proof of the popular character and the success of the revolution, and Madero, who was

elected president in October, was promptly recognized as the constitutional head of the Mexican

Government. The revolution, however, aroused the United States to the fact that there still persisted the era of

disturbance which it had hoped was drawing to a close in Latin America. With this disturbing revelation in

mind, Congress took another step in the development of American policies consequent upon the Monroe

Doctrine by passing an act authorizing the President, whenever he should "find that in any American country

conditions of domestic violence exist which are promoted by the use of arms and munitions of war procured

from the United States," to prohibit trade in such articles. Under this authority, President Taft promptly

Real revolutions, however, seldom result simply in the transfer of authority from one group to another. The

breaking of the bonds of recognized authority releases all sorts of desires, represented in the state by separate

groups, each of which sees no reason for accepting the control of another. All seek to seize the dropped reins.

The inauguration of Madero, therefore, did not result in a new and popular government but in continued

disturbance. Factions with differing creeds raised revolts in various sections of the country until, in February,

1913, Madero was overthrown by one of these groups, led by Felix Diaz and General Victoriano Huerta, and

representing a reactionary tendency. Madero and his vice president Pino Suarez were killed, it was believed

by order of Huerta, and on the 27th of February, in the City of Mexico, Huerta was proclaimed President.

Don Venustiano Carranza, Governor of the State of Coahuila, straightway denied the constitutionality of the

It was in such a condition that President Wilson found the affairs of the continent when he took office on

March 4, 1913. The American policy in the Caribbean was well defined and to a large extent in operation.

PanAmerican sentiment was developing, but its strength and direction were yet to be determined. Mexico

was in chaos, and upon the Government's handling of it would depend the final success of the United States

in the Caribbean and the possibility of effecting a real and fruitful cooperation of the Americas.

It became increasingly evident that the foreign policy of the United States could not consist solely of a

Caribbean policy, a PanAmerican policy, and a Far Eastern policy, but that it must necessarily involve a

world policy. During the years after the Spanish War the world was actively discussing peace; but all the

while war was in the air. The peace devices of 1815, the Holy and the Quadruple Alliances, had vanished.

The world had ceased to regard buffer states as preventives of wars between the great nations, although at the

time few believed that any nation would ever dare to treat them as Germany since then has treated Belgium.

The balance of power still existed, but statesmen were ever uncertain as to whether such a relation of states

was really conducive to peace or to war. A concert of the Great Powers resembling the Quadruple Alliance

sought to regulate such vexing problems as were presented by the Balkans and China, but their concord was

The outspoken word of governments was still all for peace; their proposals for preserving. it were of two

kinds. First, there was the timehonored argument that the best preservative of peace was preparation for

war. Foremost in the avowed policies of the day, this was urged by some who really believed it, by some who

hoped for war and intended to be ready for it, and by the cynical who did not wish for war but thought it

inevitable. The other proposal was that war could and should be prevented by agreements to submit all

differences between nations to international tribunals for judgment. In the United States, which had always

rejected the idea of balance of power, and which only in Asia, and to a limited degree, assented to the concert

of powers, one or the other of these two views was urged by all those who saw that the United States had

actually become a world power, that isolation no longer existed, and that a policy of nonintervention could

The foremost advocates of preparedness were Theodore Roosevelt and Admiral Mahan. It was little enough

that they were able to accomplish, but it was more than most Americans realize. The doubling of the regular

army which the Spanish War had brought about was maintained but was less important than its improvement

in organization. Elihu Root and William H. Taft, as Secretaries of War, profiting by the lessons learned in

Cuba, established a general staff, provided for the advanced professional training of officers, and became

sufficiently acquainted with the personnel to bring into positions of responsibility those who deserved to hold

them. The navy grew with less resistance on the part of the public, which now was interested in observing the

advance in the rank of its fleet among the navies of the world. When in 1907 Roosevelt sent the American

battleship squadron on a voyage around the world, the expedition not only caused a pleased

selfconsciousness at home but perhaps impressed foreign nations with the fact that the United States now

Greater popular interest, if one may judge from relative achievement, was aroused by the proposal to

substitute legal for military battles. The United States had always been disposed to submit to arbitration

questions which seemed deadlocked. The making of general arrangements for the arbitration of cases that

might arise in the future was now advocated. The first important proposal of this character was made to the

United States by Great Britain at the time of the Venezuela affair. This proposal was rejected, for it was

regarded as a device of Great Britain to cover her retreat in that particular case by suggesting a general

provision. The next suggestion was that made by the Czar, in 1899, for a peace conference at The Hague.

This invitation the United States accepted with hearty good will and she concurred in the establishment of a

permanent court of arbitration to meet in that city. Andrew Carnegie built a home for it, and President

Roosevelt sent to it as its first case that of the "Pious Fund," concerning which the United States had long

The establishment of a world court promoted the formation of treaties between nations by which they agreed

to submit their differences to The Hague or to similar courts especially formed. A model, or as it was called a

"mondial" treaty was drawn up by the conference for this purpose. Secretary Hay proceeded to draw up

treaties on such general lines with a number of nations, and President Roosevelt referred them to the Senate

with his warm approval. That body, however, exceedingly jealous of the share in the treatymaking power

given it by the Constitution, disliked the treaties, because it feared that under such general agreements cases

would be submitted to The Hague Court without its special approval.* Yet, as popular sentiment was strongly

behind the movement, the Senate ventured only to amend the procedure in such a way as to make every

"agreement" a treaty which would require its concurrence. President Roosevelt, however, was so much

* The second article in these treaties read: "In each individual case the high contracting parties, before

appealing to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, shall conclude a special agreement defining clearly the

President Taft was perhaps more interested in this problem than in any other. His Secretary of State, Elihu

Root, reopened negotiations and, in 1908 and 1909, drew up a large number of treaties in a form which met

the wishes of the Senate. Before the Administration closed, the United States had agreed to submit to

arbitration all questions, except those of certain classes especially reserved, that might arise with Great

Britain, France, AustroHungary, China, Costa Rica, Italy, Denmark, Japan, Hayti, Mexico, the Netherlands,

Such treaties seemed to a few fearsome souls to be violations of the injunctions of Washington and Jefferson

to avoid entangling alliances, but to most they seemed, rather, to be disentangling. It was, indeed, becoming

increasingly apparent that the world was daily growing smaller and that, as its parts were brought together by

rail and steamships, by telegraph and wireless, more and more objects of common interest must become

subject to common regulation. General Grant can hardly be regarded as a visionary, and yet in 1873 in his

second inaugural address, he had said: "Commerce, education, and rapid transit of thought and matter by

telegraph and steam have changed all this.... I believe that our Great Maker is preparing the world in His own

good time, to become one nation, speaking one language, and when armies and navies will be no longer

Quietly, without general interest, or even particular motive, the United States had accepted its share in

handling many such world problems. As early as 1875 it had cooperated in founding and maintaining at Paris

an International Bureau of Weights and Measures. In 1886 it joined in an international agreement for the

protection of submarine cables; in 1890, in an agreement for the suppression of the African slave trade; in

1899, in an agreement for the regulation of the importation of spirituous liquors into Africa; in 1902, in a

convention of American powers for the Arbitration of Pecuniary Claims. In 1903 it united with various

American powers in an International Sanitary Convention; in 1905 it joined with most countries of the world

in establishing and maintaining an International Institute of Agriculture at Rome. It would surprise most

Americans to know that five hundred pages of their collection of "Treaties and Conventions" consist of such

international undertakings, which amount in fact to a body of international legislation. It is obvious that the

Government, in interpreting the injunction to avoid entangling alliances, has not found therein prohibition

In 1783 the United States had been a little nation with not sufficient inhabitants to fill up its million square

miles of territory. Even in 1814 it still reached only to the Rockies and still found a troublesome neighbor

lying between it and the Gulf of Mexico. Now with the dawn of the twentieth century it was a power of

imperial dimensions, occupying three million square miles between the Atlantic and the Pacific, controlling

the Caribbean, and stretching its possessions across the Pacific and up into the Arctic. Its influence was a

potent factor in the development of Asia, and it was bound by the bonds of treaties, which it has ever

Nor had the only change during the century been that visible in the United States. The world which seemed

so vast and mysterious in 1812 had opened up most of its dark places to the valor of adventurous explorers, of

whom the United States had contributed its fair share. The facilities of intercourse had conquered space, and

along with its conquest had gone a penetration of the countries of the world by the tourist and the immigrant,

the missionary and the trader, so that Terence's statement that nothing human was alien to him had become

Nor had the development of governmental organization stood still. In 1812 the United States was practically

the only democratic republic in the world; in 1912 the belief in a government founded on the consent of the

governed, and republican in form, had spread over all the Americas, except such portions as were still

colonies, and was practically true of even most of them. Republican institutions had been adopted by France

and Portugal, and the spirit of democracy had permeated Great Britain and Norway and was gaining yearly

victories elsewhere. In 1912 the giant bulk of China adopted the form of government commended to he; by

the experience of the nation which, more than any other, had preserved her integrity. Autocracy and divine

right, however, were by no means dead. On the contrary, girt and prepared, they were arming themselves for

a final stand. But no longer, as in 1823, was America pitted alone against Europe. It was the world including

It was chiefly the Spanish War which caused the American people slowly and reluctantly to realize this new

state of thingsthat the ocean was no longer a barrier in a political or military sense, and that the fate of each

nation was irrevocably bound up with the fate of all. As the years went by, however, Americans came to see

that the isolation proclaimed by President Monroe was no longer real, and that isolation even as a tradition

could not, either for good or for ill, long endure. All thoughtful men saw that a new era needed a new policy;

the wiser, however, were not willing to give up all that they had acquired in the experience of the past. They

remembered that the separation of the continents was not proclaimed as an end in itself but as a means of

securing American purposes. Those national purposes had been: first, the securing of the right of

selfgovernment on the part of the United States; second, the securing of the right of other nations to govern

themselves. Both of these aims rested on the belief that one nation should not interfere with the domestic

affairs of another. These fundamental American purposes remained, but it was plain that the situation would

force the nation to find some different method of realizing them. The action of the United States indicated

that the hopes of the people ran to the reorganization of the world in such a way as would substitute the

arbitrament of courts for that of war. Year by year the nation committed itself more strongly to cooperation

foreshadowing such an organization. While this feeling was growing among the people, the number of those

who doubted whether such a system could ward off war altogether and forever also increased. Looking

forward to the probability of war, they could not fail to fear that the next would prove a world war, and that in

the even of such a conflict, the noninterference of the United States would not suffice to preserve it immune

Each President's "Annual Message" always gives a brief survey of the international relations of the year and

often makes suggestions of future policy. Of these the most famous is Monroe's message in 1823. Since 1860

they have been accompanied by a volume of "Foreign Relations, "giving such correspondence as can be made

public at the time. The full correspondence in particular cases is sometimes called for by the Congress, in

which case it is found in the "Executive Documents" of House or Senate. A fairly adequate selection of all

such papers before 1828 is found in "American State Papers, Foreign Affairs." Three volumes contain the

American "Treaties, Conventions, International Acts," etc., to 1918. A. B. Hart's "Foundations of American

More intimate material is found in the lives and works of diplomats, American and foreign. Almost all leave

some record, but there are unfortunately fewer of value since 1830 than before that date. The "Memoirs" of

John Quincy Adams (18741877), and his "Writings," (1913 ), are full of fire and information, and W. C.

Ford, in his "John Quincy Adams and the Monroe Doctrine," in the "American Historical Review," vol. VII,

pp. 676696, and vol. VIII, pp. 2852, enables us to sit at the council table while that fundamental policy

was being evolved. The most interesting work of this kind for the later period is "The Life and Letters of John

Treatments of American diplomacy as a whole are few. J. W. Foster's "Century of American Diplomacy"

(1901) ends with 1876. C. R. Fish in "American Diplomacy" (1915) gives a narrative from the beginning to

the present time. W. A. Dunning's "The British Empire and the United States" (1914) is illuminating and

interesting. Few countries possess so firm a basis for the understanding of their relations with the world as J.

B. Moore has laid down in his "Digest of International Law," 8 vols. (1906), and his "History and Digest of

Particular episodes and subjects have attracted much more the attention of students. Of the library of works

on the Monroe Doctrine, A. B. Hart's "The Monroe Doctrine, an Interpretation" (1916) can be most safely

recommended. On the ClaytonBulwer Treaty, M. W. Williams's "AngloAmerican Isthmian Diplomacy,"

18151915 (1916) combines scholarly accuracy with interest. A. R. Colquhoun's "The Mastery of the

Pacific" (1902) has sweep; and no one will regret reading R. L. Stevenson's "A Footnote to History" (1892),

The most important history of the Spanish War is Admiral F. E. Chadwick's "The Relations of the United

States and Spain," one volume of which, "Diplomacy" (1909), deals with the long course of relations which

explain the war; and two volumes, "SpanishAmerican War" (1911), give a narrative and critical account of

the war itself. E. J. Benton's "International Law and Diplomacy of the SpanishAmerican War" (1908) is a

good review of the particular aspects indicated in the title. The activity of the navy is discussed from various

angles by J.D. Long, "The New American Navy," 2 vols. (1903), and by H. H. Sargent in "The Campaign of

Santiago de Cuba," 3 vols. (1907), in which he gives a very valuable documentary and critical history of the

chief campaign. General Joseph Wheeler has told the story from the military point of view in "The Santiago

Campaign" (1899), and Theodore Roosevelt in "The Rough Riders" (1899). A good military account of the

whole campaign is H.W. Wilson's "The Downfall of Spain" (1900). Russell A. Alger in "The

SpanishAmerican War"(1901) attempts to defend his administration of the War Department. General

Frederick Funston, in his "Memories of Two Wars" (1911) proves himself as interesting as a writer as he was

picturesque as a fighter. J.A. LeRoy, in "The Americans in the Philippines," 2 vols. (1914), gives a very

careful study of events in those islands to the outbreak of guerrilla warfare. C.B. Elliott's "The Philippines," 2

vols. (1917), is an excellent study of American policy and its working up to the Wilson Administration. W.F.

Willoughby discusses governmental problems in his "Territories and Dependencies of the United States"

On the period subsequent to the Spanish War, J.H. Latane's "America as a World Power" (in the "American

Nation Series," 1907) is excellent. A.C. Coolidge's "The United States as a World Power" (1908) is based on

a profound understanding of European as well as American conditions. C.L. Jones's "Caribbean Interests of

the United States" (1916) is a comprehensive survey. The "Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt" (1913) is

indispensable for an understanding of the spirit of his Administration. W.H. Taft's "The United States and

The "International Year Book" and the "American Year Book" contain annual accounts written by men of

wide information and with great attention to accuracy. Such periodic treatments, however, are intended to be,

2. The Path of Empire, A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, page = 4