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 as by the losses and difficulties of American citizens.
One change of extreme importance had taken place since the Cuban revolt of 1868-78.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 world.Their reaction to the facts was their own.
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 extravagance, that it was American aid which gave life to the revolt.
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 approaching change in administration.
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 seventy-four, 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 end.
