five, six, eight, ten, twelve, and thirteen inches, but when we had reached a muzzle velocity of 2,200 foot-seconds for our six-inch guns-2, 200 foot-seconds for its best showing-we were obliged to rest for lack of appropriations, while England went on improving up to a velocity of 2,700 foot-seconds in some calibres. But that was not the worst of it either, for the breechblocks and cartridges were improved so that they had rapid-fire guns in their broadside batteries of the five-and-a-half and six-inch calibres, while we had in service nothing better than fiveinch. And in our broadside batteries, curiously enough, considering our traditions, we had fourinch and five-inch guns where the Europeans had five-and-a-half, six, and six-and-a-half inch guns.

Little more need be said here of ships and guns. With the New York and the Brooklyn (literally a greater New York) for our armored cruisers; with the Columbia and Minneapolis, built for commerce-destroyers and scouts; with a beautiful fleet of smaller cruisers and gunboats; with a small but very efficient flotilla of torpedo-boats, and with six monitors of which five were begun in the days of false pretence, but were finished in honest fashion, we supposed, in the year 1897, that we had a sea-power that would insure peace. That we were mistaken-that we were not powerful enough to overawe a vain and foolish nation-is now well known to all.

CHAPTER V

TREACHEROUS DESTRUCTION OF THE MAINE

OUR

EARLY EFFORTS TO REMOVE ANARCHY FROM CUBA-THE MAINE SENT TO HAVANA TO PROTECT AMERICANS-THE UNDISPUTED CONCLUSION OF THE COURT OF INQUIRY REGARDING THE LOSS OF THE MAINE.

WHAT we as a nation actually did in answer to the Cuban appeal for help was to strive during two long years to fulfil our treaty duties toward Spain. There were Cuban committees in all our coastwise cities who raised funds, and at intervals sent expeditions to aid the insurgents. There was no law under which our Government could prevent their raising money, but there was a law to stop filibustering expeditions, and in executing that law we spent thousands of dollars. We detailed naval as well as revenue ships to watch the filibusters. We did not stop all the expeditions, and the friends of Spain, ignoring the fact that with a force of more than a thousand ships we had been unable to prevent the work of blockade-runners during

the Civil War, were quick to accuse us of neglecting our treaty duty. But the truth is we repressed the work of filibusters with such rigor that many of the friends of liberty cried "shame." To the English writer who called us "easily excited Americans," Uncle Sam might reply by paraphrasing the words of a much greater Eng. lishman: "When I consider my opportunities, by God, I stand astounded at my own moderation."

But even the prolonged patience of conscious power had to come to an end when the atrocities of Weyler became fully known. The condition of Cuba was a matter for long consideration in the Cabinet of President McKinley in 1897, and the result was that Minister Stewart L. Woodford said in diplomatic but unmistakable language to the government of Spain :

"You must take Weyler out of Cuba or we will do it for you."

Let no mistake be made when interpreting that demand. It was not a seeking for a fight. It was an assertion that we would have peace not only within but about our borders. It was an assault, but it was the assault of the sanitary officials of an international board of health.

It was our first step in the name of humanity, and for the moment the Spaniards were willing to listen to an appeal to reason. Weyler was recalled on October 2, 1897, and he sailed from

Havana on the 30th. Captain-General Blanco succeeded him. At the same time they promised to give Cuba some such a government as that in Canada. While the island was to remain Spanish territory the people were to govern themselves. With any other civilized nation this proposed change in policy would have brought peace. But Spain could not keep her promise. She had instituted changes in the government of Cuba in former years-she had even given the island representation in the Spanish Congress-without affording any relief to the people of the island. Indeed matters had grown steadily worse instead of better. The promise of an autonomous government as carried out was a sham. A later promise to give relief to the reconcentrados was a more infamous sham, because it provided for permitting the starving people to go out to plant when they had neither tools nor seed. And when some did straggle out to gather the spontaneous products of the earth the Spanish soldiers, responsible only to local officers, shot many of them to death for the pleasure they had in inflicting suffering, and to enable their officers to report victories over bodies of insurgents!

In his first warning to the Madrid Government President McKinley set a date, December 1, 1897, by which time some manifest progress must be made in establishing order in Cuba,