The political, educational, historical, and commemorative speeches and addresses should make known to future generations the literary, artistic, and emotional side of a statesman of our time, and the publication of these collected addresses and state papers will, it is believed, enable the American people better to understand the generation in which Mr. Root has been a commanding figure and better to appreciate during his lifetime the services which he has rendered to his country. ROBERT BACON. APRIL 15, 1916. FOREWORD THE addresses and those portions of Mr. Root's reports printed in the present volume deal with the problems which may be regarded as the consequence or aftermath of the war with Spain in 1898, except such as refer to the Chinese Relief Expedition due to the Boxer troubles of 1900. It therefore seems advisable to prefix an introductory note of a general nature, in addition to such introductory matter as precedes certain of the addresses and reports. The insurrection in Cuba, which finally cost Spain not only Cuba but Porto Rico, broke out during the year 1895. The cause was the same as made twenty-one republics out of the European colonies in America - misgovernment by the mother-country and the desire on the part of the colonists to be free and independent states. On April 11, 1898, President McKinley sent a special message to Congress devoted to Cuba and recommending that the United States should intervene in Cuba for the following reasons: First. In the cause of humanity and to put an end to the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries now existing there, and which the parties to the conflict are either unable or unwilling to stop or mitigate. It is no answer to say this is all in another country, belonging to another nation, and is therefore none of our business. It is specially our duty, for it is right at our door. Second. We owe it to our citizens in Cuba to afford them that protection and indemnity for life and property which no government there can or will afford, and to that end to terminate the conditions that deprive them of legal protection. Third. The right to intervene may be justified by the very serious injury to the commerce, trade, and business of our people and by the wanton destruction of property and devastation of the island. Fourth, and which is of the utmost importance. The present condition of affairs in Cuba is a constant menace to our peace and entails upon this Government an enormous expense. With such a conflict waged for years in an island so near us and with which our people have such trade and business relations; when the lives and liberty of our citizens are in constant danger and their property destroyed and themselves ruined; where our trading vessels are liable to seizure and are seized at our very door by war ships of a foreign nation; the expeditions of filibustering that we are powerless to prevent altogether, and the irritating questions and entanglements thus arising all these and others that I need not mention, with the resulting strained relations, are a constant menace to our peace and compel us to keep on a semi-war footing with a nation with which we are at peace. Congress replied to this message by the following joint resolution, approved by the President on April 20, 1898: WHEREAS: The abhorrent conditions which have existed for more than three years in the island of Cuba, so near our own borders, have shocked the moral sense of the people of the United States, have been a disgrace to Christian civilization, culminating, as they have, in the destruction of a United States battle-ship [the Maine] with 266 of its officers and crew, while on a friendly visit in the harbor of Havana [on February 15, 1898], and cannot longer be endured, as has been set forth by the President of the United States in his message to Congress of April 11, 1898, upon which the action of Congress was invited: Therefore, Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, First. That the people of the island of Cuba are and of right ought to be free and independent. Second. That it is the duty of the United States to demand, and the Government of the United States does hereby demand, that the Government of Spain at once relinquish its authority and government in the island of Cuba and withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters. Third. That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, directed and empowered to use the entire land and naval forces of the United States and to call into the actual service of the United States the militia of the several States to such extent as may be necessary to carry these resolutions into effect. Fourth. That the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people. The joint resolution of Congress was communicated by the American Minister to the Spanish Government, and inasmuch as Spain responded by treating, as President McKinley informed Congress, "the reasonable demands of this Government as measures of hostility, that body passed the following act, approved April 25, 1898: Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, First. That war be, and the same is, hereby declared to exist, and that war has existed since the 21st day of April, A.D. 1898, including said day, between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain. Second. That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, directed and empowered to use the entire land and naval forces of the United States and to call into the actual service of the United States the militia of the several States to such extent as may be necessary to carry this act into effect. It is no part of the purpose of this introduction to enter into the details of the war. Suffice it to say that, by virtue of a protocol of August 12, 1898, due to the good offices of the French Republic, a general agreement was reached upon the terms of peace and an armistice was concluded between the erstwhile belligerents; and that peace was concluded between Spain and the United States by a treaty signed at Paris on December 10, 1898, of which ratifications were exchanged on April 11, 1899. Inasmuch as the protocol and the treaty state the results of the war and the obligations assumed by the United States growing out of it, these documents are appended to the foreword. Even a hasty reading of the treaty of Paris shows the nature, variety and extent of the problems confronting the United States by reason of the Spanish-American War, and as Porto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines were placed under the supervision of the War Department it followed that the Secretary of War was, by virtue of his office, forced to consider these problems and to find if possible an appropriate |