when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people." 16

Disclaimer of America's intention to occupy the island was looked upon by Europe as a bit of pious fraud. Such it must naturally have seemed in the light of the Ostend Manifesto and previous workings of our Manifest Destiny. Yet events were soon to demonstrate the sincerity of our utterance. Indeed the record we have made in Cuba is an excellent example of national integrity.

The war produced a change within the cabinet. Secretary Sherman, who had taken his portfolio in order to create a senatorial vacancy for the President's campaign manager, Mark Hanna, by a fatal lapse of memory in a conversation with the minister from Austria-Hungary so unmistakably betrayed the ravages of age that his immediate removal was imperative. For a brief period, William Rufus Day, the Assistant Secretary, succeeded him. But Day resigned to serve on the Peace Commission. President McKinley then obtained in John Hay the Secretary whose abilities and policies lent glamour to his entire administration.

Hay's conduct of the State Department was undoubtedly affected by his experiences in England. He personally contributed to an Anglo-American entente. At London, too, he formed distinct impressions of William II and Pan-German propaganda. He appreciated British moral aid to Dewey. In the light of the immeasurable consequences destined to proceed from this Anglo-Saxon cordiality, Hay's biographer maintains that his mission to Great Britain is second in importance only to that of Charles Francis Adams.

The war with Spain was startling in its unexpectedness, its instantaneous success, and the permanent changes it bequeathed. Begun in April it was fairly ended by July, and 'on October 1st the peace commission attacked the problem of its settlement. Spain recognized the completeness of our victory. Her statesmen merely sought to minimize the consequences. Spain recognized that Cuba must be free. But she wished to validate the Cuban debt incurred chiefly

16 Quoted in Rhodes, James Ford, The McKinley and Roosevelt Administrations (New York, 1922), p. 66.

in suppressing insurrection and then amounting to over $400,000,000. To accomplish this she proposed a surrender of the island to the United States direct, with the assumption that we in turn should recognize the autonomy of the Cubans. This technicality would have involved us seriously. The government refused to countenance it. Spain's renunciation of her sovereignty was made direct to Cuba.

Cuba being lost, the neighboring Porto Rico became in Spanish eyes the one remembrance of the mighty empire of the past. There was, indeed, a pathos in Spain's plea for a retention of this slight reminder of her greatness. But the plea encountered little sympathy. Porto Rico was the spoils of war. The United States assumed full title to the island.17 Spain apparently expected such an outcome. But she attempted to localize her losses by excluding the Philippines from the negotiation. For America's reaction to this plan, a passage in John W. Foster's Diplomatic Memoirs is illuminating. "Secretary Hay told me that he cabled the President from London, before sailing to enter on his duties as Secretary of State, not to hold any part of the Philippines except what was necessary for a naval station, and that such would have been the action of the Peace Commissioners at Paris but for the President's express instructions." 18 But war converted both the Secretary and his master to imperialism. Whatever hesitation McKinley may still have felt, succumbed to the enthusiasm he everywhere encountered on a journey to the West. And Hay grew positively fierce in his conviction that imperialism was our destiny, to be encountered with such intelligence as might be. McKinley based our claim on conquest. To Spain's suggestion that we compromise by taking Luzon only, Hay replied that it must be all or none, and that none was an impossibility.

The peace commissioners met at Paris. Here public sentiment strongly favored Spain. Our representatives worked in an unfavorable environment. But the military victory was so complete that in the making of the treaty the "vain

17 Cortissoz, Royal, The Life of Whitelaw Reid (New York, 1921), II, 228-255.

18 Foster, John W., Diplomatic Memoirs, II, 257.

queurs parvenus," as one of their opponents dubbed them, could not fail to have their way. Spain was stripped of her colonial empire, and America embarked upon unprecedented courses. As Whitelaw Reid, an influential member of the commission, later analyzed proceedings, they also marked a contribution to the law of nations. America's refusal to submit any of the issues in dispute to arbitration set a limit to its use which its best friends would welcome. Arbitration was an alternative and preventive of war. There its function ended. It must never be a cloak to guard the vanquished from the penalties of their rashness in preferring war to arbitration.

Reid saw another gain to international law in America's refusal to assume the Cuban debt-a point contested fiercely by the Spaniards. For, as he asserted, "a national debt incurred in efforts to subdue a colony, even if called a colonial debt, or secured by a pledge of colonial revenues, cannot be attached in the nature of a mortgage to the territory of that colony, so that when the colony gains its independence it may still be held for the cost of the unsuccessful efforts to keep it in subjection." 19

Another gain to international law was the adoption by the United States of the anti-privateering principles of the Declaration of Paris of 1856. Even yet not formally assented to, they henceforth constituted a binding precedent. "Here then," concluded Reid, "are three great principles, important to the advancement of civilization, which, if not established in international law by the Peace of Paris and the war it closed, have at least been so powerfully reinforced that no nation is likely hereafter lightly or safely to violate them." 20

THE NEW IMPERIALISM

Developments at Paris precipitated a nation-wide debate at home on the right and wisdom of imperialism. The likelihood that to Samoa, Hawaii and Porto Rico, the Philippines might now be added, awakened American opinion to

19 Cortissoz, Royal, Op. Cit. II, 254.

20 Ibid. II, 255.

the vast significance of the changes under way. To accept the newer tendencies was to embark upon the path which all great nations of the past had found by experience to lead to greatness first and afterwards to ruin. The argument for democracy and preserving faith with the traditions of the republic enlisted able advocates, who did their best to influence American opinion. Distinguished among these opponents of imperialism were Charles Eliot Norton, Charles Francis Adams, Senator G. F. Hoar, and Carl Schurz. A paragraph from Schurz written for the Century Magazine put the question brilliantly.

"And what will become, with all this, of the responsibility of the American people for the maintenance of 'the government of the people, by the people, for the people' and of our great mission to further the progress of civilization by enhancing the prestige of democratic institutions? It will be only the old tale of a free people seduced by false ambitions and running headlong after riches and luxuries and military glory, and then down the fatal slope into vice, corruption, decay and disgrace. The tale will be more ignominious and mournful this time, because the opportunities had been more magnificent, the fall more rapid and the failure more shameful and discouraging than ever before in history."

21

Imperialists relied for argument on Realpolitik. Force of circumstances, they declared, not only placed the Philippines within our power but constituted them a moral obligation impossible to evade. When Andrew Carnegie entered the lists against imperialism, John Hay perceived the incongruity of altruism with the iron-master's past. Writing to Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York Tribune and a brother imperialist, the Secretary makes a caustic comment. "He [Carnegie] says the administration will fall in irretrievable ruin the moment it shoots down one insurgent Filipino. He does not seem to reflect that the government is in a somewhat robust condition even after shooting down several American citizens in his interest at Homestead." 22

21 The Writings of Carl Schurz (New York, 1913), V, p. 510. 22 Thayer, W. R., Op. Cit. II, p. 199.

Senator Lodge as correctly as any one interpreted the sentiment of the country when he reduced the issue to a basis of opportunism. "Suppose we ratify the treaty! The islands pass from the possession of Spain into our possession without committing us to any policy. I believe we can be trusted as a people to deal honestly and justly with the islands and their inhabitants thus given to our care. What our precise policy shall be I do not know, because I for one am not sufficiently informed as to the conditions there to be able to say what it will be best to do, nor, I may add, do I think any one is." 23

The Philippines were finally included in the treaty. The right of conquest, seeming here of somewhat questionable validity, was reënforced by right of purchase, the Spanish Treasury being compensated by a $20,000,000 payment. For weal or woe the United States had broken with the past, had flaunted Washington's farewell advice, and the corresponding sentiments of Jefferson. Henceforth the United States must be included among world powers.

By comparison with the mighty conflict between democracy or the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, and the new imperialism, details of the treaty pale into insignificance. But one of them, at any rate, possesses an amusing aspect. A grievance strongly urged by the United States against the Spanish government was the damage claims of American citizens which in 1897 totaled sixteen million dollars. By treaty the United States itself assumed the payment of these claims and appointed a commission to investigate their total. It examined 542 claims for a total of $61,672,077.78 and finally recognized the rights of only 18 claimants, and to but $362,352 out of the $2,387,429.26 which they claimed. The shoe was on another foot.24

THE HAY-PAUNCEFOTE TREATY: FIRST STAGE

America's new part in world decisions lent fresh importance to Hay's disposal of the obstacles which blocked com

23 Senator Lodge's position on this and other events is best revealed in his correspondence with Hay and Roosevelt.

24 Latané, John Holladay, Op. Cit. pp. 80-81.