162 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE -XVI 



that the greatest wish of the administration was to pre 

 vent the war, or, if that proved impossible, to delay it. 



For years, in common with the great majority of Amer 

 ican citizens, I had believed that the Spanish West Indies 

 must break loose from Spain some day, but had hoped 

 that the question might be adjourned until the middle or 

 end of the twentieth century. For I knew well that the 

 separation of Cuba from Spain would be followed, after 

 no great length of time, by efforts for her annexation to 

 the United States, and that if such annexation of Cuba 

 should ever occur, she must come in as a State; that there 

 is no use in considering any other form of government 

 for an outlying dominion so large and so near ; that there 

 is no other way of annexing a dependency so fully devel 

 oped, and that, even if there were, the rivalry of political 

 parties contending for electoral votes would be sure to 

 insist on giving her statehood. I dreaded the addition 

 to our country of a million and a half of citizens whose 

 ability to govern themselves was exceedingly doubtful, to 

 say nothing of helping to govern our Union on the main 

 land. The thought of senators and representatives to be 

 chosen by such a constituency to reside at Washington 

 and to legislate for the whole country, filled me with dis 

 may. Especially was the admission of Cuba to state 

 hood a fearful prospect just at that time, when we had 

 so many difficult questions to meet in the exercise of the 

 suffrage. I never could understand then, and cannot un 

 derstand now, what Senator Morgan of Alabama, who 

 once had the reputation of being the strongest represen 

 tative from the South, could be thinking of when he was 

 declaiming in the Senate, first in behalf of the * l oppressed 

 Cubans, &quot; and next in favor of measures which tended to 

 add them to the United States, and so to create a vast 

 commonwealth largely made up of negroes and mulattos 

 accustomed to equality with the whites, almost within 

 musket-shot of the negroes and mulattos of the South, 

 from whom the constituents of Mr. Morgan were at that 

 very moment withholding the right of suffrage. I could 



