AMERICA, GERMANY, AND SPAIN-1897-1903 163 



not see then, and I cannot see now, how he could possibly 

 be blind to the fact that if Cuba ever becomes a State of 

 our Union, she will soon begin to look with sympathy 

 on those whom she will consider her &quot;oppressed colored 

 brethren &quot; in the South; and that she will, just as in 

 evitably, make common cause with them at Washington, 

 and perhaps in some other places, and possibly not al 

 ways by means so peaceful as orating under the roof of 

 the Capitol. 



Moreover, the nation had just escaped a terrible catas 

 trophe at the last general election ; the ignorant, careless, 

 and perverse vote having gone almost solidly for a finan 

 cial policy which would have wrecked us temporarily and 

 disgraced us eternally. Time will, no doubt, develop a 

 more conservative sentiment in the States where this vote 

 for evil was cast; as civilization deepens and advances, 

 better ideas will doubtless grow stronger; but it is sure 

 that the addition of Cuba to the United States, if it ever 

 comes, means the adding of a vast illiterate mass of vot 

 ers to those who at that election showed themselves so 

 dangerous. 



On all these accounts I had felt very anxious to put 

 off the whole Cuban question until our Eepublic should 

 become so much larger and so much more mature that the 

 addition of a few millions of Spanish-Americans would 

 be of but small account in the total vote of the country. 



Then, too, I had little sympathy with aspirations for 

 what Spanish revolutionists call freedom, and no admira 

 tion at all for Central American republics. I had offi 

 cially examined one of them thoroughly, had known much 

 of others, and had no belief in the capacity of people 

 for citizenship who prefer to carry on government by 

 pronunciamientos, who never acknowledge the rights of 

 majorities, who are ready to start civil war on the slight 

 est pretext, and who, when in power, exercise a despotism 

 more persistent and cruel than any since Nero and Ca 

 ligula. No Russian autocrat, claiming to govern by divine 

 right, has ever dared to commit the high-handed cruelties 



