And State Papers 23 



the island. But on the 2Oth of next month Cuba 

 becomes a free republic, and we turn over to the 

 islanders the control of their own government. It 

 would be very difficult to find a parallel in the con 

 duct of any other great -State that has occupied 

 such a position as ours. We have kept our word 

 and done our duty, just as an honest individual in 

 private life keeps his word and does his duty. 



Be it remembered, moreover, that after our four 

 years' occupation of the island we turn it over to 

 the Cubans in a better condition than it ever has 

 been in all the centuries of Spanish rule. This has 

 a direct bearing upon our own welfare. Cuba is 

 so near to us that we can never be indifferent to 

 misgovernment and disaster within its limits. The 

 mere fact that our administration in the island has 

 minimized the danger from the dreadful scourge of 

 yellow fever, alike to Cuba and to ourselves, is suf 

 ficient to emphasize the community of interest be 

 tween us. But there are other interests which bind 

 us together. Cuba's position makes it necessary that 

 her political relations with us should differ from 

 her political relations with other powers. This fact 

 has been formulated by us and accepted by the 

 Cubans in the Platt amendments. It follows as a 

 corollary that where the Cubans have thus assumed 

 a position of peculiar relationship to our political 

 system they must similarly stand in a peculiar re 

 lationship to our economic system. 



We have rightfully insisted upon Cuba adopting 

 toward us an attitude differing politically from that 



