90 Presidential Addresses 



we administered it on a plane higher than it had 

 ever reached before during the four hundred years 

 that had elapsed since the Spaniards first landed 

 upon its shores. We brought moral and physical 

 cleanliness into the government. We cleaned the 

 cities for the first time in their existence. We 

 stamped out yellow fever an inestimable boon not 

 merely to Cuba, but to the people of the Southern 

 States as well. We established a school system. 

 We made life and property secure, so that industry 

 could again begin to thrive. Then when we had 

 laid deep and broad the foundations upon which 

 civil liberty and national independence must rest, 

 we turned the island over to the hands of those 

 whom its people had chosen as the founders of the 

 new republic. It is a republic with which our own 

 great Republic must ever be closely knit by the 

 ties of common interests and common inspirations. 

 Cuba must always be peculiarly related to us in in 

 ternational politics. She must in international af 

 fairs be to a degree a part of our political system. 

 In return she must have peculiar relations with us 

 economically. She must be in a sense part of our 

 economic system. We expect her to accept a po 

 litical attitude toward us which we think wisest both 

 for her and for us. In return we must be prepared 

 to put her in an economic position as regards our 

 tariff system which will give her some measure of the 

 prosperity which we enjoy. We can not, in my judg 

 ment, avoid taking this attitude if we are to per 

 severe in the course 'which we have outlined for our- 



