18983 War with Spain 



always follows if for no other reason, to present 

 a solid front. 



Shortly after his return from Spain I met General 

 Woodford at the Hotel Willard in Washington. 

 We had been fellow trustees at Cornell, and he spoke 

 his mind freely; he was extremely distressed and 

 humiliated. Successful in the mission assigned him, 

 he had opened the way to an honorable settlement 

 which would have relieved Cuba and averted war. 

 Yet at the critical moment his country discredited 

 him, and the Spanish believed he had been merely u ^ airl ^ 



i i i r r i i i discredited 



tricking them with suggestions or friendship and 

 peace. 1 



To the American people at large our conflict with 

 Spain seemed wholly altruistic. It was, nevertheless, 

 foisted on us by commercial and political interests 



1 Some years later I published a statement of this matter in the New York 

 Times. One of its readers having denied the accuracy of my account in a letter 

 to the paper, his communication drew forth the following, dated New York 

 City, April 17, 1915, from a former member of the State Department: 

 "To the Editor of the New York Times: 



" David Starr Jordan and Richard Barry are right and Herbert W. Bowen 

 is wrong in regard to the statement of the former that General Woodford be- 

 lieved that the war with Spain could have been averted. At a dinner given in 

 honor of Leo Tolstoy's seventieth birthday in this city about Sept. i, 1898, 

 General Woodford was present, and spoke briefly on the conditions that had 

 led up to the war with Spain. A report of his remarks was published in the 

 Critic, and while I have not a copy of that publication, with the account of the 

 Tolstoy dinner, at hand, I recall distinctly that General Woodford stated that 

 the Spanish Government did not want war, and that in his opinion the war 

 could have been avoided. 



"Mr. Bowen's letter reminds me that it is just twenty-two years ago this 

 month that, while acting as editor (or reviser) of the United States Consular 

 Reports, I had occasion to put in shape a thrilling monograph on 'Poultry 

 Raising in Spain' by the United States consul at Barcelona, in which it was 

 stated that hens in that consular district were frequently attacked by some 

 obscure disease, which, said the report, was 'followed by their subsequent 

 decease.' 



" Mr. Bowen's knowledge of hen afflictions is evidently more exact than are 

 his recollections of General Woodford's views regarding the war with Spain. 



(signed) "WHIDDEN GRAHAM" 



n 615 a 



