430 



The National Geographic Magazine 



seemed to our people to be an interna- 

 tional scandal at the doors of this coun- 

 try ; and as we went into it, in order that 

 we might free ourselves from the charge 

 of land-grabbing or spirit of conquest, we 

 made the declaration that we would not 

 retain Cuba, but would make her an in- 

 dependent republic as soon as circum- 

 stances would permit. The wisdom of 

 this self-denying declaration has often 

 been questioned, and I am not prepared 

 myself to say that it was the wiser course 

 to pursue. So far as our country was 

 concerned, it was. But recent events give 

 rise to a doubt whether, in our anxiety to 

 make clear our own unselfish motive, we 

 may not have committed ourselves to a 

 policy not best adapted to the welfare of 

 the Cubans. However that may be, it 

 is certain that when it was adopted, it was 

 adopted in what was thought to be the 

 best interests of Cuba, and what was 

 known to be in accordance with the un- 

 selfish desire of the American people to 

 help their oppressed neighbors. 



It is true that the presence of yellow 

 fever in Havana had threatened the 

 health of this country in its southern 

 ports, and that the failure of Spain to 

 remove this persisting danger has been 

 frequently cited to justify on interna- 

 tional grounds the declaration of war; 

 but we all of us know that the real ground 

 for the war was the sympathy that the 

 Americans had with a people struggling 

 against an oppressive and misguided rule 

 in a contest carried over many years and 

 which had laid waste one of the most 

 beautiful islands of the world. This was 

 what led us on, and he who says that it 

 was not true altruism does not under- 

 stand either the American people or the 

 motives which guide them. 



$300,000,000 EXPENDED AND NOT A CENT 

 DEMANDED IN RETURN 



We expended in the Cuban war up- 

 wards of $300,000,000, and we never 

 have invited from Cuba the return of a 

 single cent. We offered up in deaths and 

 wounds and disease in that war the lives 

 of 148 officers and over 4,100 enlisted 



men. We paid $20,000,000 to Spain 

 under the treaty of peace. The exact 

 consideration for this sum it may be diffi- 

 cult to state, but the result of the pay- 

 ment was the treaty, and by that treaty 

 was secured a cession of Cuba and Porto 

 Rico and the Philippines freed from the 

 debts which Spain had incurred in their 

 maintenance. It is not too much to say, 

 therefore, that by this payment the 

 United States freed the islands from a 

 heavy burden of debt which, under ordi- 

 nary conditions of a transfer, might have 

 followed them under American sov- 

 ereignty. 



When the Spanish army left Cuba, the 

 country had long had but little govern- 

 mental control, except that exercised in 

 the immediate neighborhood of the troops 

 who were about departing. The ordinary 

 social restraints had been destroyed, the 

 cities were crowded with thousands of 

 refugees and reconcentrados who were 

 exasperated by suffering and the death of 

 their families and friends, and it was 

 deemed necessary to take especial pre- 

 cautions for the prevention of riot and 

 bloodshed. The officers of the United 

 States Army in Cuba were at once oc- 

 cupied in instituting, under the direction 

 of the military governor and the depart- 

 ment commanders, a general civil ad- 

 ministration for which no other govern- 

 mental machinery existed and in aiding 

 the existing municipal governments in 

 the performance of their duties. It was 

 necessary to furnish immediate relief for 

 the prevailing distress among the starv- 

 ing reconcentrados. Five million four 

 hundred and ninety-three thousand ra- 

 tions, at a cost of $1,500,000 to the 

 United States, were issued to distressed 

 persons through the agency of the offi- 

 cers of the army. 



The condition of the soldiers of the 

 Cuban army, who had been separated 

 from any productive industry and who 

 upon the conclusion of hostilities were 

 left substantially without homes or occu- 

 pation and with no pay coming to them 

 from any source, required that some re- 

 lief should be afforded which would en- 



