Cuba

The weeks that have elapsed since that fatal event of

February 15th have been making history in a manner

highly creditable to the American government and to

our citizenship. Captain Sigsbee, the commander of the

Maine, had promptly telegraphed his desire that

judgment should be suspended until investigation had

been made. The investigation was started at once, and

75 million Americans have accordingly suspended

judgment in the face of a great provocation. For it

must be remembered that to suppose the destruction of

the Maine an ordinary accident and not due to any

external agency or hostile intent was, under all the

circumstances, to set completely at defiance the law

of probabilities.

It is not true that battleships are in the habit of

blowing themselves up. When all the environing facts

were taken into consideration, it was just about as

probable that the Maine had been blown up by some

accident where no hostile motive was involved, as that

the reported assassination of President Barrios of

Guatemala, a few days previously, had really been a

suicide. . . .

It has been known perfectly well that Spanish hatred

might at any time manifest itself by attempts upon the

life of the American representative at Havana, Consul

General Fitzhugh Lee. This danger was felt especially

at the time of the Havana riots in January, and it

seems to have had something to do with the sending of

the Maine to Havana Harbor. The Spaniards themselves,

however, looked upon the sending of the Maine as a

further aggravation of the long series of their just

grievances against the United States. They regarded

the presence of the Maine at Havana as a menace to

Spanish sovereignty in the island and as an

encouragement to the insurgents. A powerful American

fleet lay at Key West and the Dry Tortugas, with steam

up ready to follow the Maine to the harbor of Havana

at a few hours' notice. All this was intensely hateful

to the Spaniards, and particularly to the Army

officers at Havana who had sympathized with General

Weyler's policy and who justly regarded General

Weyler's recall to Spain as due to the demand of

President McKinley. The American pretense that the

Maine was making a visit of courtesy seemed to these

Spaniards a further example of Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy.

That this intense bitterness against the presence of

the Maine was felt among the military and official

class in Havana was perfectly well known to Captain

Sigsbee, his staff, and all his crew; and they were

not unaware of the rumors and threats that means would

be found to destroy the American ship. It was,

furthermore, very generally supposed that the Spanish

preparation for the defense of Havana had included

mines and torpedoes in the harbor. At the time when

the Maine went to Havana, it was a notorious fact that

the relations between the Spain and the United States

were so strained that that war was regarded as

inevitable. If war had actually been declared while

the Maine was at Havana, it is not likely that the

Spanish would have permitted the ship's departure

without an effort to do her harm.

The Spanish harbor is now and it has been for a good

while past under military control; and the American

warship, believed by the Spanish authorities to be at

Havana with only half-cloaked hostile designs, was

obliged to accept the anchorage that was assigned by

those very authorities. In view of the strained

situation and of the Spanish feeling that no

magnanimity is due on Spain's part toward the United

States, it is not in the least difficult to believe

that the harbor authorities would have anchored the

Maine

at a spot where, in case of the outbreak of war, the

submarine harbor defenses might be effectively be used

against so formidable an enemy.

To understand the situation completely, it must not be

forgotten that the Spanish government at first made

objection against the Maine's intended visit to Havana

and, in consenting, merely yielded to a necessity that

was forced upon it. All Spaniards regarded the sending