The War Must Be Ended (1897), The New York World

This New York World editorial pointed to the humanitarian crisis in Cuba.

Topic: The Spanish-American War

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In trying to suppress the Cuban revolt, the Spanish commander, General Valeriano ("Butcher") Weyler, established concentration camps for rebels and their families. Atrocities on both sides were inevitable, but the United States heard little of Cuban misdeeds. Locked in an intense competition for newspaper subscribers, Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal engaged in sensational reporting that came to be called "yellow journalism." The phrase derived from the first color newspaper cartoon, "Hogan's Alley." It was enormously popular and featured the Yellow Kid. Hence, "yellow journalism" was born when two competing New York newspapers fought over rival versions of this cartoon. Stories highlighted horrifying tales of Spanish cruelty and atrocities. A World reporter claimed that slaughtered Cuban rebels were fed to dogs, and that children of high-ranking Spanish families used ears from dead Cubans as playthings. The following editorial in Pulitzer's World urged the American government to take direct action to end the fighting in Cuba.

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How long are the Spaniards to drench Cuba with the blood and tears of her people? How long is the peasantry of Spain to be drafted away to Cuba to die miserably in a hopeless war, that Spanish nobles and Spanish officers may get medals and honors?

How long shall old [Cuban]¹ men and women and children be murdered by the score, the innocent victims of Spanish rage against the patriot armies they cannot conquer?

How long shall the sound of rifles in Castle Morro at sunrise proclaim that bound and helpless prisoners of war have been murdered in cold blood?

How long shall Cuban women be the victims of Spanish outrages and lie sobbing and bruised in loathsome prisons?

How long shall women passengers on vessels flying the American flag be unlawfully seized and stripped and searched by brutal, jeering Spanish officers, in violation of the laws of nations and of the honor of the United States?

How long shall American citizens, arbitrarily arrested while on peaceful and legitimate errands, be immured in foul Spanish prisons without trial?

How long shall the navy of the United States be used as the sea police of barbarous Spain?

How long shall the United States sit idle and indifferent within sound and hearing of rapine and murder? How long?

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1. Editorial insertion.

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[From "The War Must Be Ended," New York World, 13 February 1897.]

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Declaration of War (1898), President William McKinley

In this message to the U.S. Congress, McKinley offered several reasons for declaring war against Spain.

Topic: The Spanish-American War

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President McKinley found it impossible to resist the mounting public and political pressure for war against Spain. In requesting a declaration of war from the Senate on April 11, 1898, he listed several concerns but stressed the nation's humanitarian sympathy for the Cuban independence movement. He said little about the long-range implications of war.

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To the Congress of the United States:

. . . The present revolution is but the successor of other similar insurrections which have occurred in Cuba against the dominion of Spain, extending over a period of nearly half a century, each of which during its progress has subjected the United States to great effort and expense in enforcing its neutrality laws, caused enormous losses to American trade and commerce, caused irritation, annoyance, and disturbance among our citizens, and, by the exercise of cruel, barbarous, and uncivilized practices of warfare, shocked the sensibilities and offended the human sympathies of our people. . . .

Our trade has suffered, the capital invested by our citizens in Cuba has been largely lost, and the temper and forbearance of our people have been so sorely tried as to beget a perilous unrest among our own citizens, which has inevitably found its expression from time to time in the National Legislature, so that issues wholly external to our own body politic engross attention and stand in the way of that close devotion to domestic advancement that becomes a selfcontained commonwealth whose primal maxim has been the avoidance of all foreign entanglements.

All this must needs awaken, and has, indeed, aroused, the utmost concern on the part of this Government, as well during my predecessor's term as in my own. . . . The overtures of this Government [to the Spanish government] . . . were met by assurances that home rule in an advanced phase would be forthwith offered to Cuba, without waiting for the war to end, and that more humane methods should thenceforth prevail in the conduct of hostilities.

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The war in Cuba is of such a nature that, short of subjugation or extermination, a final military victory for either side seems impracticable. The alternative lies in the physical exhaustion of the one or the other party, or perhaps of both. . . . The prospect of such a protraction and conclusion of the present strife is a contingency hardly to be contemplated with equanimity by the civilized world, and least of all by the United States, affected and injured as we are, deeply and intimately, by its very existence. . . .

The spirit of all our acts hitherto has been an earnest, unselfish desire for peace and prosperity in Cuba, untarnished by differences between us and Spain and unstained by the blood of American citizens. The forcible intervention of the United States as a neutral to stop the war . . . is justifiable on rational grounds . . . [which] may be briefly summarized as follows:

First. In the cause of humanity and to put an end to the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries now existing there, and which the parties to the conflict are either unable or unwilling to stop or mitigate. It is no answer to say this is all in another country, belonging to another nation, and is therefore none of our business. It is specially our duty, for it is right at our door.

Second. We owe it to our citizens in Cuba to afford them that protection and indemnity for life and property which no government there can or will afford, and to that end to terminate the conditions that deprive them of legal protection.

Third. The right to intervene may be justified by the very serious injury to the commerce, trade, and business of our people and by the wanton destruction of property and devastation of the island.

Fourth, and which is of the utmost importance. The present condition of affairs in Cuba is a constant menace to our peace and entails upon this Government an enormous expense. With such a conflict waged for years in an island so near us and with which our people have such trade and business relations; when the lives and liberty of our citizens are in constant danger and their property destroyed and themselves ruined; where our trading vessels are liable to seizure and are seized at our very door by war ships of a foreign nation; the expeditions of filibustering that we are powerless to prevent altogether, and the irritating questions and entanglements thus arising—all these and others that I need not mention, with the resulting strained relations, are a constant menace to our peace and compel us to keep on a semi-war footing with a nation with which we are at peace.

These elements of danger and disorder already pointed out have been strikingly illustrated by a tragic event which has deeply and justly moved the American people. I have already transmitted to Congress the report of the naval court of inquiry on the destruction of the battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana during the night of the l5th of February. The destruction of that noble vessel has filled the national heart with inexpressible horror.

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The naval court of inquiry, which, it is needless to say, commands the unqualified confidence of the Government, was unanimous in its conclusion that the destruction of the Maine was caused by an exterior explosion—that of a submarine mine. It did not assume to place the responsibility. That remains to be fixed. In any event, the destruction of the Maine, by whatever exterior cause, is a patent and impressive proof of a state of things in Cuba that is intolerable. That condition is thus shown to be such that the Spanish Government can not assure safety and security to a vessel of the American Navy in the harbor of Havana on a mission of peace, and rightfulIy there. . . .

The long trial has proved that the object for which Spain has waged the war can not be attained. The fire of insurrection may flame or may smolder with varying seasons, but it has not been and it is plain that it can not be extinguished by present methods. The only hope of relief and repose from a condition which can no longer be endured is the enforced pacification of Cuba. In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, in behalf of endangered American interests which give us the right and the duty to speak and to act, the war in Cuba must stop. In view of these facts and of these considerations I ask the Congress to authorize and empower the President to take measures to secure a full and final termination of hostilities between the Government of Spain and the people of Cuba, and to secure in the island the establishment of a stable government, capable of maintaining order and observing its international obligations, insuring peace and tranquility and the security of its citizens as well as our own, and to use the military and naval forces of the United States as may be necessary for these purposes. . . .

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[From James D. Richardson, ed., Messages and Papers of the Presidents (Washington, D.C., 1899), 10:139-50.]

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Platform of the American Anti-Imperialist League (1899)

Some Americans believed that the war against Spain indicated a significant shift in U.S. foreign policy.

Topic: The Spanish-American War

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Those opposed to the new expansionism included Republicans and Democrats, business leaders such as Andrew Carnegie, the philosopher William James, prominent scholars such as William Graham Sumner, and literary figures such as Mark Twain and William Dean Howells. Many of them joined the Anti-Imperialist League, formed in Boston in 1898 for the purpose of galvanizing public opinion against the Philippine War and the evils of imperialism. Anti-imperialists almost prevented the annexation of the Philippines through their lobbying efforts against the Treaty of Paris, which the Senate ultimately ratified by only one vote on February 6, 1899. The following excerpt outlines the anti-imperialist critique of American foreign policy.

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We hold that the policy known as imperialism is hostile to liberty and tends toward militarism, an evil from which it has been our glory to be free. We regret that it has become necessary in the land of Washington and Lincoln to reaffirm that all men, of whatever race or color, are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We maintain that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. We insist that the subjugation of any people is "criminal aggression" and open disloyalty to the distinctive principles of our Government.

We earnestly condemn the policy of the present National Administration in the Philippines. It seeks to extinguish the spirit of 1776 in those islands. We deplore the sacrifice of our soldiers and sailors, whose bravery deserves admiration even in an unjust war. We denounce the slaughter of the Filipinos as a needless horror. We protest against the extension of American sovereignty by Spanish methods.

We demand the immediate cessation of the war against liberty, begun by Spain and continued by us. We urge that Congress be promptly convened to announce to the Filipinos our purpose to concede to them the independence for which they have so long fought and which of right is theirs.

The United States have always protested against the doctrine of international law which permits the subjugation of the weak by the strong. A selfgoverning state cannot accept sovereignty over an unwilling people. The United States cannot act upon the ancient heresy that might makes right.

Imperialists assume that with the destruction of selfgovernment in the Philippines by American hands, all opposition here will cease. This is a grievous error. Much as we abhor the war of "criminal aggression" in the Philippines, greatly as we regret that the blood of the Filipinos is on American hands, we more deeply resent the betrayal of American institutions at home. The real firing line is not in the suburbs of Manila. The foe is of our own household. The attempt of 1861 was to divide the country. That of 1899 is to destroy its fundamental principles and noblest ideals.

Whether the ruthless slaughter of the Filipinos shall end next month or next year is but an incident in a contest that must go on until the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are rescued from the hands of their betrayers. Those who dispute about standards of value while the Republic is undermined will be listened to as little as those who would wrangle about the small economies of the household while the house is on fire. The training of a great people for a century, the aspiration for liberty of a vast immigration are forces that will hurl aside those who in the delirium of conquest seek to destroy the character of our institutions.

We deny that the obligation of all citizens to support their Government in times of grave national peril applies to the present situation. If an Administration may with impunity ignore the issues upon which it was chosen, deliberately create a condition of war anywhere on the face of the globe, debauch the civil service for spoils to promote the adventure, organize a truthsuppressing censorship and demand of all citizens a suspension of judgment and their unanimous support while it chooses to continue the fighting, representative government itself is imperiled.

We propose to contribute to the defeat of any person or party that stands for the forcible subjugation of any people. We shall oppose for reelection all who in the White House or in Congress betray American liberty in pursuit of unAmerican gains. We still hope that both of our great political parties will support and defend the Declaration of Independence in the closing campaign of the century. . . .

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["Platform of the American Anti-Imperialist League," in Speeches, Correspondence, and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, vol. 6, ed. Frederick Bancroft (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1913), p. 77, n. 1. ]

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Photograph: The battleship Maine entering Havana Harbor.

The cause of the sinking of the Maine remains a historical mystery.

Topic: The Spanish-American War

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The cause of the sinking of the Maine remains a historical mystery.

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Cartoon depicting the sinking of the Maine in Havana harbor

This cartoon and others like it probably inflamed opinion against Spain.

Topic: The Spanish-American War

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This cartoon and others like it probably inflamed opinion against Spain.

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Theodore Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders"

An enthusiastic supporter of the war, Roosevelt fought in Cuba.

Topic: The Spanish-American War

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An enthusiastic supporter of the war, Roosevelt fought in Cuba.

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Cartoon: "Well, I Hardly Know Which to Take First"

This cartoon takes an anti-imperialist view of the war.

Topic: The Spanish-American War

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This cartoon takes an anti-imperialist view of the war.

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Emilio Aguinaldo and other leaders of the Filipino insurgents

Aguinaldo, a Filipino nationalist, led the insurgency against the American occupation.

Topic: The Spanish-American War

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Aguinaldo, a Filipino nationalist, led the insurgency against the American occupation.

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Map: Spanish-American War: The Pacific, 1898

Military maneuvers in the Pacific during the Spanish-American War.

Topic: The Spanish-American War

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Military maneuvers in the Pacific during the Spanish-American War.

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Map: Spanish-American War, The Caribbean, 1898

This map depicts the conflict in the Caribbean.

Topic: The Spanish-American War

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This map depicts the conflict in the Caribbean.

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