On August 12th M. Cambon announced his receipt of full power to sign the protocol so submitted. Accordingly, on the afternoon of August 12th, M. Cambon, as the plenipotentiary of Spain, and the Secretary of State, as the plenipotentiary of the United States, signed a protocol, providing:

"Article 1. Spain will relinquish all claim of sovereignty over and title to Cuba.

"Article 2. Spain will cede to the United States the Island of Porto Rico and other islands now under Spanish sovereignty in the West Indies, and also an island in the Ladrones to be selected by the United States.

"Article 3. The United States will occupy and hold the city, bay and harbor of Manila pending the conclusion of a treaty of peace which shall determine the control, disposition and government of the Philippines."

The fourth article provided for the appointment of joint commissions on the part of the United States and Spain, to meet in Havana and San Juan, respectively, for the purpose of arranging and carrying out the details of the stipulated evacuation of Cuba, Porto Rico and other Spanish islands in the West Indies.

The fifth article provided for the appointment of not more than five commissioners on each side to meet at Paris not later than October 1st and to proceed to the negotiation and conclusion of a treaty of peace, subject to ratification according to the respective constitutional forms of the two countries.

The sixth and last article provided that upon the signature of the protocol, hostilities between the two countries should be suspended, and that notice to that effect should be given as soon as possible by each government to the commanders of its military and naval forces.

CESSATION OF STRIFE.

Immediately upon the conclusion of the protocol I issued a procla mation on August 12th, suspending hostilities on the part of the United States. The necessary orders to that end were at once given by telegraph. The blockade of the ports of Cuba and San Juan de Porto Rico was in like manner raised.

On August 18th the muster out of 100,000 volunteers, or as near that number as was found to be practicable, was ordered. On December 1st, 101,165 officers and men had been mustered out and discharged

from the service; 9,002 more will be mustered out by the 10th of the month. Also a corresponding number of Generals and general staff officers have been honorably discharged from the service.

The military committees to superintend the evacuation of Cuba, Porto Rico and the adjacent islands were forthwith appointed-for Cuba, Major-General James F. Wade, Rear Admiral William T. Sampson and Major-General Matthew C. Butler; for Porto Rico, Major-General John C. Brooke, Rear Admiral Winfield S. Schley and BrigadierGeneral W. W. Gordon, who soon afterward met the Spanish commissioners at Havana and San Juan respectively.

WORK OF EVACUATION.

The Porto Rican joint commissions speedily accomplished its task, and by October 18th the evacuation of the island was completed. The United States flag was raised over the island at noon on that day.

As soon as we are in possession of Cuba and have pacified the island it will be necessary to give aid and direction to its people to form a government for themselves. This should be undertaken at the earliest moment consistent with safety and assured success.

It is important that our relations with these people shall be of the most friendly character and our commercial relations close and reciprocal. It should be our duty to assist in every proper way to build up the waste places of the island, encourage the industry of the people and assist them to form a government which shall be free and independent, thus realizing the best aspirations of the Cuban people.

Spanish rule must be replaced by a just, benevolent and humane government, created by the people of Cuba, capable of performing all international obligations, and which shall encourage thrift, industry and prosperity, and promote peace and good will among all of the inhabitants, whatever may have been their relations in the past. Neither revenge nor passion should have a place in the new government.

Woh Kimber

President of the United States.

Under hostile fire on a foreign soil, fighting in a common cause, the memory of old disagreements has faded into history. From camp and campaign there comes the magic healing which has closed ancient wounds and effaced their scars. For this result every American patriot will forever rejoice. It is no small indemnity for the cost of war.

This government has proved itself invincible in the recent war and out of it has come a nation which will remain indivisible forever more. No worthier contributions have been made in patriotism and in men than by the people of Southern States. When at last the opportunity came they were eager to meet it and with promptness responded to the call of the country. Intrusted with the able leadership of men dear to them, who had marched with their fathers under another flag, now fighting under the old flag again, they have gloriously helped to defend its spotless folds and added new luster to its shining stars.

That flag has been planted in two hemispheres, and there it remains, the symbol of liberty and law, of peace and progress. Who will withdraw from the people over whom it floats its protecting folds? Who will haul it down?

The victory is not that of a ruler, a President or a Congress, but of the people. The army whose valor we admire and the navy whose achievements we applaud were not assembled by draft or conscription, but from voluntary enlistment. The heroes came from civil as well as military life. Trained and untrained soldiers wrought our triumphs.

The peace we have won is not a selfish truce of arms, but one whose conditions presage good to humanity. The domains secured under the treaty yet to be acted upon by the Senate came to us not as the result of a crusade of conquest, but as the reward of temperate, faithful and fearless response to the call of conscience, which could not be disregarded by a liberty loving and Christian people.

We have so borne ourselves in the conflict and in our intercourse with the powers of the world as to escape complaint of complication and give universal confidence of our high purpose and unselfish sacri fices for struggling peoples.

"New occasions teach new duties." To this nation and to every nation there come formative periods in its life and history. New conditions can be met only by new methods. Meeting these conditions hopefully and facing them bravely and wisely is to be the mightiest test of American virtue and capacity. Without abandoning past limitations, traditions and principles, but by meeting present opportunities and obligations, we shall show ourselves worthy of the great trust which civilization has imposed upon us.

At Bunker Hill liberty was at stake, at Gettysburg the Union was the issue, before Manila and Santiago our armies fought not for gain or revenge, but for human rights. They contended for the freedom of the oppressed, for whose welfare the United States has never failed to lend a helping hand to establish and uphold, and I believe never will. The glories of the war cannot be dimmed, but the result will be incomplete and unworthy of us unless supplemented by civil victories, harder possibly to win, in their way no less indispensable.

We will have our difficulties and our embarrassments. They follow all victories and accompany all great responsibilities. They are inseparable from every great movement or reform. But American capacity has triumphed over all in the past. Doubts have in the end vanished. Apparent dangers have been averted or avoided, and our own history shows that progress has come so naturally and steadily on the heels of new and grave responsibilities that as we look back upon the acquisitions of territory by our fathers we are filled with wonder that any doubt could have existed or any apprehension could have been felt of the wisdom of their action or their capacity to grapple with the then untried and mighty problems.

The republic is to-day larger, stronger and better prepared than ever before for wise and profitable developments in new directions and along new lines. Even if the minds of some of our own people are still disturbed by perplexing and anxious doubts, in which all of us have shared and still share, the genius of American civilization will, I believe, be found both original and creative and capable of subserving all the great interests which shall be confided to our keeping.

Forever in the right, following the best impulses and clinging to high purposes, using properly and within right limits our power and opportunities, honorable reward must inevitably follow. The outcome cannot be in doubt.

We could have avoided all the difficulties that lie across the path

way of the nation if we had coldly ignored the piteous appeals of the starving and oppressed inhabitants of Cuba. If we had blinded ourselves to the conditions so near our shores and turned a deaf ear to our suffering neighbors the issue of territorial expansion in the Antilles and the East Indies would not have been raised.

But could we have justified such a course? Is there any one who would now declare another to have been the better course? With less humanity and less courage on our part, the Spanish flag, instead of the Stars and Stripes, would still be floating at Cavite, at Ponce and at Santiago, and a "chance in the race of life" would be wanting to millions of human beings who to-day call this nation noble, and who, I trust, will live to call it blessed.

Thus far we have done our supreme duty. Shall we now, when the victory won in war is written in the treaty of peace and the civilized world applauds and waits in expectation, turn timidly away from the duties imposed upon the country by its own great deeds?

And when the mists fade and we see with clearer vision, may we not go forth rejoicing in a strength which has been employed solely for humanity and always been tempered with justice and mercy, confident of our ability to meet the exigencies which await us, because confident that our course is one of duty and our cause that of right?

Never has American valor been more brilliantly illustrated in the battle line on shore and on the battleships at sea than by the soldiers and sailors of the United States.

Everybody is talking of Hobson, and justly so, but I want to thank Mother Hobson. Everybody is talking about General Wheeler, one of the bravest of the brave, but I want to speak of that sweet little daughter that followed him to Santiago and ministered to the sick at Montauk.

I have spoken in many places and at many times of the heroism of the American army and the American navy, but in our recent conflict the whole people were patriots. Two hundred thousand men were called for and a million rushed to get a place in the ranks. And millions more stood ready if need be.

I like the feeling of the American people that we ought not to have a large standing army, but it has been demonstrated that we need the standing army large enough to do all the work required while we are at peace and only rely on the great body of the people in an emergency to help us fight our battles.