States, and he had already done so. A proclamation issued on April 23 called for 125,000 First Call volunteers, apportioned among the for Troops several States and Territories and the District of Columbia according to population, to serve for two years, unless sooner discharged. The President's call for volunteers was practically addressed to the national guards of the various States, but the quota of volunteers was distributed regardless of the strength of the State military organizations. Under this system New York was called upon to furnish the largest number of troops, 12,513, and Pennsylvania next, with 10,769. Nevada escaped with a quota of 138 men, and from Idaho, Georgia, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont, and Utah the number required in each case was less than one thousand. To raise money for carrying on the war, the same day the President issued the call for troops, Representative Dingley of Maine, the father of the Dingley tariff law, introduced into the House a war revenue bill. At about the same time the work of protecting all the principal harbors along the Atlantic coast was begun, submarine mines and torpedoes were laid in the channels, and an elaborate system of electrical signals was devised to give warning of the approach of a hostile fleet.' 1 President McKinley's message of April 25 follows: was as "To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America: "I transmit to the Congress for its consideration and appropriate action copies of correspondence recently had with the representative of Spain in the United States, with the United States Minister at Madrid, and through the latter with the government of Spain, showing the action taken under the joint resolution approved April 20, 1898, for the recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba, demanding that the government of Spain relinquish its authority and government in the island of Cuba and withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters, and directing the President of the United States to use the land and naval forces of the United States to carry these resolutions into effect. "Upon communicating to the Spanish Minister in Washington the demand which it became the duty of the Executive to address to the government of Spain in obedience to said resolution, the Minister asked for his passports and withdrew. The United States Minister at Madrid was in turn notified by the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs that the withdrawal of the Spanish representative from the United States had terminated diplomatic relations between the two countries and that official communications between their respective representatives ceased therewith. "I commend to your special attention the note addressed to the United States Minister at Madrid by the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, on the 21st instant, whereby the foregoing notification was conveyed. It will be perceived therefrom that the government of Spain, having cognizance of the joint resolution of the United States Congress, and in view of the things which the President is thereby authorized to do, responds by treating the reasonable demands of this government as measures of hostility, following with that instant and complete severance of relations by its action which, by the usage of nations, accompanies an existent state of war between sovereign powers. "The position of Spain being thus made known and the demands of the United States being denied, with a complete rupture of intercourse by the act of Spain, I have been constrained in exercise of the power and authority conferred upon me by the resolution aforesaid to proclaim, under date of April 22, 1898, a blockade of certain ports of the north coast of Cuba, lying between Cardenas and Bahia Honda and of the port of Cienfuegos on the south coast of Cuba; and further, in exercise of my constitutional powers, and using the authority conferred upon me by act of Congress, approved April 22, 1898, to issue my proclamation dated April 23, calling for volunteers in order to carry into effect the said resolution of April 20, 1898, copies of these proclamations being hereto appended. "In view of the measures so taken, and with a view to the adoption of such other measures as may be necessary to enable me to carry out the expressed will of Congress of the United States in the premises, I now recommend to your honorable body, the executive body, the adoption of a joint resolution declaring that a state of war exists between the United States of America and the kingdom of Spain, and I urge speedy action thereon to the end that the definition of the international status of the United States as a belligerent power may become known, and the assertion of all the rights and the maintenance of all its duties in the conduct of a public war may be assured." CHAPTER XX FIRST MOVES OF WAR THE United States in beginning the war against Spain set out to do four things: to capture the Philippine Islands in the Pacific and destroy the Spanish fleet there; to blockade Havana and the other ports of the northern coast of Cuba and the port of Cienfuegos on the southwest; to capture any Spanish ships that were carrying contraband of war or were trying to run the blockade; to destroy the fleet of Spain under Admiral Camara, which had been mobilized at the Cape Verde Islands. ordered to Commodore Dewey, commanding the Asiatic squadron of the United States Navy, was at Dewey Hong Kong when war was declared. Immediately on the declaration of Manila war by the United States, instructions were sent to him to move against Manila, the capital of the Philippines. No sooner had the United States and Spain made. declarations of war than Great Britain issued a |