basis of universal suffrage. It sat during October and November, 1897, Dr. Domingo Mendez Capote, ex-professor of law in Havana University, presiding. Says Quesada: "The outgoing Secretaries of State submitted their reports, which were examined and passed upon by committees appointed for the purpose. A new constitution was adopted on October 29, 1897, which will be in force two years, unless independence is obtained before, when an Assembly is to be called to provide temporarily for the government and administration of the Republic until a definite Constituent Assembly shall meet. The constitution determines what is called the Republic, who are citizens, their individual and political rights, the officers of the government, their power, and provides for the assembling of the representatives." For the new term of two years the Assembly chose former Vice-president Bartolome Masso to be president; Dr. Capote, mentioned above, vice-president, and Jose B. Alemen, secretary of war. By the constitution the latter official is "the superior chief in rank of the Army of Liberty."

A Portable Capital.-Early in the revolution the Cuban capital was set up at Cubitas, which is among the "mountains" of that name north of the city of Puerto Principe see map.) It has been quite itinerant. In January, 1898, when it happened to be at the village of Espanza, in the Cubitas region, it was raided by a heavy Spanish column and captured, "after a stubborn resistance, which gave the rebel officials time to escape."

Consul-general Lee told the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate: "I have never thought that the insurgents had anything except the skeleton form of a government—a movable capital. I asked one day why they did not have some permanent capital, and I think they gave a very good reason. It would require a large force to protect it and defend it, and they could not afford to mass up their men there; so the capital and the govern

STRAINED DIPLOMACY.

39

ment offices had to move where they would be the safest. Whatever may be said about old General Gomez, he is, in my humble opinion, fighting the war in the only way it can be fought-scattering his troops out; because to concentrate would be to starve, having no commissary train and no way to get supplies. They come in sometimes for the purpose of making some little raid, where he thinks it will do something; but he has given orders, so I have always been informed, not to fight in masses, not to lose their cartridges; and sometimes when he gets into a fight, each man is ordered to fire not more than two cartridges. The way the insurgents do is this: They have little patches of sweet potatoes-everything grows there very abundantly in a short time-and Irish potatoes and fruits. They drive their pigs and cattle into the valleys and hillsides, and they use those and scatter out. The insurgents plant crops in many parts of the island."

STRAINED DIPLOMACY.

American Pressure.-President Cleveland tendered Spain his good offices in April, 1896, but they were refused. President McKinley's offers were met less bluntly, but Sagasta was most careful to avoid even a tacit consent to mediation. While he sought to quiet the Washington government with promises, and partial reforms in Cuba, the Spanish war office continued putting forth efforts, such as for a nation literally bankrupt were surprising, to create a navy overmatching the United States upon the ocean. The growing strength of public opinion in this country was irresistibly impelling the Washington government to a policy of moral coercion, notwithstanding the gratifying release of American prisoners, the supersedure of Weyler, and the unfailing suavity of General Stewart L. Woodford, the American minister at Madrid since July, 1897. The American people had virtually lost faith in Spain, and, because of her incapacity and cruelty

in Cuba, were fast losing all patience. Official circles, too, showed unmistakable irritation over Spain's pretense that the Cuban war had been so prolonged mainly on account of American failure to enforce neutrality, the facts being this country had already expended $2,000,000, in Spain's interest, in doing just that thing, and had stopped vastly more Cuban expeditions than the Spanish gunboats had ever intercepted.

The DeLome Letter.-Spain's accomplished representative at Washington was Senor Enrique De Lome, who had been there many years. A confidential letter that he had written to Senor Canalejas, whom Sagasta had sent over early in the winter to quietly investigate the Washington situation, was stolen from the mail by a Cuban sympathizer in the Havana post-office, and sent to the Cuban Junta at New York, by whom carefully photographed copies were made public early in February, 1898. In this letter the Spanish minister abused President McKinley as a "low politician," fatally uncovered the duplicity of his own part in pending negotiations, and distinctly admitted the precariousness of Spain's hold on Cuba. It was impossible, of course, for him to remain at Washington. He cabled his resignation, and it had already been accepted before Minister Woodford went to Sagasta, with a “representation." His successor, in March, was Senor Polo, whose father had held the same post many years before.

The Maine Horror.-At forty minutes past nine on Tuesday night, February 15, 1898, the United States battleship Maine, Captain Charles D. Sigsbee commanding, which had been lying quietly at anchor in Havana harbor since the evening of January twenty-fifth, was destroyed by an explosion. Two officers and not less than two hundred and sixty of her crew perished, most of them ground to pieces amid the steel partitions and decks, the others penned by the tangle of wreckage and drowned by the immediate sinking of the wreck. The news caused intense

WAR PREPARATIONS.

41

excitement throughout the United States, more especially because treachery was suspected. The Maine was one of the very finest vessels in the American navy, representing, together with her armament and stores, an expenditure closely approximating five millions of dollars. Seldom, if ever, was there a finer example of self-control on the part of a great people, as, for several weeks, the United States stood awaiting the official determination of the cause of this appalling calamity.

Official Findings.-The government at once organized a naval court of inquiry, composed of experienced officers of high rank, who, in their continuous labor of twenty-three days, were aided by a strong force of wreckers and divers, besides experts. They made a thorough investigation on the spot, sifting and weighing every item of evidence that could be adduced. The type-written testimony made a bundle of twelve thousand pages, weighing about thirty pounds. The unanimous finding of the court dated March 21, 1898 (as summarized in President McKinley's message of the twenty-eighth of March), was: "That the loss of the Maine was not in any respect due to fault or negligence on the part of any of the officers or members of her crew; that the ship was destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine, which caused the partial explosion of two or more of her forward magazines; and that no evidence has been obtainable fixing the responsibility for the destruction of the Maine upon any person or persons." "The crime or the criminal negligence of the Spanish officials" were essentially the terms in which Congress put the case two weeks later, and in this Congress voiced the conviction of the American people.

WAR PREPARATIONS.

Precautionary Activities.-Preparations comporting with possible hostilities began to be made in both the armry and navy departments in January, 1898, and from the date of

the Maine horror were pushed with great energy. The strengthening of coast fortifications and the accumulation and distribution of war material, with recruiting for all branches of service, and arrangements for mobilizing not only the regular army, but the National Guard of the several States, went on apace. There was especial urgency in strengthening the navy. At government and at contractors' shipyards work was pushed night and day. A naval officer was hurried to Europe to buy up every suitable warship on the market, while others were bought in our own ports. In Europe were also purchased hundreds of the smaller cannon and perhaps a thousand tons of ammunition. Old monitors and other discarded craft were overhauled and put in condition for coast-defense. A fleet of auxiliary cruisers began to be organized. The purchase and conversion of merchant vessels soon counted well up into the millions.

On the ninth of March Congress, at the President's request, unanimously voted $50,000,000 as an emergency fund for the national defense. A few days later it passed a bill adding two regiments of artillery to the regular army; these were sorely needed to man the heavy defensive guns along the Atlantic and Gulf seaboards.

Congress and the People.-Rid of De Lome's presence, the President magnanimously ignored the DeLome letter. His whole nature shrinking from the responsibility of a bloody war, he even forebore making the Maine tragedy the occasion for more than a "representation" to the court of Madrid. But Congress, reflecting the overwhelming sentiment of the nation, was by this time ablaze with indignation and warlike enthusiasm. Herculean were the efforts of the President to control the storm in the interests of peace, through delay. Public opinion grew imperative. It insisted on definite action. The President's message transmitting the Maine findings was sent to Congress on the twenty-eighth of March. His yet