US Presidency
1902

The events following the war with Spain, and the prospective building of the Isthmian Canal, render it certain that we must take in the future a far greater interest than hitherto in what happens throughout the West Indies, Central America, and the adjacent coasts and waters. We expect Cuba to treat us on an exceptional footing politically, and we should put her in the same exceptional position economically. The proposed action is in line with the course we have pursued as regards all the islands with which we have been brought into relations of varying intimacy by the Spanish war. Puerto Rico and Hawaii have been included within our tariff lines, to their great benefit as well as ours, and without any of the feared detriment to our own industries. The Philippines, which stand in a different relation, have been granted substantial tariff concessions. Cuba is an independent republic, but a republic which has assumed certain special obligations as regards her international position in compliance with our request.