The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-04-12
TEXT OF MESSAGE.
Mckinley's Long Expected Message
..y..- on the Cuban Question.
The message in full is as folio

The message in full is as follows:
Obedient to that precept of the constitution
which commands the president to give from
time to time to congress the information of
the state OF the union, and to recommend TO
their consideration such measures he shall
Judge necessary and expedient, 1t becomes my
duty now, to address your body with regard
to the grave crisis that has arisen in the re-
lations of the United States to Spain, by rea-
son OF the warfare that for more than three
years has ragged in the neighboring island of
Cuba. l do so because of the intimate con-
nection of the Cuban question with the state
OF our Union, and the grave relation the
course which it is now incumbent upon the
nation to adopt must needs bear to the ira
ditional policy Of our government If it is to
accord with the precepts laid down by the
founders OF the republic and religiously OBJ
served by succeeding administrations to the
present day.
The present revolution is but the successor
of other similar instructions which have oc-
Cured in Cuba against the dominion Of
Spain, extending over period Of nearly half
has subjected the United States to great eff
fort and expense in enforcing its neutrality
laws. caused enormous losses to the Ameri-
can trade and commerce, caused irritation,
annoyance and disturbance among our citi-
zens. and by the exercise of cruel, barbarous
and uncivilized practices of warfare, shocked
the sensibilities and offended the humane
sympathies of our people.
Since the present revolution began in Feb
ruary, 1895, this country has seen the fertile
and sword, in the course of struggle un-
equaled in the history of the island and rare
ly paralleled to the number of the COM
batants and the bitterness of the contest by
any revolution of modern times, where a de-
pendent people, striving to be free, have been
hCur people have beheld a once prosperous
community reduced to comparative want, its
commerce virtually paralyzed. its exceptional
productiveness diminished, its fields laid
waste, its mills in ruins, and its people per-
ishing by tens of thousands from hunger and
destitution. We have found ourselves con-
strained in the observance of that strict neu-
trality, which laws enjoin, and which the
law o. nations commands, TO police our own
waters and watch our own seaports in pre-
Iention of any unlawful act in aid of the
Cubans.
Our trade has suffered; the capital invested
by our citizens in Cuba has been largely lost
and the temper and for5earance of our people
have been so sorely tried as to beget a peril
Gus 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 polite
engross attention and stand in the wev of that
close devotion to domestic advancement that
becomes a sef-contented commonwealth
whose primal maxim has been the avoidance
of all foreign entanglements. All this must
utmost concern on the part Of this government
as well during my predecessors administra-
ton my own.
Evils Onerous.
In April, 1896, the evils from which our
country suffered through the Cuban war he
came so onerous that my predecessor made
. an effort to bring about peace through the
mediation Of this government in any wav
that might tend to an honorable adjustment
OF the contest between Spain and her re-
volted colony. on the basis of some effective
scheme Of self-government for Cuba under
the flag and sovereignty OF Spain. It failed
through the refusal of the Spanish govern
ment then in power to consider any form of
mediation or indeed q plan of settlement
which did not begin with the actual submis-
sion of the insurgents to the mother country
and then only on such terms as Spain herself
might see fit to grant.
The war continued unabated The re-
sistance Of the insurgents was In nowise di-
minished The efforts OF Spain were in
to Cuba and by the addition 10 the horrors
of the strife Of cruel and inhuman phase
highly unprecedented in the modern history
OF civilized Christian peoples. The policy Of
devastation and concentration. inaugurated
by the captain general in October
1896. in the province of Pinar del Rio. was
extended to embrace all of the island to
able to reach by occupation or by military
operations; The peasantry including ali
dwelling in the open agricultural Inferior
were driven into the garrison towns or isolat.
and movement Of provisions Of all kinds We're
interdicted. The fields were laid waste
dwellings unroofed and fired mills DESTROYED
and, in short everything that could desolate
tation or support was commanded by one or
the other OF the contending parties and ex-
ecuted by all the powers at their disposal.
By the time the present administration took
office year ago, reconcentration, so called
had been made effective over the better part
of the four central and western provinces of
Santa Clara, Matanzas, Havana and Pinar del
Rio. The agricultural population to the es-
timated number of three hundred thousand or
more, was herded within three towns and their