The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1898-04-14

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their immediate vicinage, deprived Of
| the means of support, rendered desti-
tute of shelter, left poorly clad and ex-
posed to the most unsanitary condi-
tiOns. AS the scarcity of food increas-
ed with the devastation of the depop-
ulated areas of production, destitu-
| tiOn and want became misery and
| starvation.
Month by month the death rate in
| creased in an alarming ratio. BY
March, 1897, according to conserva-
tive estimates from official Spanish.
sources, the mortality among the
| recOncentrados, from starvation and
| the diseases thereto incident, exceed
ed so per centum of their total. No
practical relief was accorded to the,
destitute.
The -burdened towns, already
suffering from the general dearth,.
could give no aid. The so-caffed
zones of cultivation established
within the immediate area of effective
military control about the cities and
fortified camps proved illusory as a
remedy for the suffering.
The unfortunates, being for the
most part women and children, With
aged and helpless men, enfeeb-
led by disease and hunger, could
not have titled the soil without tools,
seed or shelter, for their own support
or for the supply of the cities. Recon
centratiOn adopted avowedly as a
war measure in order to cut off the
resources of the insurgents, worked
its predistinct result. As | said in
my message of last December, it was
not civilized warfare; it was eXter-
mination. The only peace it could
beget was that of the wilderness and
the grave.
MEANWHILE the military situation
in the island had undergone a notice
able change. The extraordinary activ-
ity that characterized the second year
Of the war, when the insurgents in
vaded even the hitherto unharmed
fields of Pinar del Rio and carried
havoc and destruction up to the
walls of the city of Havana itself, had
relapsed into a dOgged struggle in the
central and eastern provinces,
The Spanish arms retained u meas
ure of control in Pinar del Rio and
parts of Havana, but, under the exist
ing conditions of the rural country,
without immediate improvement of
their productive situation. Even
thus partially restricted the revOlu-
tionists held their own, and their con
quest and submission, put forward
by Spain as the essential and sole
basis of peace, seemed as far distant
as at the outset.
In this state of affairs my Admins
tration found itself confronted with
= l. Of 1r,ty Nv
message of last December reviewed
the situation and narrated the steps
taken with view of relieving it's
acuteness and opening way to end,
the war by imposing a RATIONAL ctan
promise between the contestants and
Intervention in favor of one or the
other party.
| speak not of forcible annexation,
for that cannot be teought of. That,
by our code of morality, would be
criminal aggression.
Thereupon | reviewed these alter
natives in the light of President
Grants measured words, uttered in
1875, when, after seven years of san
culinary, destructive and cruel hostil-
tiles in Cuba, he reached the cOnclu
sion that the recognition of Cuba
was impracticable and indefensible,
and that the recognition Of belliger
ence was not warranted by the facts
according to the tests of public law,
consented, especially upon the
latter aspect of the question, pointing
out the Inconvenience and positive
dangers of recognition of belliger-
ence which, while adding to the al
ready onerous burdens of neutrality
within our own jurisdiction, could
not in any way extend our influence
or effective offices in the territory of
hostilities.
Nothing has since occurred to
change my view in this regard, and |
recognize as full now as then that the
issuance of a proclamation of neutral
ity, by which process the so-called re-
cognition of belligerence is published,
could, of itself and unattended by
other action, accomplish nothing to-
ward the one end for which we labor
the instant pacification of Cuba and
the cessation of misery that atflicts
the island.
Turning to the question of recog-
nizing at this time the independence
of the present insurgent government
in Cuba, we find safe precedents in
our history from an early day. They
are well summed up in President
Jackson's message to Congress De-
cember 81, 1886, on the subject of the
recognition of the independence of
Texas He said:
In all the contests that have arisen
out of the revolutions of France, out
of the disputes relating to the crowns
of Portugal and Spain, out of the
separation of the American possess
ions of both from the European
governments, and out of the numer-
Gus and constantly occurring strug-
giles for dominion in Spanish America,
so wisely consistent with our just
principles, has been the action of our
Government, that we have, under
! the most critical circumstances avoid
ed all censure, and encountered no
other evil than that produced by a
transient estrangement of good will
in those against whom we have been
by force of evidence compelled to de-
eide
" 1t has thus been made known to
the world that the uniform policy
and practice of the United States is
to avoid all inference in disputes
which merely relate to the internal
government of other nations, and to
recognize the authority of the pre-
vailing party without reference to
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