The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-11-18

tant and beneficial results would have fol-
lowed the change He reconstructs his
tory quite to the queens taste.
General weyier. after throwing bouquets
at himself as a soldier. praising his mill
tary administrations in Cuba and declar-.
ing that his successor made terrible mis-
takes says IL he had only been backed by
a strong conservative party in Spain after
the death of Canovas he would have pre-
vented the loss of Cuba. AT the head Of
the Spanish troops which were then in the
island" he says. II should have driven the
Americans into the sea. The hasty levies
of Americans would never have been able
TO cope with the Spaniards. i should never
have asked for fleet to be sent to me.
My resources down there were quite am
ple.'' All that was necessary to accom-
plish this and all that was lacking was
that Weyler should have been backed by a
united party in Spain and continued in
command. This done he shows, on paper,
how he would have driven the Americans
into the sea and saved Cuba to Spain. AS
to the changes in history which this would
lation. To begin with General weyler
instead of returning to Spain in disgrace
and being shelved. would have become the
idol of Spain and one of the military heroes
of the age. The war with Spain might
have ended differently and instead of CIV
ing up Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philip
pines Spain might have exacted a war
ind 81, Iv.<s+o 81
Roosevelt would probably not have be-
come military hero. Governor of New
York and Vice President. There would
have been no Rough Riders in the recent
campaign, because if the Americans had
been driven into the sea it would not have
been pleasant to celebrate their disastrous
defeat. Colonel Bryan would probably have
been ordered to Cuba with his regiment.
and if not driven into the sea with the
rest of the Americans might have died
while bravely exhorting his regiment to
advance or been killed by stray bullet
while delivering a speech. The disastrous
ending of the would have prevented
the denomination of President Mckinley
and so forth and so on. There is an end
less chain of speculation, all turning oil
the one small circumstance that General
Weyler was not backed up by strong
party in Spain and kept in command in
Cuba.
The argument in both of these cases
turns on the one word eff" 1t is a little
word but very potent one. and has stood
in the way of the accomplishment of mil
Hone Of .1t,fo
past had happened differently the course
OF history would certainly have been very
different, but the trouble is things happen
as they do. The fallacy in Lord Rose
bery's conjectural history and in General
Weyler's account of imaginary victories is
that events are controlled and overruled
by Providence to appointed ends. Men do
not make history--they simply obey orders.
The pieces on chess board do not play
the game. The Lord never intended and
would not have permitted the American
colonies to continue under British rule,
nor would He have permitted Weyler to
drive the Americans out of Cuba into the
sea. That was not i'm His programme. He
intended that British rule in the colonies
and Spanish rule in Cuba should come to
an end, and they did. Pitts acceptance of
a peerage had no more to do with the out
come liz one case than General Weyler's
recall did in the other. In both cases ii
was manifest destiny, or overruling Provi-
dence. Events happen as they do be-
cause they cannot be preeented from
happening so. Men do not make history;
they only record it. and when they try to
reconstruct it in the light of the past they
are apt to make botched work of it.