Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/221

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY
201

trol that characterized both Grant and Cleveland in handling this same problem. In fact he didn't handle it at all. He turned it over to the mob to handle—a proceeding that in many other instances in our history would have led to war.

When Cleveland left the tiller and William McKinley took charge of affairs, the situation was about as follows:

In February, 1895, revolution broke out in Cuba. It was brought on mainly by the manifest incapacity of even the most radical Spanish mind to conceive of a liberal colonial policy. To this was added a high protective American tariff on sugar, which tended to ruin the principal industry, and cause great poverty and suffering on the island. While we are posing as apostles of a new era of good will toward men and of policies of world-wide justice which will reduce wars to a minimum, it is worth while taking a little thought to the manifest hardships and ill feeling continually engendered by artificial tampering with economic laws upon