Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/234

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214
DRAMATIC MOMENTS

record, and reveals an anxious desire to propitiate the United States incompatible with any theory except one of ultra-pacifism.

Nevertheless, it was a link. Or rather it was another faggot to feed the flame of popular opinion upon which the President was riding. The flame shortly developed into a conflagration.

At 9:40 P. M., February 15th, without any prologue, the battleship Maine blew up and sank.

A court of inquiry established that the vessel was blown up from without—probably by a mine. Who blew it up, there was and still is no evidence. It is practically settled beyond the realms of possibility of error that it was not the Spanish Government.

The subsequent war-cry, "Remember the Maine," was a popular slogan that could hardly take into account the fact that the utmost sympathy and regret was expressed by the Queen and the Premier of Spain, and that Señor Gullon immediately promised every reparation