without comment, that he had heard General Blanco had been ordered to suspend hostilities.
But, as everyone knew, the message was the casting of the die for war.
The purpose of this review is not to belittle the effects of the Spanish War—its benefits are manifest—nor even to conclude that McKinley was wrong in determining once and for all to end the Cuban cancer by a clean sweep, but, in justice to the Spaniards, to point out that the war was the result of this determination, and was launched with this purpose quite regardless of diplomacy so ably conducted by Woodford, and in the face of the most extraordinary efforts and concessions on the part of the Queen. Diplomacy had nothing to do with the matter. The Spaniard did not want to fight, had no intention of fighting, and met our negotiations much more than half way, and a great deal further than any impartial and sympathetic observer would have supposed possible. The only grievance we had against them at all was inherent, and not subject to change—a mind
