Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/246

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226
DRAMATIC MOMENTS

given to procrastination and delay, a belief in their own institutions, and a sensitive code of national honour. To say that we considered this a cause for war is of course ridiculous.

The answer is that sixty years of riot in Cuba was all we could stand, and that we purposed to end it. And nothing the Spaniard or our minister could do or say had any effect upon the resolution. So it was. And this was probably correct. But with it let us give the Spaniard all credit. Two years of diplomatic negotiations were all on his side.