would prevent the use of the adverse report of the Naval Commission as a means of influencing Congress. Three days later, March 30, the second demand of the United States was conceded when General Blanco published a bando revoking the concentration orders throughout Cuba. It contained at the same time valuable instructions regarding relief methods to be employed for those without immediate means of support, either through lack of means, resources, or farming implements.*

Foreign Relations, 1898, p. 725.

*“As, notwithstanding this ample authorization, there will necessarily remain in the old centers of reconcentration a remnant of country people and their families, who for lack of means, resources, or farming implements may not be able to make a living by agricultural labor, the cabinet council will submit to me, with the urgency which the case demands, means of initiating and establishing a system of public works which, while seconding the aid afforded by the magistrates and protective juntas and by the establishment of economical kitchens, shall acccomplish the double purpose of bringing reconcentration to an end and remedying its effects and consequences, thus restoring the normal condition of rural labor and relieving the misery of the masses, as well as making reproductive and of use to the country the expenses which the fulfilment of these arrangements may occasion.

"With which purpose and in virtue of the extraordinary powers which are conferred upon me as Governor and CaptainGeneral and general-in-chief of the army, I have proclaimed in force the following:

"Article 1. From the publication of the present order in the Gaceta de la Habana, reconcentration of the inhabitants of the rural districts is abolished throughout the entire island, such country people and their families being permitted to return freely to the places which they may deem convenient and to engage in all kinds of agricultural work.

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Article 2. The protective juntas and all the civil and military authorities shall facilitate by all the means in their reach the return of the rural inhabitants to their former places of residence or to those which they may newly elect, extending to them all the assistance which they can respectively command.

On March 31 the Government of Spain replied to the United States with a body of counterpropositions, offering arbitration on the Maine catastrophe, announcing the revocation of concentration, and promising to give government aid to the suffering classes. and to leave the matter of peace to the proposed Cuban parliament, which had been convoked for May 4. An armistice was assured, if the insurgents would ask for it. As the suggestion to leave the ultimate terms of \ peace to the President of the United States was not in the form of a demand at first, and as the substitute in the Spanish reply to leave them to the Cuban parliament came at the suggestion of Minister Woodford and apparently with the consent of President McKinley, that part could not have been a serious ground of difference. In short, the reply was a satisfactory concession in every particular save an immediate and unconditional armistice. Arbitration for the Maine

"Article 3. Under direction of the cabinet council and through the secretary of public works shall proceed the preparation and immediate establishment of all public works necessary or useful to give employment and subsistence to the country people and their families who, for lack of resources, opportunities for work or farming implements, are not able to return immediately to the country; as also for the establishment of economical kitchens, which may make normal and cheapen these labors.

"Article 4. The expenses resulting from the execution of the regulations of the present order, so far as they may exceed the resources at the command of the protective juntas, may be charged to the extraordinary war credit.

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Article 5. All the orders heretofore published upon the reconcentration of the rural population, and all those which are opposed to the execution of this order, are hereby abolished." Foreign Relations, 1898, p. 738.

"Foreign Relations, 1898, p. 762; Spanish Diplomatic Correspondence and Documents, 1896-1900, p. 107.

dispute was reasonable and just, the revocation of concentration was final and complete, the relief measures were of the fullest character." Woodford was at the time convinced that Spain would finally yield even that. He wrote on April 2: “ I have worked hard for peace. I am hoping against hope and still I cannot bring myself to the final belief that in these closing years of the nineteenth century Spain will finally refuse, on a mere question of punctilio, to offer immediate and effective armistice. I still believe that immediate armistice will secure permanent and honorable peace with justice to Cuba and sure protection to our great American interests in that island. Men will not reason when their passions are inflamed. they are fighting they will not negotiate. stop fighting they will begin to reason. will follow and peace will come. If arms are now laid down on both sides they will not be taken up again."

So long as When they Negotiations

Already forces were at work to satisfy the one remaining demand of the United States. On April 2 Cardinal Rampolla, acting in behalf of the Pope, offered the services of the Holy See as mediator.R The Spanish Government sent a reply which indicated an eagerness to find a solution that would save Spain from a ministerial revolution and yet satisfy the United States. The reply of Spain to Cardinal Rampolla was as follows: "The moment the United States Government is disposed to accept the aid of the Pope, the Queen of Spain and her Government will gladly accept

6

Revue du droit public, Vol. IX, p. 265; Foreign Relations, 1898, pp. 727-28.

7

8

Foreign Relations, 1898, p. 731.

Spanish Diplomatic Correspondence and Documents, 18961900, pp. 109, 110.

his mediation, and, in order to facilitate the high mission of peace and concord which His Holiness is attempting, promise further to accept the proposal that the Holy Father shall formulate a suspension of hostilities; informing His Holiness that for the honor of Spain it is proper that the truce should be accompanied by the retirement of the American squadron from the waters of the Antilles, in order that the North American Republic may also show its purpose not to support-voluntarily or involuntarily-the insurrection in Cuba." The reasonableness of the request that the United States withdraw the fleet from Cuban waters is very apparent. On the other hand the informal/ offer of the Pope to mediate aroused great excitement in the United States. His action was unfortunately represented by some papers as an attempt to make himself the arbiter of the Spanish-American differences. The statement of the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs that papal mediation came at the suggestion of President McKinley increased the hostility throughout the United States, and necessitated a delay in the declaration of the armistice. A rabid press cried out against papal intermeddling in American affairs. Scare headlines of "no popery," etc., appeared. In part this attitude was due to a deep-seated anti-Catholic feeling, in part to a misunderstanding of the origin and purpose of the papal action, and in great part to the absence of a correct understanding of mediation. As a result of the attitude of the Amer-\ ican people the simple and well-intentioned suggestion of mediation, which is not to be confounded with intervention, tended rather to make harder the maintenance 'Ibid., p. 110; Recortes periodísticos, X, nos. 209, 210.

of peace.10 In fact the Pope had never gone farther than to convey to the two powers in an informal manner through his representatives an ardent wish that a conflict might be averted, and to place his counsel and his influence at the service of the two governments. Mr. Woodford included the excitement over papal mediation in the unfortunate incidents-like the De Lôme letter and the Maine explosion-for none of which Spain was in any sense responsible, which were among the direct causes of war. Except for them, in his opinion, war could have been prevented.1

10

11

'Le Fur, pp. 22-23; the London Times, April 5, 1898. -William McKinley and the Spanish War. A paper read by Mr. Woodford, late Minister to Spain, before the Hebrew Young Peoples' Societies, New York, March 8, 1904, pp. 2–3. Out from all that correspondence stand these facts. The Queen Regent of Spain and the President of the United States were each and both sincerely desirous of peace. The Spanish Government steadily, courteously, but surely receded from position to position in the interest of peace until there seemed reasonable hopes of peaceful adjustment. Then came occurrences which human foresight had not foreseen and could not have foreseen. The singular and inexplicable letter from the Spanish Minister at Washington to a correspondent at Havana; the destruction of the steamship Maine in the harbor of Havana and the suggestion by the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs that the request of the Pope for an armistice was at the instance of the American President. The first weakened the faith of our people in the sincerity of the Spanish negotiations. The second evoked a passionate popular cry for vengeance. The third compelled delay in the announcement of the armistice, which then came too late to arrest the demands of the American people for immediate action.

"It is impossible to forecast contingencies or to say what would have come to pass had not these unforeseen and unexpected incidents occurred. They did occur and war came. But I have always believed, and now believe, that but for these things President McKinley would have achieved the desire of his heart, and would have accomplished the ultimate independence of Cuba without war."