SpanishAmerican War Essay Research Paper The weeks free essay sample

Spanish-American War Essay, Research Paper The hebdomads that have elapsed since that fatal event of February 15th have been doing history in a mode extremely creditable to the American authorities and to our citizenship. Captain Sigsbee, the commanding officer of the Maine, had quickly telegraphed his desire that judgement should be suspended until probe had been made. The probe was started at one time, and 75 million Americans have consequently suspended judgement in the face of a great aggravation. For it must be remembered that to say the devastation of the Maine an ordinary accident and non due to any external bureau or hostile purpose was, under all the fortunes, to put wholly at rebelliousness the jurisprudence of chances. It is non true that battlewagons are in the wont of blowing themselves up. When all the surrounding facts were taken into consideration, it was merely approximately as likely that the Maine had been blown up by some accident where no hostile motivation was involved, as that the reported blackwash of President Barrios of Guatemala, a few yearss antecedently, had truly been a self-destruction. . . . It has been known absolutely good that Spanish hatred might at any clip manifest itself by efforts upon the life of the American representative at Havana, Consul General Fitzhugh Lee. This danger was felt particularly at the clip of the Havana public violences in January, and it seems to hold had something to make with the sending of the Maine to Havana Harbor. The Spaniards themselves, nevertheless, looked upon the sending of the Maine as a farther exasperation of the long series of their merely grudges against the United States. They regarded the presence of the Maine at Havana as a threat to Spanish sovereignty in the island and as an encouragement to the insurrectionists. A powerful American fleet lay at Key West and the Dry Tortugas, with steam up ready to follow the Maine to the seaport of Havana at a few hours # 8217 ; notice. All this was intensely hateful to the Spaniards, and peculiarly to the Army officers at Havana who had sympathized with General Weyler # 8217 ; s poli cy and who rightly regarded General Weyler # 8217 ; s remember to Spain as due to the demand of President McKinley. The American pretence that the Maine was doing a visit of courtesy seemed to these Spaniards a farther illustration of Anglo-Saxon lip service. That this intense resentment against the presence of the Maine was felt among the military and official category in Havana was absolutely good known to Captain Sigsbee, his staff, and all his crew ; and they were non incognizant of the rumours and menaces that means would be found to destruct the American ship. It was, moreover, really by and large supposed that the Spanish readying for the defence of Havana had included mines and gunmans in the seaport. At the clip when the Maine went to Havana, it was a ill-famed fact that the dealingss between the Spain and the United States were so labored that that war was regarded as inevitable. If war had really been declared while the Maine was at Havana, it is non likely that the Spanish would hold permitted the ship # 8217 ; s going without an attempt to make her injury. The Spanish seaport is now and it has been for a good while past under military control ; and the American war vessel, believed by the Spanish governments to be at Havana with merely half-cloaked hostile designs, was obliged to accept the anchorage that was assigned by those very governments. In position of the labored state of affairs and of the Spanish feeling that no munificence is due on Spain # 8217 ; s portion toward the United States, it is non in the least hard to believe that the seaport governments would hold anchored the Maine at a topographic point where, in instance of the eruption of war, the pigboat seaport defences might be efficaciously be used against so formidable an enemy. To understand the state of affairs wholly, it must non be forgotten that the Spanish authorities at first made expostulation against the Maine # 8217 ; s intended visit to Havana and, in consenting, simply yielded to a necessity that was forced upon it. All Spaniards regarded the sending of the Maine to Havana as truly a unreliable act on the portion of the United States, and most of them would hold deemed it simply a safe and precautional step to ground her in the locality of a pigboat mine. Doubtless these suggestions will be read by more than one individual who will have them with full incredulity. But such readers will non hold been familiar with what has been traveling on in the affair of the Cuban rebellion, or else they will be missing in memories of good transporting power. The great bulk of the intelligent people of the United States could non, from the first, avoid perceiving that what we may name the suicide theory was highly unlikely ; while what we may term the blackwash theory was in maintaining with all the fortunes. However, although the chance of guilt was so overpowering, the American people saw the equity and the necessity of suspending judgement until cogent evidence had been substituted for mere chance. And there was in no portion of the state any temperament to take snap judgement or to move headlong. No other such spectacle of national patience has been witnessed in our times. Unquestionably, the whole community has been intensely eager for intelligence ; and it is possibly true that certain newspapers, which have devoted themselves for a month or more to knocking the sensational imperativeness, might every bit good have been occupied in a more energetic attempt to provide their readers with information. The fact is that the alleged war supernumeraries, which for many yearss were issued from certain newspaper offices at the rate of a twelve or more a twenty-four hours, have non seemed to pass on their crazes to any considerable figure of the American people, East or West, North or South, so far as our observation goes. The state of affairs has merely been one of a really engrossing and profound involvement, while the suspense has been really seeking to the nervousnesss. The possibility that our state might shortly be engaged in war with a foreign power has been a preoccupying idea non to be dismissed for a individual hr. The whole state has known that a fatal probe was in advancement in Havana Harbor ; that coast-defense work was being pushed all along our seaside ; that in all the shipyards, public and private, authorities work was being prosecuted with dual or quadruplicate forces of work forces, working by dark every bit good as by twenty-four hours ; that ammo mills, Fe and steel workss, and every other constitution capable of supplying any sort of military or naval supplies were having orders from the authorities and were working to the full extent of their capacity ; that plans were being made for suiting out merchant ships as subsidiary patrol cars ; that our naval representatives were negoc iating abroad for extra war vessels ; that new regiments of cannoneers were being enlisted for the large guns on the seaside ; that naval recruits were being mustered in to adult male freshly commissioned ships ; that the railwaies were fixing by order of the War Department to convey the small United States Army from western and northern stations to convenient southern centres ; and that while we were doing these readyings Spain on her portion was seeking to raise money to purchase ships and to procure Alliess. All these affairs, and many others related to them, have within these past hebdomads made an huge chance for proving the intelligence assemblage resources of the American imperativeness. . . . When, hence, on March 8, the House of Representatives nem con voted to put $ 50 million at the unqualified disposal of President McKinley as an exigency fund for the national defence # 8211 ; this action being followed by an every bit consentaneous ballot of the Senate the following twenty-four hours # 8211 ; it was of course taken for granted all over the state that the state of affairs was believed by the President to be highly critical. The continued hold of the Board of Inquiry # 8211 ; which had been hovering between Havana and Key West, carry oning its proceedings in secret and keeping absolute reserve # 8211 ; had of course served to corroborate the belief that its study would demo disgusting drama ; and it appeared that the President was establishing his great readyings of war, in portion at least, upon his progress cognition of the grounds secured by the committee. The unanimity of Congress in support of the President created an first-class feeling abroad. Fifty million is a really big amount to topographic point in the custodies of one adult male. It might hold been supposed that there would hold been members in both houses who would hold insisted upon the appropriation of this money for specific intents. That non a individual adult male was found to do expostulation showed a really great capacity for united action in a clip of exigency. It besides showed, of class, how great is the assurance that Congress and the American people repose in the award, wisdom, and public spirit of their Presidents. At the clip of the Venezuela incident, Congress in similar mode, came nem con to the support of President Cleveland. In that instance, nevertheless, there was non the remotest possibility of war ; and the episode was simply a diplomatic 1 in which it was deemed of import to demo that our authorities could trust perfectly upon the whole support of the people. The South on all such recent occasions has been foremost in looks of nationalism. The ballot of $ 50 million, although an extraordinary step justified merely by the at hand danger of war, was clearly an act that no peaceable adult male could moderately knock ; for readying is frequently the agencies by which struggle is avoided. A larger Navy was in any instance greatly desirable for our state, with its long seaside on the Atlantic and the Pacific and its huge commercialism ; while the better munition of our chief ports was an pressing necessity. Since the readyings that have been made so hastily during the past few hebdomads have been of a defensive nature, and since they have been carried out upon lines which had been punctually considered in progress, they will hold lasting value, and at that place will hold been involved a really little per centum of waste. If Congress had been wise plenty in the past three or four old ages to put down more war vessels in our ain paces, it would non hold been necessary to lend 1000000s to foreign shipwrights. No portion of the $ 50 million will be squandered by the disposal ; but it is to be regretted that this exigency fund had non been already expended during the five predating old ages by more broad appropriations for seashore defence and naval building. The great shipyards of the United States, both public and private, are now at the point where, with a sufficient sum of regular work to make, they would quickly be able to vie on equal footings with the best ship building workss of Europe. Iron and steel supplies are now much cheaper in the United States than anyplace else, and it is merely the comparatively little sum of ship building that has been demanded by our authorities that has made it more expensive to construct a war vas here than else where. In a clip of existent exigency, nevertheless, the resources of the United States would turn out themselves great plenty to provide our ain people and the whole universe besides. The adeptness and ingeniousness of American mechanics, applied scientists, and makers have no analogue in Europe. On a twelvemonth # 8217 ; s notice the United States might set about to get by evenhanded with either the Dual or the Triple Alliance # 8211 ; although we have now merely the karyon of an ground forces and the beginning of a navy, while the European powers have made war readying their chief concern for a whole coevals. It is to be suspected that one ground why the American people have bought the newspapers so thirstily during the past hebdomads is to be found in the satisfaction they have taken in larning how a purely peaceable state like ours could if necessary reverse the procedure of crushing blades into ploughshares. It is true, for illustration, that we have built merely a few gunman boats and merely a few vass of the type known as destroyers ; but we have discovered that about a 100 really rich Americans had been diverting themselves within the past few old ages by edifice or purchasing splendid oceangoing, steel-built steam yachts of high velocity and stanch qualities, capable of being rapidly transformed into naval despatch boats or armored and fitted with torpedo tubings. Probably non a individual private Spanish citizen could turn over to his authorities such a vas as the brilliant Goelet yacht, the Mayflower, which was secured by our Navy Department on March 16 ; non to advert tonss of other private steam yachts of great size and strength that affluent American citizens are ready to offer if needed. It is the prevalent sentiment presents, it is true, that nil is to be relied upon in naval war but immense battlewagons, which take from two to three or four old ages to construct. But if a great war were forced upon us all of a sudden, it is wholly likely that American inventiveness would invent something entirely new in the manner of a marine engine of war, merely as American inventiveness improvised the first modern ironclads. We have already in our Navy a dynamite patrol car, the Vesuvius, which in existent warfare might turn out more unsafe than a half twelve of the greatest battlewagons of the European naval forcess. There has merely been completed, furthermore, and offered to our authorities, a pigboat boat, the Holland, which seems to be capable of traveling quickly for several stat mis so wholly submerged as to offer no mark for an enemy ; and it may good be that the gunmans discharged from an undistinguished small vas capable of swimming below the surface like a fish might turn out as fatal to the battlewagons of an enemy as the alleged mine in the seaport of Havana was fatal to our battlewagon the Maine. Presents, warfare is mostly a affair of scientific discipline and innovation ; and since a state where the humanistic disciplines of peace flourish and prosper is most favourable to the general progress of scientific discipline and innovation, we stumble upon the paradox that the successful chase of peace is after all the best readying for war. Another manner to set it is to state that modern warfare has become a affair of machinery, and that the most extremely developed mechanical and industrial state will by virtuousness of such development be most formidable in war. This is a state of affairs that the Spaniards in general are obviously rather unable to grok. Their thoughts are wholly mediaeval. They believe themselves to be a extremely gallant and hawkish people, and that the people of the United States are truly in great panic of Spanish art. They think that Spain could do as easy work of occupying the United States as Japan made of occupying China. Their point of position is wholly theatrical and unrelated to modern facts. A state like ours, capable of providing the whole universe with electrical motors, mining machinery, locomotor engines, steel tracks, and the structural stuff for modern steel Bridgess and # 8220 ; skyscrapers, # 8221 ; non to advert bikes and run uping machines, is every bit capable of edifice, armament, and runing an limitless figure of ships of every type, and of using every imaginable mechanical device for intents of national defence. In the long tally, hence, even if our preliminary readyings had been of the scantiest character, we should be able to give a good history of ourselves in warfare. . . . Quite regardless of the duties for the Maine incident, it is seemingly true that the great bulk of the American people are trusting that President McKinley will quickly use the juncture to procure the complete mollification and independency of Cuba. There are a few people in the United States # 8211 ; we should non wish to believe that more than 100 could be found out of a population of 75 million # 8211 ; who believe that the United States ought to fall in custodies with Spain in coercing the Cuban insurrectionists to put down their weaponries and to accept Spanish sovereignty as a lasting status under the promise of practical place regulation. It needs no statement, of class, to convert the American people that such a proposal reaches the lowest deepnesss of opprobrium. It is much worse than the proposition made by a few people in Europe last twelvemonth that the winning Turks should hold the visage and support of the great states of Europe in doing Greece a portion of the Turkis h imperium. For the Turks had reasonably conquered the Greeks ; and if Europe had kept custodies off, Greece would hold been reduced really rapidly to the place of an Ottoman state. But in Cuba it is otherwise. The insurrectionists, with no outside aid, have held their ain for more than three old ages, and Spain is unable to suppress them. The people of the United States do non mean to assist Spain keep Cuba. On the contrary, they are now ready, in one manner or in another, to assist the Cubans drive Spain out of the Western Hemisphere. If the juncture goes by and we allow this Cuban battle to run on indefinitely, the American people will hold lost several grades of self-respect and will surely non hold gained anything in the sentiment of world.