on of oppression had entered into the soul of the Cuban. There
was a deep exasperation which refused to be calmed. From thenceforth
annexation to the United States, or else a "_Cuba Libre_," was the
determined, and even desperate aim.

After a ten-years' war, 1868-78, the people yielded to what proved a
delusive promise of home-rule. How could Spain bestow upon her colony
what she did not possess herself? When in 1881 she tried to pacify
Cuba by permitting that island to send six Senators to sit in the
Spanish Cortes, it was a phantom of a phantom. There was no outlet
for the national will in Spain itself. Her Cortes was _not_ a national
assembly, and its members were _not_ the choice of the people. How
much less must they be so then in Cuba, where they were only men
of straw selected by the home government, for the purpose of
defeating--not expressing--the popular will? The emptiness of this
gift was soon discovered. Then came a shorter conflict, which was only
a prelude to the last.

A handful of ragged revolutionists, ignorant of the arts of war,
commenced the final struggle for liberty on February 24, 1895, under
the leadership of Jose Marti. At the end of two years a poorly armed
band of guerrilla soldiers had waged a successful contest against
235,000 well-equipped troops, supported by a militia and a navy, and
maintained by supplies from Spain; had adopted a Constitution, and
were asking for recognition as a free Republic. The Spanish commander
Martinez Campos was superseded by General Weyler (1895), and a new
and severer method was inaugurated in dealing with the stubborn
revolutionists, but with no better success than before. In August,
1897, an insurrection broke out anew in the Philippines, and Spain was
in despair.

America calmly resisted all appeals for annexation or for intervention
in Cuba. Sympathy for Cuban patriots was strong in the hearts of the
people, but the American Government steadfastly maintained an attitude
of strict neutrality and impartiality, and with unexampled patience
saw a commerce amounting annually to one hundred millions of
dollars wiped out of existence, her citizens reduced to want by the
destruction of their property,--some of them lying in Spanish dungeons
subjected to barbarities which were worthy of the Turkish Janizaries;
our fleets used as a coastguard and a police, in the protection of
Spanish interests, and more intolerable than all else, our hearts
wrung by cries of a