the material is not yet available. Neither will it be attempted
to pronounce decisions absolutely final, for the time is not yet ripe.
The effort will be rather to suggest general directions to thought,
which may be useful to a reader as he follows the many narratives,
official or personal, given to the public; to draw attention to facts
and to analogies; to point out experiences, the lessons from which may
be profitable in determining the character of the action that must
speedily be taken to place the sea power of the Republic upon a proper
material basis; and, finally, to bring the course of this war into
relation with the teachings of previous history,--the experiences of
the recent past to reinforce or to modify those of the remoter past;
for under superficial diversity, due to differences of conditions,
there often rests fundamental identity, the recognition of which
equips the mind, quickens it, and strengthens it for grappling with
the problems of the present and the future. The value of history to us
is as a record of human experience; but experiences must be
understood.

The character and the direction of the first movements of the United
States in this conflict with Spain were determined by the occasion,
and by the professed object, of the hostilities. As frequently
happens, the latter began before any formal declaration of war had
been made; and, as the avowed purpose and cause of our action were not
primarily redress for grievances of the United States against Spain,
but to enforce the departure of the latter from Cuba, it followed
logically that the island became the objective of our military
movements, as its deliverance from oppression was the object of the
war. Had a more general appreciation of the situation been adopted, a
view embracing the undeniable injury to the United States, from the
then existing conditions, and the generally iniquitous character of
Spanish rule in the colonies, and had war for these reasons been
declared, the objective of our operations might have been differently
chosen for strategic reasons; for our leading object in such case
would not have been to help Cuba, but to constrain Spain, and to
compel her to such terms as we might demand. It would have been open,
for instance, to urge that Puerto Rico, being between five and six
hundred miles from the eastern end of Cuba and nearly double that
distance from the two ports of the island most important to
Spain,--Havana on the no