erially postponed the final crisis.

* * * * *

We shall see that more and more, however, the United States was forced
by the logic of irresistible events into adopting a united and
consistent policy toward Cuba, and that in the ultimate crisis that
country was inextricably implicated with the Cuban cause. This was
indeed a logical development. In each successive Cuban revolution,
beginning with that of Lopez, the United States had been increasingly
interested. Commercial and social relations between the two countries
were strong and intimate. For nearly three quarters of a century the
United States had maintained a quasi-protectorate over the island in
behalf of Spain for the time being, but--though unconsciously--in behalf
of Cuba itself for the greater time to come. The welfare of the United
States had become involved in the disposition of the island in only a
less degree than that of the Cuban people.

There can be no doubt that the United States was of very great service
and assistance to the Cuban patriots in the War of Independence. Nobody
has testified to that fact more earnestly or more comprehensively than
the Cubans themselves. They realized it. They appreciated it. They were
and are profoundly grateful for it. Their testimony to it is ample for
all time. America is relieved of the need of vaunting herself upon it.
It would, however, be of a great error and a great injustice to assume
that the intervention of the United States in April, 1898, was
indispensable to the achievement of Cuban independence, or indeed that
it was the United States that set Cuba free from Spain. That would be as
great a perversion of the truth of history as it would be to pretend
that the United States went to war with Spain over the sinking of the
_Maine_. For the United States to have done the latter would have been
one of the monumental crimes of history; and of course it was not done.
War was inevitable before the _Maine_ went to Havana Harbor, and would
have come just the same if the _Maine_ had not gone thither; perhaps
sooner than it did, perhaps not so soon. So Cuban independence would
have been won by the Cubans themselves if the United States had not
intervened. Possibly it would have come sooner than it did; probably it
would not have come so soon. But it would have come. Nobody who has
studied the condition of affairs as they then were in Cuba can
reasonably doubt it. Nor should recognitio