n of that fact lessen in any
degree the propriety--indeed, the necessity--of the American
intervention or the grateful appreciation thereof which Cubans feel.

To draw once more upon American history for an example which should
convincingly appeal to Americans, the case may be likened to the
intervention of France in the American Revolution. There is no American
who does not remember that performance with sincere gratitude and with
deep appreciation of the undoubtedly great aid which France rendered to
the Thirteen Colonies. But I should doubt if there is a well informed
American willing to concede that the French aid was indispensable, or
that without it Washington and Greene would have been vanquished and the
Revolution would have failed. American independence would have been
achieved without French aid, though perhaps not so promptly and at
greater cost.

An immense service, also, which the United States rendered Cuba in the
War of Independence antedated the actual intervention, and consisted in
the aid in men, money and supplies which went from the United States to
Cuba. It is true that this aid was given largely by Cubans resident in
the United States, though many Americans also gave much in money, and
some were permitted by the Cubans to give themselves for service in the
army. It is also true that much of it was done in surreptitious
violation of the neutrality laws; a species of law-breaking at which
many United States officials were inclined to wink, and which by common
consent was to be regarded as culpable only when it was found out, and
then the finding out was more to be regretted than the act itself was to
be condemned! Such is the "unwritten law" of international relations in
cases in which the technical requirements of the law run counter to
generous and righteous human sympathies.

While, therefore, we must believe that even without American
intervention in the actual war the Cubans would have won their
independence, we may doubt whether such would have been the case if the
United States had not all along been dose at hand, a resourceful and
hospitable country, in which Cuban political exiles could find secure
asylum, in which a Cuban Junta could plan revolution, in which funds to
aid the patriot cause could be raised, and which, in brief, could partly
in secret and partly in the open be used as a base of supplies and
operations. It is to such aid that Cuba owes more than she does to the
achievements