and of the United States must reach forth to pluck out the
Spaniard from the land he ravaged. And when a number of Senators and
Representatives in Congress made journeys to Cuba, and returning,
described in formal addresses at the Capitol the scenes of starvation
and misery, this opinion hardened into positive conviction.

Then, almost as if planned by some all-knowing power, came a great and
inexplicable disaster, which made American intervention inevitable and
immediate.

During the latter years of the Cleveland administration the
representatives of American interests in Cuba urged that a United
States ship-of-war should be permanently stationed in Havana harbor.
The request was reasonable, the act in thorough accord with the custom
of nations. But, fearing to offend Spain, President Cleveland avoided
taking the step and President McKinley for months imitated him. In
time this act, which in itself could have had no hostile significance,
came to be regarded as an expression of hostility to Spain, and all
the resources of Spanish diplomacy were exerted to prevent any
American warship from entering Havana harbor. Ultimately, however, the
pressure of public opinion compelled the Executive to provide for
representation of American authority in the disordered island, and the
battle-ship "Maine"--a sister ship to the "Iowa," a picture of which
appears elsewhere in this volume--was sent to Havana.

The night of February 15 the "Maine" lay quietly at her anchorage in
the Havana harbor. Her great white hull, with lights shining
brilliantly from the ports aft where the officers' quarters were,
gleamed in the starlight. On the berth deck the men swung sleeping in
their hammocks. The watch on deck breathed gratefully the cool evening
air after the long tropic day. Captain Sigsbee was at work in his
cabin, and the officers in the wardroom were chatting over their games
or dozing over their books. The lights of the town and of the ancient
fortress of Morro shone brightly through the purpling light. Not far
away the Spanish man-of-war "Alfonso XIII." lay at her moorings, and
an American merchantman, brightly lighted, was near. The scene was
peaceful, quiet, beautiful. True, in the minds of many officers and
men on the American warship there was a lurking and indefinable sense
of danger. Their coming had been taken by the Spaniards in Havana as
a hostile act. Though all the perfunctory requirements of
international courtesy had bee