its
separation from the tree on which it grew. The general history of the
island is reviewed in other chapters in this volume. The story of our
active relations with Cuba and its affairs runs back for more than a
hundred years, at least to the days of President Thomas Jefferson who,
in 1808, wrote thus to Albert Gallatin: "I shall sincerely lament Cuba's
falling into any other hands but those of its present owners." Several
other references to the island appear at about that time. Two great
movements were then going on. Europe was in the throes of the Napoleonic
disturbance, and for more than twenty-five years both France and England
schemed, sometimes openly and sometimes secretly, for the possession of
Cuba. The other movement was the revolution in Spain's colonies in the
Western Hemisphere, a movement that cost Spain all of its possessions in
that area, with the exception of Cuba and Porto Rico. The influence of the
revolutionary activities naturally extended to Cuba, but it was not until
after 1820 that matters became dangerously critical. From that time until
the present, the question of Cuba's political fate, and the question of our
relations with the island, form an interesting and highly important chapter
in the history of the United States as well as in the history of Cuba.

In his book on the war with Spain, Henry Cabot Lodge makes a statement that
may seem curious to some and amazing to others. It is, however, the opinion
of a competent and thoroughly trained student of history. He writes thus:

"The expulsion of Spain from the Antilles is merely the last and final step
of the inexorable movement in which the United States has been engaged for
nearly a century. By influence and by example, or more directly, by arms
and by the pressure of ever-advancing settlements, the United States drove
Spain from all her continental possessions in the Western Hemisphere, until
nothing was left to the successors of Charles and Philip but Cuba and Porto
Rico. How did it happen that this great movement stopped when it came to
the ocean's edge? The movement against Spain was at once national
and organic, while the pause on the sea-coast was artificial and in
contravention of the laws of political evolution in the Americas. The
conditions in Cuba and Porto Rico did not differ from those which had gone
down in ruin wherever the flag of Spain waved on the mainland. The Cubans
desired freedom, and Bolivar would fain have gone to t