er,
believed that a war, even if unsuccessful, was the only way of saving
the dynasty, and that the dynasty was worth saving. Public opinion in
Spain was therefore no less inflamed than in America, but it was less
well-informed. Cartoons represented the American hog, which would
readily fall before the Spanish rapier accustomed to its nobler
adversary the bull. Spanish pride, impervious to facts and statistics,
would brook no supine submission on the part of its people to foreign
demands. It was a question how far the Spanish Government could bring
itself to yield points in season which it fully realized must be yielded
in the end.

The negotiation waxed too hot for the aged John Sherman, and was
conducted by the Assistant Secretary, William Rufus Day, a close friend
of the President, but a man comparatively unknown to the public. When
Day officially succeeded Sherman (April 26, 1898) he had to face as
fierce a light of publicity as ever beat upon a public man in the United
States. Successively in charge of the Cuban negotiations, Secretary
of State from April to September, 1898, President of the Paris Peace
Commission in October, in December, after a career of prime national
importance for nine months in which he had demonstrated his high
competence, Day retired to the relative obscurity of the United States
circuit bench. Although later raised to the Supreme Court, he has never
since been a national figure. As an example of a meteoric career of a
man of solid rather than meteoric qualities, his case is unparalleled in
American history.

The acting Secretary of State telegraphed the ultimatum of the
Government on March 27, 1898, to General Stewart L. Woodford, then
Minister to Spain. By the terms of this document, in the first place
there was to be an immediate amnesty which would last until the 1st of
October and during which Spain would communicate with the insurgents
through the President of the United States; in the second place, the
reconcentrado policy was to cease immediately, and relief for the
suffering Cubans was to be admitted from the United States. Then, if
satisfactory terms were not reached by the 1st of October, the
President was to be recognized as arbiter between the Spaniards and the
insurgents.

On the 30th of March, Spain abrogated the reconcentrado policy in
the "western provinces of Cuba," and on the following day offered to
arbitrate the questions arising out of the sinking of the Maine. On