Essay About Reported Assassination Of President Barrios And Spanish Hatred

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The weeks that have elapsed since that fatal event of
February 15th have been making history in a manner
highly creditable to the American government and to
our citizenship. Captain Sigsbee, the commander of the
Maine, had promptly telegraphed his desire that
judgment should be suspended until investigation had
been made. The investigation was started at once, and
75 million Americans have accordingly suspended
judgment in the face of a great provocation. For it
must be remembered that to suppose the destruction of
the Maine an ordinary accident and not due to any
external agency or hostile intent was, under all the
circumstances, to set completely at defiance the law
of probabilities.
It is not true that battleships are in the habit of
blowing themselves up. When all the environing facts
were taken into consideration, it was just about as
probable that the Maine had been blown up by some
accident where no hostile motive was involved, as that
the reported assassination of President Barrios of
Guatemala, a few days previously, had really been a
suicide. . . .
It has been known perfectly well that Spanish hatred
might at any time manifest itself by attempts upon the
life of the American representative at Havana, Consul
General Fitzhugh Lee. This danger was felt especially
at the time of the Havana riots in January, and it
seems to have had something to do with the sending of
the Maine to Havana Harbor. The Spaniards themselves,
however, looked upon the sending of the Maine as a
further aggravation of the long series of their just
grievances against the United States. They regarded
the presence of the Maine at Havana as a menace to
Spanish sovereignty in the island and as an
encouragement to the insurgents. A powerful American
fleet lay at Key West and the Dry Tortugas, with steam
up ready to follow the Maine to the harbor of Havana
at a few hours notice. All this was intensely hateful
to the Spaniards, and particularly to the Army
officers at Havana who had sympathized with General
Weylers policy and who justly regarded General
Weylers recall to Spain as due to the demand of
President McKinley. The American pretense that the
Maine was making a visit of courtesy seemed to these
Spaniards a further example of Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy.
That this intense bitterness against the presence of
the Maine was felt among the military and official
class in Havana was perfectly well known to Captain
Sigsbee, his staff, and all his crew; and they were
not unaware of the rumors and threats that means would
be found to destroy the American ship. It was,
furthermore, very generally supposed that the Spanish
preparation for the defense of Havana had included
mines and torpedoes in the harbor. At the time when
the Maine went to Havana, it was a notorious fact that
the relations between the Spain and the United States
were so strained that that war was regarded as
inevitable. If war had actually been declared while
the Maine was at Havana, it is not likely that the
Spanish would have permitted the ships departure
without an effort to do her harm.
The Spanish harbor is now and it has been for a good
while past under military control; and the American
warship, believed by the Spanish authorities to be at
Havana with only half-cloaked hostile designs, was
obliged to accept the anchorage that was assigned by
those very authorities. In view of the strained
situation and of the Spanish feeling that no
magnanimity is due on Spains part toward the United
States, it is not in the least difficult to believe
that the harbor authorities would have anchored the
Maine
at a spot where, in case of the outbreak of war, the
submarine harbor defenses might be effectively be used
against so formidable an enemy.
To understand the situation completely, it must not be
forgotten that the Spanish government at first made
objection against the Maines intended visit to Havana
and, in consenting, merely yielded to a necessity that
was forced upon it. All Spaniards regarded the sending