afe-guarding of those special
interests. These views were approved by the best thought of both
countries, and ultimately prevailed.

In accordance with the views thus expressed, Senator Platt prepared as
an addendum to the Army Appropriation bill, on February 25, the historic
measure known as the Platt Amendment. This, consisting of eight brief
paragraphs, embodied the very points which the President had already
made on February 9, with the addition of three more. One of these was,
that the Cuban government should maintain the work of sanitation already
so auspiciously begun, for the protection of its own people and also the
people of the United States from epidemic pestilence; a requirement
which was probably quite superfluous, seeing that the Cubans were as
intent as the Americans upon the elimination of yellow fever and
malaria. The second was, that the Isle of Pines should be omitted from
the proposed constitutional boundaries of Cuba, the title thereto being
left for future adjustment by treaty. This extraordinary demand was a
bad blot upon the measure, and it is difficult to understand how it ever
was permitted to be inserted at the behest of some unscrupulous and
sordid scheme of exploitation. Happily, subsequent treaty agreements and
court decisions defeated its purpose and confirmed Cuba in her title to
the Isle of Pines. The third was the requirement that Cuba should make
this Platt Amendment either a part of her Constitution or an ordinance
under it and appended to it, and should also embody it in a permanent
treaty with the United States.

At this the storm broke. The great mass of the conservative and
thoughtful people of Cuba, while they regretted the need of it,
recognized the necessity of such an arrangement, and earnestly favored
the acceptance of the Platt Amendment, even with the one or two
objectionable features. But the radicals vigorously opposed it, and in
their opposition were greatly encouraged by the factional enemies of the
President in the United States, who broke all bounds of decency, and not
only raged against him there but organized a propaganda in Cuba itself,
to incite Cubans to oppose and resist the United States. In this the
foremost of such agitators were doubly false. They were not only
stirring up a foreign people against their own country, but they were
doing so with the deliberate and malignant hope of precipitating an
armed conflict between the two countries which would result