nterests and sensibilities. The State Department maintained
that Spain was responsible for the destruction of American property
by insurgents. This Spain denied, for, while she never officially
recognized the insurgents as belligerents, the insurrection had passed
beyond her control. This was, indeed, the position which the Spanish
Treaty Claims Commission subsequently took in ruling that to establish a
claim it would be necessary to show that the destruction of property was
the consequence of negligence upon the part of Spanish authorities or
of military orders. Of other serious grievances there was no doubt.
American citizens were imprisoned, interned in reconcentrado camps, and
otherwise maltreated. The nationality of American sufferers was in some
cases disputed, and the necessity of dealing with each of these doubtful
cases by the slow and roundabout method of complaint to Madrid, which
referred matters back to Havana, which reported to Madrid, served but
to add irritation to delay. American resentment, too, was fired by
the sufferings of the Cubans themselves as much as by the losses and
difficulties of American citizens.

One change of extreme importance had taken place since the Cuban revolt
of 1868-78. This was the development of the modern American newspaper.
It was no longer possible for the people at large to remain ignorant
of what was taking place at their very doors. Correspondents braved the
yellow fever and imprisonment in order to furnish the last details of
each new horror. Foremost in this work were William Randolph Hearst, who
made new records of sensationalism in his papers, particularly in the
New York Journal, and Joseph Pulitzer, proprietor of the New York World.
Hearst is reported to have said that it cost him three millions to
bring on the Spanish American War. The net result of all this newspaper
activity was that it became impossible for the American people to remain
in happy ignorance of what was going on in the world. Their reaction to
the facts was their own.

President Cleveland modeled his policy upon that of Grant and Grant's
Secretary, Hamilton Fish. He did not recognize the independence of the
Cuban republic, for that would have meant immediate war with Spain; nor
did he recognize even its belligerency. Public men in the United States
were still convinced that Great Britain had erred in recognizing the
belligerency of the Southern Confederacy, and consistency of foreign
policy deman