h Lee. On December 6, 1897,
McKinley, in his annual message to Congress, counseled patience.
Convinced of the good intentions of the new Spanish Government, he
sought to induce American public sentiment to allow it time to act. He
continued nevertheless to urge upon Spain the fact that in order to be
effective action must be prompt.

Public sentiment against Spain grew every day stronger in the United
States and was given startling impulse in February, 1898, by two of
those critical incidents which are almost sure to occur when general
causes are potent enough to produce a white heat of popular feeling. The
Spanish Minister in the United States, Senor Dupuy de Lome, had aroused
the suspicion, during his summer residence on the north shore of
Massachusetts Bay, that he was collecting information which would be
useful to a Spanish fleet operating on that coast. Whether this charge
was true or not, at any rate he wrote a letter to a friend, a Madrid
editor visiting Havana, in which he characterized McKinley as a
vacillating and timeserving politician. Alert American newspaper men,
who practically constituted a secret service of some efficiency, managed
to obtain the letter. On February 9, 1898, De Lome saw a facsimile of
this letter printed in a newspaper and at once cabled his resignation.
In immediately accepting De Lome's resignation Spain anticipated an
American demand for his recall and thus saved Spanish pride, though
undoubtedly at the expense of additional irritation in the United
States, where it was thought that he should have been punished instead
of being allowed to slip away.

Infinitely more serious than this diplomatic faux pas was the disaster
which befell the United States battleship Maine: On January 24, 1898,
the Government had announced its intention of sending a warship on a
friendly visit to Havana; with the desire of impressing the local Cuban
authorities with the imminence of American power. Not less important was
the purpose of affording protection to American citizens endangered
by the rioting of Spaniards, who were angry because they believed that
Sagasta by his conciliatory policy was betraying the interests of Spain.
Accordingly the Maine, commanded by Captain Sigsbee, was dispatched to
Cuba and arrived on the 25th of January in the harbor of Havana. On the
night of the 15th of February, an explosion utterly wrecked the vessel
and killed 260 of the crew, besides wounding ninety.

The respons