3-086-042 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Spanish-American Crisis: Spanish troops embarking at Barcelona for Cuba, 1898. 'Spain and the United States of America, on the brink of war concerning that very serious and arduous undertaking, direct intervention on behalf of Cuban independence, which is passionately advocated with daily increasing force by a large American political party, against the wishes of President McKinley, would seem at this moment the most exciting topic of speculation in foreign affairs...At Washington on Saturday, in the...Senate, the sub-committee appointed to prepare a resolution for the standing committee on foreign relations to propose to the Senate adopted a report in favour of the recognition of the independence of Cuba and of war with Spain if it be refused by the Spanish Government...The President's...reply...has been anxiously expected, for it is with him and the Senate, jointly, that the power and responsibility of going to war is placed by the [US] Constitution...Spain requires that any application for the cessation of hostilities shall come from the Cuban revolutionary leaders themselves, not from the US, whose official intervention is absolutely declined. Preparations for naval warfare are actively continued on both sides from day to day.' From "Illustrated London News", 1898.