Mr. Woodford to Mr. Sherman.

No. 135.]

Sir: On the afternoon of February 3 instant I received from the Spanish minister of foreign affairs a note, dated February 1 instant, being the official reply to my note to the Spanish Government, dated December 20, 1897. The translation was begun at once, but both translation and copying have been delayed by sickness in my office force.

Yesterday I received your telegram, in cipher, which I translate as follows:

Please telegraph substance of Spanish note of 1st February, which is presumed to be in answer to yours of December 20.

I have done the best I could with force at my disposal. Yesterday I telegraphed you, in cipher, as follows:

Madrid, February 8, 1898.

Secretary Sherman, Washington:

Note of Spanish Government February 1 in answer to mine December 20. Expresses satisfaction with our declaration as to new colonial policy. This satisfaction in great part neutralized by our censures against predecessors of present Government and still more by our confounding in same judgment the incredible misconduct of Cuban insurrectionists with conduct of regular army which, during three years, has demonstrated its discipline in obedient execution of orders. Present Spanish Government can not receive without protest severe criticisms formulated against their predecessors in power. Recriminations directed at home in political contests must not be judged in foreign countries in the same way, nor can foreign cabinet use them as the basis for argument nor as the foundation of opinion in its diplomatic relations, these being internal acts completely beyond the judgment or consideration of foreigners. Present ministers in proclaiming their doctrines can not admit that they were formulating accusations against their predecessors, who, whatever their opinions, were inspired by the purest patriotism. Spanish note of August 25 ought to have made clear to Washington Cabinet that Spanish troops have never given any cause for censure which could dim the luster of their history.

The idea which has slipped into the American note that Spain can reasonably count upon the United States maintaining present attitude only until an undetermined future shall prove whether indispensable conditions of peace have been realized is less justifiable and less explicable. Spanish Government does not admit the right of neighboring country to limit duration of struggle. Aspirations for peace and friendly observations are justified. Foreign intrusions and interferences are never and in no way justified. These might lead to the intervention which every country that respects itself must repel with force. Takes for guide and example the instructions by Secretary Seward to Minister Dayton at Paris, April 22, 1861. Quotes and adopts the words of Secretary Seward and expresses conviction of Spanish Government that the United States, where such words have been written, can not fix time for termination of Cuban insurrection. Can not conceive that the United States can change its former offers of good offices into insinuations of change of conduct when colonial policy of present ministry is being carried out with good results.

Spain having fulfilled, with scrupulous sincerity, those obligations which the most suspicious prejudice could suggest, no pretext remains for now discussing the duration of a conflict of exclusively internal character, even were the progress in subduing insurrection not so evident and hopes of early pacification not so well founded. The singular consideration with which the Spanish Government constantly receives the opinions of the United States is not sufficient to induce it to accept the theory of our note in regard to international duties in the case of intestine rebellions. Opposes at length the ideas set forth by Secretary Fish. Quotes from Calvo, Montesquier, and Jiose. Spanish Government does not analyze terms of our act of 1818, but uses that act as suggestion of means that can now be employed by the United States. Suggests new proclamation and severe application of existing regulations or their extension as was done by act of 1838.

Argues that there is no appearance of reason that could justify the recognition of belligerency.

[Page 658]

Conclusions of Geneva arbitration were mentioned solely for analogy. Such duties as neutrality imposes friendship should suggest. Spanish Government recognize with sincere pleasure the vigilance exercised during recent months along the extensive American coasts and effective organization of naval forces, hindering illegal aid to revolting Cubans from Florida. These facts demonstrate the power of the Government of the United States to enforce the obligations of international friendship.

Can not observe with indifference continued operation in New York of an organization, composed in its majority of American citizens, who are not imbued with their recently acquired nationality, who abuse the laws of their new country and prejudice the cordial relations subsisting between the United States and Spain. Friendly nations do not tolerate organizations in their midst whose only mission consists in trying to violate the integrity of one of them. Spanish people and Spanish Government will resolutely maintain their legitimate and traditional sovereignty in Cuba. Hope that the United States will maintain benevolent attitude of expectation, and will cooperate by means already indicated, and others analogous thereto within its own frontiers, to the work of peace, justice, and autonomy. Thus the United States will dishearten completely the turbulent elements which still maintain the rebellion, and which only hope for success in ultimate conflict between our two respective countries. Cuba has its life and future united to Spain, and to conspire against their perpetual union reveals designs of destruction and involves inadmissible pretension. Peace necessary for Cuba, and advantageous to the United States, can be found only in the formula of colonial self-government and Spanish sovereignty.

The Government of the United States knows this and can contribute powerfully by working in harmony with what has been expressed. The United States will certainly do this, because in the United States justice is a religion, and because in the Republic of North America we respect the desire of the people to organize themselves as best suits them. The Cuban people have perfect right that nobody shall obstruct them or lend aid to a turbulent minority. Before autonomy was granted it might have been erroneously believed that this minority represented the common feeling of the masses. There is no such excuse now. The valuable elements of the island now desire peace under as broad autonomy as they can wish. The moral and material aid of revolutionary organizations working freely in the United States should cease absolutely and at once.

Quotes my note that peace in Cuba is not sudden creation to be built in a single night, but an enduring edifice to be founded on equity.

Woodford.

To enable you to judge of the accuracy of my synopsis, I inclose copy of the Spanish note. It is written out in long hand, as the only clerk who can transcribe the note in Spanish on the typewriter is ill. The copy sent was kindly written out by the naval and military attachés of the legation.

I am having additional copies of the full translation of the entire Spanish note prepared and hope to forward them to-morrow.

I withhold comment on the Spanish note until I can think the situation over more carefully.

Very respectfully yours,

Stewart L. Woodford.
[Inclosure—Translation.]

Señor Gullon to Mr. Woodford.

Your Excellency and Dear Sir: In your excellency’s kind and well-weighed note dated December 20 last, to which I now have the honor to reply, there are many and very diverse statements, causing great and special gratification to H. M.’s Government, remarkable for their clearness and expressiveness. Among them the following deserve [Page 659] special mention: Those recognizing the value and efficacy of the new principles applied to the colonial policy; those admitting the importance and conclusiveness of the information received at Washington from the peninsula and Cuba, tending to prove the sincerity of Spain’s desire and exertions for the improvement of conditions and circumstances in that island; and the explicit terms in which your excellency is pleased to say that the prosperity of the cities and the country there is being prompted by the renewal, under the best auspices, of the suspended agricultural and industrial operations. The satisfaction, however, derived from these and other similar statements, giving eloquent expression to the recognition of the irreproachable (correct) procedure of Spain, is, to a great extent, destroyed or diminished by the blame cast upon the predecessors of the present Government, and still more so by the fact that the numerous and incredible excesses committed by the Cuban insurgents are confounded in the same category, with the conduct of the regular army, which for nearly three years has been giving proof of its valor and discipline in the defense of indisputable rights and in the obedient fulfillment of orders and plans emanating from other departments.

Whatever may be the political views of the men constituting the present Government of Spain, they can not, without protest, permit the severe condemnation passed upon those who preceded them in power, as they think that the struggles of parties, or even the recriminations which parties may launch at each other in their constantly recurring daily disputes, should not be judged in the same manner from a distance, nor can they consent to a foreign cabinet’s making use of them as a basis for its arguments or as a foundation for its views in its diplomatic relations, as they are, on the contrary, domestic matters entirely foreign to the judgment or decision of other nations.

When the present ministers advocated their own doctrines in opposition to those of their antagonists; when, in the sessions of Parliament, they opposed the colonial policy and the procedure of other parties and recommended to their fellow-citizens as more conducive to their good their own views, principles, and purposes, they never meant to make, nor can they now admit that they did make, any accusations concerning the good intentions and purposes of their predecessors, who, whatever might be their plans and methods, were certainly actuated by the most zealous patriotism.

As regards the conduct of our army, the note of August 25, 1897, must have made it evident to the candid judgment of the Washington Cabinet that the Spanish troops have never given occasion for reproaches tarnishing, either in a greater or less degree, the brilliant splendor of their history, and that if any acts, judged from a distance and separately, have given rise to complaints and lamentations on the part of some sensitive and humanitarian spirits, they have proved, when investigated subsequently with proper coolness, to have been the inevitable consequence of war and a comparatively well-restricted object lesson of the calamities and disasters which have always accompanied war in all ages and in all countries, not excepting the United States, as was shown by references of strict historical accuracy in the document to which I have just alluded.

Another idea which is repugnant to the pleasing and conciliatory views to which I have previously alluded, is the one which slips out in your excellency’s note to which I am replying, when you say that Spain [Page 660] can only reasonably expect the United States to maintain its present attitude until it is proved by facts, within a more or less determined period, whether what your excellency calls the indispensable requisites to a peace both just to the mother country and the Great Antilla, and fair to the North American Republic, have been attained. The more deliberate, the more explicit, and the more positive the declarations with which your excellency asserts the disinterestedness and impartiality of your Government, the more positive and emphatic your declaration that the United States desires only the reign of peace, and the more expressive and earnest the congratulations with which you admit that the Spanish Government has drawn the plans and laid the foundations of a noble structure in Cuba, so much the less justifiable and so much the less intelligible is the hint to which I have referred.

The Spanish Government assuredly did not admit that reasons of proximity or damages caused by war to neighboring countries might give such countries a right to limit to a longer or shorter period the duration of a struggle disastrous to all, but much more so to the nations in whose midst it breaks out or is maintained, as your excellency voluntarily admits. My note of October 23, referring to this point in general terms, proved perfectly clear that, in view of the varied and close relations between modern nations, a disturbance arising in any of them may justify the adjoining nations in expressing their anxiety for peace and in offering friendly suggestions, but never and under no circumstances foreign intrusion or interference. Such interference would lead to an intervention which an nation possessing any self respect would have to repel by force, even if it were necessary to exhaust, in the defense of the integrity of its territory and of its independence, all, absolutely all, the resources at its disposal.

Spain would act upon these honorable principles—the only ones consistent with the national dignity—just as the United States nobly acted upon them when, in 1861, it feared that an attempt would be made to exert an influence by foreign intervention in the domestic struggle which it was then carrying on. The instructions to that effect sent by Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, to Mr. Dayton, the minister in Paris, on the 22d April, 1861, will serve as a guide, and will constitute a notable example for all countries which, like Spain, value their honor above all else, even to (the execution of) the declared purpose to “struggle with the whole world” rather than yield to pressure from without. (Presidents’ Messages and Documents, 1861–62, page 200.) When I say that the Government of Spain appropriates, on this occasion, Mr. Seward’s lofty views, it will be sufficiently clear how deeply rooted in (the minds of) the ministry of which I form a part is the conviction that the United States, where such words have been written, will not fix a period for the termination of the present Cuban insurrection.

If such a limitation of the legitimate and immutable national sovereignty could not be permitted at any time, it must be expected less than ever when a fortunate concurrence of circumstances has enabled the present cabinet of Madrid, while voluntarily fulfilling its engagements and carrying out, when in power, the colonial policy which it advocated when in opposition, to execute the wishes of the loyal inhabitants of Cuba, and to comply with those suggestions which the United States Government has offered repeatedly and officially as the expression of its desire or as its advice as a friend. Under these circumstances, [Page 661] and when the genuineness and excellence of the radical reforms granted to Cuba, which reforms have constituted, as it were, a new and most equitable body of law, the maximum of powers and initiatives to which a free colony, the mistress of its own fate, can aspire, are candidly recognized; when, in the face of innumerable difficulties, these radical reforms have been carried into effect, and when an autonomous government of its own is to-day performing its functions in the Great Antilla; when the advantages of this immense change begin to make themselves felt, it is certainly not the time for the United States Government to substitute for its former offers of its good offices hints of a change of conduct in the event of more or less remote contingencies, and to base this notification of its change not only upon the contingency of a material success, a success as independent of right as of the conduct of the party advocating the right, but upon its own estimate of the success itself, an estimate made in accordance with the opinion of any one who, at a given time, may wish to decide upon it without any other guide (rules) than his own will, and without any more impartiality than is imposed upon him by his observations or surroundings.

[At a time] when the expressive congratulations of the Washington Cabinet have been earned by our innovations; when the civil struggle in the island of Cuba is adapting itself to the most modern and humane conditions and character consistent with an active state of war, as your excellency fully and nobly admits; when, in short, even [all] the obligations of a moral order that the most jealous prejudice can require have been fulfilled by Spain with the most scrupulous fidelity and of her own accord, there remains no reason or pretext for now discussing the duration of that struggle, which is of an exclusively domestic nature, nor for making the conduct of friendly nations dependent upon such duration, even if the progress made in overcoming the insurrection were not so evident, and if the hopes of a speedy pacification were not so well founded.

The remarkable consideration with which H. M.’s Government constantly entertains the views and doctrines of the United States Government does not suffice to induce it to accept, now or at any future period, the theory which Y. E. is pleased to propound with regard to international duties in the case of intestine rebellions, in repetition of the views expressed years ago by the illustrious Secretary of State, Mr. Fish. The Spanish Government can not consent to attach so little weight to international friendship as to render that relation between nations almost entirely destitute of mutual obligations, the duties which it imposes being regarded, in every case, as very inferior to those which are derived from neutrality.

This Government is of opinion, on the contrary, basing its views upon considerations of eternal ethics, that a true friend, both in the private order of private relations and in the public order of international relations, has more conventionalities to observe and more duties to fulfill than a neutral or indifferent person; and that the friendship which is founded upon international law obliges all States, to use the words of the famous South American publicist, Calvo, not only to prevent their own subjects from causing injury to a friendly country, but to exert themselves to prevent any plots, machinations, or combinations of any kind tending to disturb the security of those States with which they maintain relations of peace, friendship, and good [Page 662] harmony from being planned in their territory. “International law does not merely oblige States to prevent their subjects from doing anything to the detriment of the dignity or interests of friendly nations or governments; it imposes upon them, in addition, the strict duty of opposing, within their own territory, all plots, machinations, or combinations of a character to disturb the security of countries with which they maintain relations of peace, friendship, and good harmony.” (§ 1298, Vol. III, p. 156.) This is the meaning of international friendship as defined by Montesquieu, when he said that nations ought to do each other as much good as possible in peace and as little harm as possible in war. (Spirit of Laws, Vol. I, p. 3.) And it is the meaning given by Fiore in the following words: “Every State should refrain from ordering or authorizing, in its own territory, acts of any kind tending, directly or indirectly, to injure other States, even when it is not obliged to do so by laws or treaties.” (Chapter II, § 598.)

It is upon this view of international friendship that the Spanish Government bases its opinions with regard to the extension of the obligations arising or derived from such friendship in the intercourse of civilized nations, and hence the request which it has addressed to the Washington Cabinet on numerous occasions, to prevent, with a firm hand, the departure of filibustering expeditions against Cuba, and to dissolve or prosecute the junta which is sitting publicly in New York, and which is the active and permanent center of attacks upon the Spanish nation, and which, from the territory of the Union, is organizing and maintaining hostilities against a country which is living in perfect peace with the United States.

H. M.’s Government could not, nor should it, analyze the language of the law of 1818, as it regards it as a law of a domestic or municipal character, the scope of which it appertains to the Federal Government alone to determine. All that it permitted itself to do, in the name of the friendship declared by the treaty of 1795, and which has been confirmed by practical demonstration through many years and many tests, was to suggest the means of rendering real and effectual those obligations which are derived from true friendship, such as the Spanish Government understands it, either by the publication of a proclamation of the same nature and as emphatic as those which illustrious predecessors of the illustrious President, Mr. McKinley, thought themselves called upon to publish under similar circumstances, or by the severe application of the regulations in force, or by their amendment or enlargement, as occurred in the act of March 10, 1838.

Nor could H. M.’s Government refer to the duties of neutrality, as it maintains with the same vigor as ever its well-founded assertion that there is no reason, nor even a semblance of reason, to justify a recognition of beligerency in the Cuban insurrection. All its remarks have been directed to the duties imposed by neighborhood and international friendship, and when it has mentioned the decision of the Geneva arbitration, it did so merely as a comparison; for, if diligence must be used in the discharge of the duties of neutrality, as was decided there, no less diligence should be required in the discharge of the duties of friendship; and if defects in the laws can not be offered as an excuse in the case of the former, it would be unreasonable to admit them in the case of the latter.

[Page 663]

The undersigned and the Government of which he forms part take sincere pleasure in recognizing the fact, as they do with genuine gratitude, that the watchfulness exercised during the last few months along the extended coasts of America has been more effectual than formerly in preventing the departure of filibustering expeditions. He is also pleased to find a reason for gratitude to the Federal Government in the skillful organization which it has given to its naval forces, in order to prevent illegal aid being sent to the Cuban rebels from the coast of Florida. Both facts prove the power and the means at the disposal of the North American Government for the fulfillment, with due energy and promptness, of the obligations of international friendship.

We can not, however, notice with indifference, that there continues to be acting in New York an organization composed chiefly of naturalized North Americans who, notwithstanding, do not wish to imbibe (imbibe the spirit of) their recently acquired nationality nor the atmosphere of honor and friendship in which their Government breathes; who violate the laws of their new country and abuse the liberty granted them there by conspiring against the country in which they were born, thereby creating a state of hostility which disturbs the intimate and cordial relations which have so long been maintained between Spain and the United States. The principles upon which eternal law reposes, as much or more than law itself, demand the prompt suppression (disappearance) of that public center of conspiracy, from which every oversight is watched and every legal subterfuge is made use of to violate the so-called neutrality laws of the Republic of North America, for friendly nations have seldom or never been seen to tolerate in their midst organizations whose chief object, or, rather, whose only mission consists in plotting against the integrity of the territory of another friendly nation.

The Spanish people and Government, relying upon their rights, and with the firm resolution to maintain their legitimate and traditional sovereignty in the island of Cuba at every hazard, without sparing their exertions or limiting their perseverance, hope that the United States will not only continue to observe the kindly expectancy to which your excellency refers, but that she will also cooperate by the means already mentioned and other similar ones within her own borders in the work of peace, justice, and autonomy which Spain is now carrying out with so much self-denial and perseverance, and that the United States will thus prove by more and more open and effectual acts the friendship which actuates her relations (to Spain), by which course she will completely discourage the seditious and restless elements which are still sustaining the rebellion in the Great Antilla, and which are only awaiting the result of a possible collision between our two respective countries, which are called by self-interest and affection to be on good terms and to assist each other in the noble enterprises of peace, and not to wound and destroy each other in the cruel struggles of war.

The island of Cuba, as Mr. Olney freely admitted in an official note, has its life and its future bound to those of its mother country, Spain, and the act of conspiring against the perpetual union of the Pearl of the Antilles and the historical discoverer of the American continent not only reveals destructive purposes, but also involves a hopeless attempt. Cuba free, autonomous, ruled by a government of her own and by the laws which she makes for herself, subject to the immutable sovereignty of Spain, and forming an integral part of Spain, presents the only solution [Page 664] of pending problems that is just to the colony and the mother country, the denouement longed for by the great majority of their respective inhabitants and the most equitable for other States. It is only in this formula of colonial self-government and Spanish sovereignty that peace, which is so necessary to the Peninsula and to Cuba and so advantageous to the United States, can be found. The Government of the Union knows this and can contribute powerfully to the attainment of the end in view by acting in accordance with what I have had the honor to say to your excellency. It will certainly do this, because justice is revered in the United States, and because the North American Republic, in conformity with its traditional principles of respect for the wish of countries to organize themselves as may best suit them, must finally admit, by acts and by declarations, that the Cuban people have a per feet right not to be disturbed by any one, and not to have any power, near or distant, oppose their honorable and peaceful wishes, by lending aid to a turbulent minority who subordinate the interests of the immense majority of their countrymen to their own selfish purposes.

So long as the Spanish Antilles did not enjoy the right to govern themselves autonomically it might have been thought, though wrong, that this minority represented the general views of the masses, and in the case of such a hypothetical error there would be some excuse, if not justification, for a certain amount of tolerance; but now, when the state of affairs has been cleared up, and when it has been made evident by the introduction of autonomy that the most estimable inhabitants of the island desire peace under this system, which is as liberal as they could wish, this moral and physical compulsion, exerted by revolutionary organizations which are laboring freely in the United States for an absurd, unattainable separation, contrary to right and to the interests of all, ought to cease entirely and without loss of time. Its continuation would be a violation of the liberty which is the very essence of the social and political system of North America.

It is impossible to see in the noble work of peace which has been nobly and generously undertaken in Cuba, as your excellency very truly remarks, a sudden creation which can arise in a single night; it must be regarded as a lasting and noble structure, which, to use your excellency’s eloquent words, would be founded upon the rock of justice, not upon the moving sands of self-interest, and which, for its more rapid development, requires the cooperation of friends and the most scrupulous respect of foreigners.

I avail myself, etc.,

Pio Gullon.