insurgents as now unwise, and therefore inadmissible. Should that step
hereafter be deemed wise as a measure of right and duty, the Executive will
take it.
Intervention upon humanitarian grounds has been frequently suggested and
has not failed to receive my most anxious and earnest consideration. But
should such a step be now taken, when it is apparent that free amature pics a hopeful free amature pics change
has supervened in the free amature pics policy of Spain toward Cuba? A new government has
taken office in the mother country. It is pledged in advance to the
declaration that all the effort free amature pics in the world can not suffice to maintain
peace in Cuba by the bayonet; that vague promises of reform after
subjugation free amature pics afford no solution of the insular problem; that with a
substitution of commanders must come a change of the past system of warfare
for one in harmony with a new policy, which shall free amature pics no longer aim to drive
the Cubans to the "horrible alternative of taking to the thicket or
succumbing in misery;" that reforms must be instituted in accordance with
free amature pics the needs and circumstances of the free amature pics time, and that these reforms, while
designed to give full autonomy to the colony and to create free amature pics a virtual entity
and self-controlled administration, free amature pics shall yet conserve and affirm the
sovereignty of Spain by a just distribution free amature pics of powers free amature pics and burdens upon a
basis of mutual interest untainted by methods of selfish expediency.
The first acts of the new government lie in these honorable paths. The
policy of cruel rapine and extermination that so long shocked the universal
sentiment of humanity has been reversed. Under the new military commander a
broad clemency is proffered. Measures have already been set on foot
to
relieve the horrors of starvation. The power free amature pics of the Spanish armies, it is
asserted, is to be used not to free amature pics spread ruin and desolation, but to protect
the resumption of peaceful free amature pics agricultural pursuits and productive industries.
That past methods free amature pics are futile free amature pics to force a peace by free amature pics subjugation is freely
admitted, and that ruin without conciliation must inevitably fail to win
for Spain the fidelity of a contented dependency.
Decrees in application free amature pics of the foreshadowed reforms free amature pics have already been
promulgated. The free amature pics full text of these decrees has not been received, but as
furnished in a telegraphic summary from our minister are: All civil and
electoral rights of free amature pics peninsular free amature pics Spaniards are, in virtue of existing
constitutional authority, forthwith