Ohio History Journal

AN ECONOMIC ASPECT OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR by TOM EDWARD TERRILL     In the early months of 1898 the McKinley administration confronted a mounting crisis with Spain over the Cuban revolution. Domestic pressures exerted by the press and politicians, especially in the month of March, placed heavy demands upon President McKinley to intervene to pacify Cuba. One of the President's closest advisers thought war was possible in February. By March 28, he believed it was probable.1 The report on the sinking of the United States battleship Maine on February 15, 1898, and a speech by Senator Redfield Procter of Ver- mont to the Senate accounted for much of this agitation. An investigat- ing commission from the United States Navy concluded that the Maine tragedy was the result of an external explosion. Although the commission did not determine the guilty parties, most Americans saw the tragedy as the work of "Black Spain." Following a tour in Cuba, the moderate Procter reported widespread suffering and Spanish incompetence and cruelty in the island. Many American leaders thus decided that the United States had given Spain enough time to restore peace and order in Cuba. They had lost patience with Spain, and they were by then losing patience with the President.     NOTES ARE ON PAGE 100

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McKinley, therefore, sought counsel from members of the administration

and Congress during the last week of March.² John Adam Kasson, Minister

Plenipotentiary, lent his advice and experience to the President. Especially

appointed by McKinley to negotiate reciprocity treaties according to the

provisions of the Dingley tariff bill, Kasson had a long record of service

in diplomatic circles. He was a self-trained diplomat in the days before

the trained diplomat was conspicuous in American history. Moreover, he

was an ardent territorial and economic expansionist.³

Kasson actively entered into reciprocal trade talks with Cuban and

Spanish representatives on March 22, 1898. Although the talks were ex-

plicitly limited to trade, it was assumed the discussions would also cover

possible peaceful solutions for the Cuban crisis.⁴ Two days later, on March

24, Kasson sent McKinley the following memorandum, which implied that

reciprocity negotiations had been aborted and hopes for peace were dim:5

WHY THE U. S. ARE SPECIALLY INTERESTED IN THE

RESTORATION OF ORDER IN CUBA

In 1894                    In 1895                     In 1896                    In 1897

Year Before              1st Year of              2nd Year of            3rd Year of

Rebellion                  Rebellion                  Rebellion                 Rebellion

The Aggregate

Trade Between

the U.S. and

Cuba Fell

From ............ $96,803,000 to $65,678,000 to $47,548,000 to $26,660,000

(The U.S. have had about

70% of the total annual

trade of Cuba.)

Loss of commerce does not stand alone in representing our national

interest in the question.

Spain, instead of utilizing her own naval forces for effectively patrol-

ling the limited shores of Cuba, has demanded of the U.S. the policing

of our entire continental coast against possible expeditions to Cuba,

which have cost the U.S. large sums of money. . . .

Destruction of many millions of property of U.S. citizens on the Island

in the course of a dilatory and resultless war.

To the financial considerations are to be added the political disturb-

ances arising from close neighborhood, and the incessant moral dis-

turbances among a vast population shocked by the inhumanities and

miseries occasioned by a violence as despotic as it is fruitless of goods

to either party involved in this war.

There is no evidence upon which to assess the import of this memor-

andum on President McKinley's decision-making processes. As far as the

author knows, this note has not heretofore been used by historians. The

President rarely, if ever, left records concerning the inner workings of his

mind about most of the major issues of his administration. But the memor-

andum does fit within the framework of McKinley's persistent concern

for foreign economic expansion and reciprocity. Clearly, too, Kasson knew

about and understood that concern. McKinley's "greatest ambition," Chi-

cago publisher H. H. Kohlsaat said, "was to create new markets for Ameri-

can producers and manufacturers."⁶ The President's public record con-

firms this judgment. His statement at the first convention of the National

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SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR                                                  75

 

Association of Manufacturers in January 1895 is an example of how he

expressed his economic policy. The United States, he said, wanted its "own

markets" for its "own manufactures and agricultural products." Coinci-

dentally, the United States desired "a foreign market" for its "surplus

products." "We want," he continued, "a reciprocity which will give us

foreign markets for our surplus products, and in turn that will open our

markets to foreigners for those products which they produce and which

we do not."⁷ And he repeated these remarks in a speech to the January

1898 meeting of the NAM.⁸ Again, in his 1897 inaugural address, McKinley

asked for tariff revision and a provision in any such legislation for the

authority to negotiate reciprocity treaties.9

McKinley's remarks thus give cause to assign considerable significance to

the memorandum presented to him by his trusted confidant and minister,

Kasson, because it displayed evidence that United States trade in the

area was threatened, as well as her honor. The note could have therefore

played a part in the preparation of the war message the President sent

to Congress less than a month later.

 

 

THE AUTHOR: Tom Edward Terrill

is Assistant Professor of History at the

University of South Carolina.

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