Even amid the exciting campaign of 1896, the Democrats found time to express sympathy with the Cubans, and the Republicans significantly remarked that inasmuch as Spain was "unable to protect the property or lives of resident American citizens," the good offices of the United States should be tendered with a view to pacification and independence. Perhaps, not unaware of the impending crisis, the Republicans also favored a continued enlargement of the navy to help maintain the "rightful influence" of the United States among the nations of the earth. President Cleveland, repudiated by his own party and having no desire to "play the game of politics," assumed an attitude of neutrality in the conflict and denied to the Cubans the rights of belligerents. He offered to Spain the good offices of the United States in mediation with the insurgents--a tender which was rejected by Spain with the suggestion that the United States might more vigorously suppress the unlawful assistance which some of its citizens were lending to the revolutionists. Mr. Cleveland's second administration closed without any positive action on the Cuban question. Within four months after his inauguration, President McKinley protested strongly to Spain against her policy in Cuba, and during the summer and autumn and winter he conducted a running fire of negotiations with Spain. Congress was impatient for armed intervention and fretted at the tedious methods of diplomacy. Spain shrewdly made counter thrusts to every demand advanced by the United States, but made no outward sign of improvement in the affairs of Cuba, even after the recall of General Weyler. In February, 1898, a private letter, written by De Lome, the Spanish minister at Washington, showing contempt for Mr. McKinley and some shifty ideas of diplomacy, was acquired by the _New York Journal_ and published. This stirred the country and led to the recall of the minister by his home government. Meanwhile the battleship _Maine_ was sent to Havana, officially to resume friendly relations at Cuban ports, but not without an ulterior regard for the necessity of protecting the lives and property of Americans in jeopardy. The incident of the Spanish minister's letter had hardly been closed before the _Maine_ was blown up and sunk on the evening of February 15, 1898. The death of two officers and two hundred and fifty-eight of the crew was a tragedy which moved the nation beyond measure, and with the cry "Remember the _Maine_" public opinion was worked up to a point of frenzy.