In a review of a country including forty-four thousand square miles of territory, condensed into two chapters, it is quite impossible to include all that is worth telling. Moreover, there is much in the island of which no adequate description can be given. There is much that must be seen if it if to be fairly understood and appreciated. VIII _THE UNITED STATES AND CUBA_ IN his message to Congress, on December 5, 1898, President McKinley declared that "the new Cuba yet to arise from the ashes of the past must needs be bound to us by ties of singular intimacy and strength if its enduring welfare is to be assured." Probably to many of the people of the United States, the story of our relations with Cuba had its beginning with the Spanish-American war. That is quite like a notion that the history of an apple begins with its separation from the tree on which it grew. The general history of the island is reviewed in other chapters in this volume. The story of our active relations with Cuba and its affairs runs back for more than a hundred years, at least to the days of President Thomas Jefferson who, in 1808, wrote thus to Albert Gallatin: "I shall sincerely lament Cuba's falling into any other hands but those of its present owners." Several other references to the island appear at about that time. Two great movements were then going on. Europe was in the throes of the Napoleonic disturbance, and for more than twenty-five years both France and England schemed, sometimes openly and sometimes secretly, for the possession of Cuba. The other movement was the revolution in Spain's colonies in the Western Hemisphere, a movement that cost Spain all of its possessions in that area, with the exception of Cuba and Porto Rico. The influence of the revolutionary activities naturally extended to Cuba, but it was not until after 1820 that matters became dangerously critical. From that time until the present, the question of Cuba's political fate, and the question of our relations with the island, form an interesting and highly important chapter in the history of the United States as well as in the history of Cuba. In his book on the war with Spain, Henry Cabot Lodge makes a statement that may seem curious to some and amazing to others. It is, however, the opinion of a competent and thoroughly trained student of history. He writes thus: