Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
I believe that substantial progress has been made in this direction. All
the administrative measures adopted in Cuba have aimed to fit it for a
regenerated existence by enforcing the supremacy of law and justice; by
placing wherever practicable the machinery of administration in the hands
of the inhabitants; by instituting needed sanitary reforms; by spreading
education; by fostering industry and trade; by inculcating public morality,
and, in short, by taking every rational step to aid the Cuban people to
attain to that plane of self-conscious respect and self-reliant unity which
fits an enlightened community for self-government within its own sphere,
while enabling it to fulfill all outward obligation.
This nation has assumed before the world a grave responsibility for the
future good government of Cuba. We have accepted a trust the fulfillment of
which calls for the sternest integrity of purpose and the exercise of the
highest wisdom. 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. Whether those ties shall be organic or
conventional, the destinies of Cuba are in some rightful form and manner
irrevocably linked with our own, but how and how far is for the future to
determine in the ripeness of events. Whatever be the outcome, we must see
to it that free Cuba be a reality, not a name, a perfect entity, not a
hasty experiment bearing within itself the elements of failure. Our
mission, to accomplish which we took up the wager of battle, is not to be
fulfilled by turning adrift any loosely framed commonwealth to face the
vicissitudes which too often attend weaker States whose natural wealth and
abundant resources are offset by the incongruities of their political
organization and the recurring occasions for internal rivalries to sap
their strength and dissipate their energies. The greatest blessing which
can come to Cuba is the restoration of her agricultural and industrial
prosperity, which will give employment to idle men and re-establish the
pursuits of peace. This is her chief and immediate need.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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