colonial empire, watching her Cuban embarrassments with eager eye. Having seen the frame of mind in which they approached the contract implied in Admiral Dewey's cheery words, "Well now, go ashore there and start your army," what were the facts of recent history within the knowledge of both parties at the time? What had been the screams of the American eagle, if any, concerning his moral leadership of the family of unfeathered bipeds? President McKinley's annual message to Congress of December, 1897, [31] calling attention to conditions in Cuba as intolerable, had declared that if we should intervene to put a stop to them, we certainly would not make it the occasion of a land-grab. The other nations said: "We are from Missouri." But Mr. McKinley said, "forcible annexation" was not to be thought of by us. "That by our code of morality would be criminal," etc. So the world said, "We shall see what we shall see." Then had come the war message of April 11, 1898, [32] reiterating the declaration of the Cuban message of December previous, that "forcible annexation by our code of morality would be criminal aggression." In other words we announced to the overcrowded monarchies of the old world, whose land-lust is ever tempted by the broad acres of South America, and ever cooled by the virile menace of the Monroe doctrine, that we not only were against the principle of land-grabbing, but would not indulge in the practice. Immediately upon the conclusion of the reading of the war message, Senator Stewart was recognized, and said, among other things: "Under the law of nations, intervention for conquest is condemned, and is opposed to the universal sentiment of mankind. It is unjust, it is robbery, to intervene for conquest." Then Mr. Lodge stood up, "in the Senate House a Senator," and said: We are there [meaning in this present Cuban situation] because we represent the spirit of liberty and the spirit of the new time, and Spain is over against us because she is mediaeval, cruel, dying. We have grasped no man's territory, we have taken no man's property, we have invaded no man's rights. We do not ask their lands. [33] These speeches went forth to the world almost like a part of the message itself. And Admiral Dewey, like every other American, in his early dealings with Aguinaldo, after war broke out, must have assumed a mental attitude in harmony with these announcements. But the world said, "All this is merely what you Americans yourselves call 'hot air.' We repeat, 'We are from Missouri.'" Then we said: "Oh very well, we will show you." So in the declaration of war against Spain we inserted the following: Fourth: That the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people.