The first part of the Convention's work was thus done. There remained the second part, the expression of Cuban opinion as to what ought to be the relations between that island and the United States. Over this a most unfortunate controversy arose, chiefly provoked and fomented, however, not by Cubans but by the partisan enemies of the President of the United States and of his policy, who did not scruple to intrigue against him in the affairs of foreign lands. It will be recalled that this hatred of him, provoked largely because of his insistence on fulfilling the pledge of Cuban freedom instead of seeking to serve certain sordid interests by forcibly annexing the island, culminated in the assassination of President McKinley at the incitement of his political foes. The opposition to him and to his policy in Cuba was continued unabated against his successor, President Roosevelt; and it was most unfortunate for both countries that the establishment of Cuban self-government and the determination of her relations to her northern neighbor, had to be effected in such circumstances. The United States government had to deal on the one hand with those who insisted that it should have no more special relations with Cuba than any other country had; and on the other with those who demanded the repudiation of the Congressional pledge and the forcible annexation of the island. In those circumstances it was not strange that many Cubans were disinclined to make any such arrangement as had been required in the call for the Convention. They recalled that the United States had declared that "Cuba is of right and ought to be free and independent," and they were not disposed to look beyond that declaration. Three considerations were too much overlooked on both sides, save by the thoughtful American and Cuban statesmen who finally solved the problem. One was that the United States had for nearly a century exercised a certain degree of protection or supervision over Cuba. It had repeatedly forbidden European powers to meddle with the island, and had for many years guaranteed and protected Spain in her possession of it. It was held to be only reasonable that a similar degree of interest should be maintained in the island in its independent status. The second point was that in the Treaty of Paris in 1898 the United States had incurred a certain moral if not a legal responsibility for the future of Cuba. The third was the much less specific yet by no means negligible consideration that the United States had intervened in Cuba to put an end to conditions which had become intolerably offensive to it, and it was therefore equitably entitled to take all proper precautions against a recurrence of such conditions.