In this war in Cuba between insurgents or rebels and Spanish authority, both sides destroyed all the property possible, although the insurgents destroyed more than the Spanish authorities. It was not nearly so destructive as our Civil War, yet what should we have thought had Spain protested against the conditions of our Civil War? Such a protest would have been treated with contempt. We had no more legal ground for questioning Spanish authority in Cuba, than Japan today would have in questioning or protesting against our policy in the Philippines. In fact, two years later, in our guerrilla warfare with the natives of the Philippines, we adopted the same concentration policy, as we shall see, against which we then protested in Cuba. William Randolph Hearst, who was then the leader of American yellow journalism, had at this time developed his chain of newspapers from California to Boston. Early in 1897, he began advocating intervention. Appeals were made daily. Stories, crimes, and conditions were pictured in his papers and greatly exaggerated. Mr. McKinley, opposed to intervention, became President on March 4, 1897. Mark Hanna who had elected Mr. McKinley President, now wished to be compensated by an appointment to the United States Senate from Ohio. To create a vacancy in the Senate, Mr. McKinley appointed as his Secretary of State Mr. John Sherman who was then Senator from Ohio, and Mr. Hanna was appointed by the Governor of Ohio to the United States Senate. Mr. McKinley's appointment of John Sherman as Secretary of State was a great blunder. Mr. Sherman was then very old and rapidly declining. His work was left in the hands of his assistants in the Department of State. United States citizens owned wealth in Cuba, to the amount of $50,000,000 and our commerce with Cuba amounted to $100,000,000 annually. These interests, of course, demanded intervention. Our Department of State in its correspondence with Spain estimated that $16,000,000 worth of American property had been destroyed in Cuba at the close of 1897, for which property Spain was held responsible. This was a greatly exaggerated figure, for at the close of the war a claims commission was created by Congress to investigate those claims, and this commission recognized as valid claims amounting to only about $362,252. In October, 1897, Spain recalled Governor-General Weyler, and appointed in his place Blanco. The concentration order was revoked. Spain offered the natives a larger share of self-government, with their own constitution and legislature. Autonomy was granted. If it had been offered three years before, this would, no doubt, have solved the problem. But now it was difficult to reconcile the two factions in Cuba. The native Spaniards in Cuba opposed home rule, as it would give the Cubans too much power. The Cubans wanted independence, and were unwilling to co-operate with the Spaniards in home rule. A Cuban parliament was called on May 4, 1898.