The half decade between 1895 and 1900 may justly be considered one of the most important in American history. It witnessed the fiercest battle between political parties ever fought over the question of finance,—a contest exceeding in bitterness and the general participation of the people of the United States therein even the great struggle in which Andrew Jackson and Nicholas Biddle were the opposing leaders. And, further, as the outcome of the war with Spain, it saw the birth and growth of an issue theretofore alien to American soil and portentous for its ultimate influence over the form and structure of our government. It was at once recognized as an issue overshadowing in its importance, and in the face of the greater danger the mutual fears of the friends of gold and the friends of silver were laid away in one common sepulchre. On the part of the Democratic party the wraith of imperialism hovering over the Republic was recognized as the hideous and supreme exhalation from the poison swamp of plutocracy from which high tariff, trusts, and a gold standard had already sprung. Through all these policies, asserted the Democracy, through its recognized leader, Mr. Bryan, ran the common purpose of exalting the dollar and debasing the man. The Republican party hesitated long to recognize and admit the new issue, and when it finally took up the gage of battle it was on the declaration that a colonial policy, with alien and subject races under its dominion, had become the “manifest destiny” of the United States. The cruelties and severities of General Weyler, the commander of the Spanish forces in Cuba, toward the insurrectionists who were in arms against Spain’s authority, early in Mr. McKinley’s administration aroused the indignation of the American people. The fact that the Cubans were bravely fighting for liberty, that their rebellion was against the exactions of an old world monarchy, even as ours had been, won them an instinctive sympathy that grew stronger each day and that finally swept like a tidal wave into the cabinet meetings at Washington, bearing the demands of the people of the United States for the intervention of our government in Cuba’s behalf. On December 6, 1897, in his message to Congress, the President discussed the Cuban question at some length, arguing against any interference by the United States, on the ground that “a hopeful change has supervened in the policy of Spain toward Cuba.” Speaking of the possible future relations between this country and Cuba, the President used the words since so widely quoted against his subsequent policy in the Philippines: “I speak not of forcible annexation, for that is not to be thought of. That, by our code of morality, would be criminal aggression.”