We are a wealthy and powerful nation; Cuba is a young republic, still
weak, who owes to us her birth, whose whole future, whose very life,
must depend on our attitude toward her. I ask that we help her as she
struggles upward along the painful and difficult road of self-governing
independence. I ask this aid for her, because she is weak, because she
needs it, because we have already aided her. I ask that open-handed
help, of a kind which a self-respecting people can accept, be given to
Cuba, for the very reason that we have given her such help in the past.
Our soldiers fought to give her freedom; and for three years our
representatives, civil and military, have toiled unceasingly, facing
disease of a peculiarly sinister and fatal type, with patient and
uncomplaining fortitude, to teach her how to use aright her new freedom.
Never in history has any alien country been thus administered, with such
high integrity of purpose, such wise judgment, and such single-minded
devotion to the country's interests. Now, I ask that the Cubans be given
all possible chance to use to the best advantage the freedom of which
Americans have such right to be proud, and for which so many American
lives have been sacrificed.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.




PROCLAMATIONS.


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.