the United States no right of intervention to enforce the conduct of the
strife within the paramount authority of Spain according to the
international code of war.

For these reasons I regard the recognition of the belligerency of the
Cuban insurgents as now unwise, and therefore inadmissible. Should that
step hereafter be deemed wise as a measure of right and duty, the
Executive will take it.

Intervention upon humanitarian grounds has been frequently suggested and
has not failed to receive my most anxious and earnest consideration.
But should such a step be now taken, when it is apparent that a hopeful
change has supervened in the policy of Spain toward Cuba? A new
government has taken office in the mother country. It is pledged in
advance to the declaration that all the effort in the world can not
suffice to maintain peace in Cuba by the bayonet; that vague promises of
reform after subjugation afford no solution of the insular problem; that
with a substitution of commanders must come a change of the past system
of warfare for one in harmony with a new policy, which shall no longer
aim to drive the Cubans to the "horrible alternative of taking to the
thicket or succumbing in misery;" that reforms must be instituted in
accordance with the needs and circumstances of the time, and that these
reforms, while designed to give full autonomy to the colony and to
create a virtual entity and self-controlled administration, shall yet
conserve and affirm the sovereignty of Spain by a just distribution of
powers and burdens upon a basis of mutual interest untainted by methods
of selfish expediency.

The first acts of the new government lie in these honorable paths.
The policy of cruel rapine and extermination that so long shocked the