observed by succeeding Administrations to the present day.

The present revolution is but the successor of other similar
insurrections which have occurred in Cuba against the dominion of Spain,
extending over a period of nearly half a century, each of which during
its progress has subjected the United States to great effort and expense
in enforcing its neutrality laws, caused enormous losses to American
trade and commerce, caused irritation, annoyance, and disturbance among
our citizens, and, by the exercise of cruel, barbarous, and uncivilized
practices of warfare, shocked the sensibilities and offended the humane
sympathies of our people.

Since the present revolution began, in February, 1895, this country has
seen the fertile domain at our threshold ravaged by fire and sword in
the course of a struggle unequaled in the history of the island and
rarely paralleled as to the numbers of the combatants and the bitterness
of the contest by any revolution of modern times where a dependent
people striving to be free have been opposed by the power of the
sovereign state.

Our people have beheld a once prosperous community reduced to
comparative want, its lucrative commerce virtually paralyzed, its
exceptional productiveness diminished, its fields laid waste, its mills
in ruins, and its people perishing by tens of thousands from hunger and
destitution. We have found ourselves constrained, in the observance
of that strict neutrality which our laws enjoin and which the law of
nations commands, to police our own waters and watch our own seaports
in prevention of any unlawful act in aid of the Cubans.

Our trade has suffered, the capital invested by our citizens in Cuba