nobler adversary the bull. Spanish pride, impervious to facts and
statistics, would brook no supine submission on the part of its
people to foreign demands. It was a question how far the Spanish
Government could bring itself to yield points in season which it
fully realized must be yielded in the end.

The negotiation waxed too hot for the aged John Sherman, and was
conducted by the Assistant Secretary, William Rufus Day, a close
friend of the President, but a man comparatively unknown to the
public. When Day officially succeeded Sherman (April 26, 1898) he
had to face as fierce a light of publicity as ever beat upon a
public man in the United States. Successively in charge of the
Cuban negotiations, Secretary of State from April to September,
1898, President of the Paris Peace Commission in October, in
December, after a career of prime national importance for nine
months in which he had demonstrated his high competence, Day
retired to the relative obscurity of the United States circuit
bench. Although later raised to the Supreme Court, he has never
since been a national figure. As an example of a meteoric career
of a man of solid rather than meteoric qualities, his case is
unparalleled in American history.

The acting Secretary of State telegraphed the ultimatum of the
Government on March 27, 1898, to General Stewart L. Woodford,
then Minister to Spain. By the terms of this document, in the
first place there was to be an immediate amnesty which would last
until the 1st of October and during which Spain would communicate
with the insurgents through the President of the United States;
in the second place, the reconcentrado policy was to cease
immediately, and relief for the suffering Cubans was to be