Barbary pirates of Algiers, Morocco and Tripoli, and the scattered
brushes with two or three Oriental and South American countries,
the list might be extended. But those affairs are not remembered
as wars in the true sense of the word.

Except for protection against Indian outbreaks, the United States
had been at peace for thirty years, when the war cloud began to
loom in the horizon. It was with a full realization of the
blessings of peace that the American people yielded to the
demands, of humanity and righteous justice, to take up arms again
in the cause of liberty. There was no haste, no lack of caution,
no excited plunge into hostilities without proper grounds. The
nation made sure that it was right. An intolerable condition of
affairs resulting from years of agony in a neighbor island, with
half a dozen immediate reasons, any one sufficient, was the
absolute justification for this holy war.

Spain is the Turk of the West. Spain is an obsolete nation. Living
in the past, and lacking cause for pride to-day, she gloats over
her glorious explorations and her intellectual prowess of the
middle ages when much of Europe was in darkness. Then Spain's flag
led pioneers throughout the world. But her pride was based on
achievements, many of which, to the people of any other nation,
would have been the disgrace of its history. No indictment of
Spain can ever be more severe, more scathing, if its true
significance be considered, than the famous phrase which one of
her proudest poets created to characterize her flag of red and
yellow.

"Sangre y oro," he said, "blood and gold--a stream of gold between