We broke it down, and we cannot, dare not, display the cowardice and selfishness of failing to replace it.
Whitelaw Reid
The Public Record
Whitelaw Reid was an American politician, diplomat and newspaper editor, as well as the author of Ohio in the War, a popular work of history.
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However men may differ as to our future policy in those regions, there can be no difference as to our present duty.
Why didn't you do it?" The question is important, and the reason ought to be understood.
For three quarters of a century we had asserted a special interest and right of interference there as against any other nation.
The island is directly on our coast, and no one doubted that at least as much order as in the past would be preserved there, even if we had to do it ourselves.
International Law has not been so understood abroad; and it may be frankly confessed that the Spanish arguments were learned, acute, sustained by the general judgment of Europe, and not easy to refute.
A similar demand concerning the Philippines neither could nor ought to have been acquiesced in by the civilized world.
Renunciation under such circumstances would have been equivalent in International Law to abandonment, and that would have been equivalent to anarchy and a race for seizure among the nations that could get there quickest.
After breaking down government in those commercial centers, we could have refused to set up anything in its stead, and simply washed our hands of the whole business; but to do that would have been to show ourselves more insensible to moral…
Well, if the elephant must be on our hands, what are we going to do with it?
I venture to answer that first we must put down the riot.
It will make an end forever of Spain in this hemisphere.