Abstract
As the Cuban commissioners travelled to Washington, the press conjectured about the significance of their visit.1 While the commissioners sought to obtain new bases for agreement, they actually were questioning a law McKinley could not alter. The time spent and the views learned in Washington would assist the Cubans to accept the Platt Amendment after a further show of resistance.
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References
New York Times, April 18, 1901; for an example of press opposition, see A. G. Robinson in the New York Evening Post, April 17, 1901, “The Failure of General Wood.” Roosevelt waxed apoplectic about the New York Evening Post and New YorkJournal. “The Villards, Godkins and their like are simply unhung traitors, and are liars, slanderers and scandal mongers to boot. It is bad enough when they exercise these traits in home matters, but when they deliberately try to nullify and undo work such as that you are doing, in which the national interests are vitally concerned, their conduct becomes absolutely infamous.” He used Harper’s Weekly and the Commercial Advertiser to counter the Post. Wood papers, Roosevelt to Wood, April 17, 1901.
New York Times, April 24, 1901.
New York Times, April 25, 1901; Wood papers, translation from Mención histórica, no. 72. doc. M, “Report of the Committee appointed to Confer with the Government of the United States, Giving an Account of the Result of its Labors.” Hermann Hagedorn evidently obtained a copy of this translation from James Brown Scott who informed him that there was neither a Spanish nor an English copy in the War Dept. files. Root asked the Carnegie Foundation on International Peace to prepare a translation. (Hereafter cited as Commission Report.) The minutes of the commission were kept by Pedro Betancourt and after each session he corroborated his notes with his colleagues. Root kept no notes of the discussions, hence there is no official American record of the meetings. Root later examined the translation from Mención histórica and stated that it was substantially correct although the exact phraseology could not be relied upon. “He specifically declined to have a stenographic record made of the conversations because he did not believe that he was authorized to make official interpretations of the Act of Congress and preferred to have the talk retain the character of unofficial and personal conversations.” Root to Jessup, Nov. 17, 1930, in Jessup, Root, I, 318.
Commission Report. Senator John Tyler Morgan sent the commission a proposal for union of the two countries which repelled the Cubans. J. T. Morgan papers, Morgan to Méndez Capote, April 24, 1901; A. A. Menocal to Morgan, May 29, 1901, Morgan to Root, April 24, 1901; C. C. Pintó to Morgan, April 29, 1901. Wood papers, Daniel E. Sickles to Root, April 22, 1901. Morgan and Sickles favored annexation.
Ibid., New York Times, April 26, 1901; Mención histórica, 466–67.
Ibid.; Jessup, Root, I, 318–19.
Commission Report; Mención histórica, 471.
La Discusión, May 20, 1901; Root to Roosevelt, June 4, 1901 cited in Jessup, Root, I, 323. Commission Report.
Commission Report; New York Times, April 26, 1901, April 27, 1901. No statements about the nature of the discussions with Root were released to the press because the commissioners were subject to attack from groups in Cuba and unable to defend themselves while negotiating in the United States. New York Times, April 28, 1901.
Commission Report. Platt to Root, April 26, 1901; Portell Vilá, Historia de Cuba, IV, 230, maintains this letter was intended to deceive the Cubans. On May 1, O. H. Platt replied to Joaquín Quílez’ inquiry of April 20, assuring the Cuban that his amendment followed the Teller clause of the Joint Resolution: clause three of the Platt Amendment recognized Cuban independence, otherwise, no right of intervention would have to be granted, clause four did so indirectly and clauses one and two recognized Cuban independence because treaties can be made only by an independent country. Each clause, Platt affirmed, was based on the “idea, not only that Cuba was to be independent, but that the United States recognized the fact.” The letter was made public in Cuba. Quoted in Martínez Ortiz, Los primeros años, I, 301–302.
Mención histórica, 478.
Commission Report; Mención histórica, 478. The Cubans made much of this “promise” of eventual trade concessions.
Commission Report; Mención histórica, 481–482; Manuel Márquez Sterling, El proceso histórico de la enmienda Platt (La Habana, 1941), 188, who quoted Méndez Capote in 1926 as saying “Wood stabbed us in the back,” in Washington and the commission was thus forced to accept the American interpretations. Márquez Sterling was the Cuban ambassador to the United States who signed the treaty abrogating the Platt Amendment in 1934.
Root to Platt, May 9, 1901, quoted in Jessup, Root, I, 320–21.
New York Times, April 28, 1901, May 4, 1901.
Márquez Sterling, Proceso histórico, 220–21, says Méndez Capote argued successfully with Root and that the Cubans negotiated satisfactorily with Root by forcing him to explain United States policy.
Platt papers, Atkins to Platt, June 3, 1901.
CDDC 3051, April 20, 1901, Wood to Roosevelt; Martínez Ortiz, Los primeros años, I, 291.
Platt papers, Platt to Atkins, June 11, 1901. Based on this letter, Portell Vilá, Historia de Cuba, IV, 9, argues that Platt intended the amendment to be a substitute for annexation.
O. H. Platt, “Our Relation to the Peoples of Cuba and Porto Rico,” Annals, XVIII (July 1901), 145–159; Platt papers, galley proofs of address given April 13, 1901.
O. H. Platt, “Our Relation to the Peoples of Cuba and Porto Rico,” Annals, XVIII (July 1901), 145–159
Platt, “The Pacification of Cuba,” Independent, LIII (June 27, 1901), 1468.
Platt, “A Solution of the Cuban Problem,” World’s Work, II (May, 1901), 729–735.
Platt, “A Solution of the Cuban Problem,” World’s Work, II (May, 1901), 729–735
Platt, “A Solution of the Cuban Problem,” World’s Work, II (May, 1901), 729–735
Platt, “A Solution of the Cuban Problem,” World’s Work, II (May, 1901), 729–735
Platt, “The Pacification of Cuba,” Independent, 1464–68.
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© 1971 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Holland
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Hitchman, J.H. (1971). The Cubans Go to Washington: An Exegesis of the Platt Amendment. In: Leonard Wood and Cuban Independence, 1898–1902. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0749-3_9
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