Guantánamo (15 page)
Authors: Jonathan M. Hansen
Cuba was another story. Comprised of “whites, blacks, Asians and
people who are a mixture of these races,” Cuba's population was “indolent and apathetic,” “indifferent to religion,” at once “immoral” and impassioned, possessed of only “a vague notion of what is right and wrong.” Absorbing such a people into the American federation “would be sheer madness.” The army would first have to “clean up the country, even if this means using the methods Divine Providence used on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.” Miles must “destroy everything in our cannons' range,” Breckenridge announced; he must “impose a harsh blockade so that hunger and its constant companion, disease, undermine the peaceful population and decimate the Cuban army.” First fighting with the Spanish, Miles should force the Cubans to take “dangerous and desperate measures.” Then taking Cuba's side, the United States must precipitate “a phase of indeterminate duration” during which an independent government would alienate autonomists and Spaniards, thus creating conflict and unrest and jeopardizing the Cuban government's ability “to meet our demands and the commitments made to us.”
people who are a mixture of these races,” Cuba's population was “indolent and apathetic,” “indifferent to religion,” at once “immoral” and impassioned, possessed of only “a vague notion of what is right and wrong.” Absorbing such a people into the American federation “would be sheer madness.” The army would first have to “clean up the country, even if this means using the methods Divine Providence used on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.” Miles must “destroy everything in our cannons' range,” Breckenridge announced; he must “impose a harsh blockade so that hunger and its constant companion, disease, undermine the peaceful population and decimate the Cuban army.” First fighting with the Spanish, Miles should force the Cubans to take “dangerous and desperate measures.” Then taking Cuba's side, the United States must precipitate “a phase of indeterminate duration” during which an independent government would alienate autonomists and Spaniards, thus creating conflict and unrest and jeopardizing the Cuban government's ability “to meet our demands and the commitments made to us.”
In short, Breckenridge concluded, U.S. military policy in Cuba “must always be to support the weaker against the stronger, until we have obtained the extermination of them both, in order to annex the Pearl of the Antilles.” With the likely start date of the operation the following October, Breckenridge urged Miles to “tie up the slightest detail ⦠in case we find ourselves in the need to precipitate events.”
Breckenridge need not have worried. An insult and an explosion catapulted the United States into the Cuban conflict more swiftly than the War Department had anticipated and, it turns out, could be ready for. On February 11, 1898, the pro-intervention
New York Journal
greeted readers with a letter from Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, Spain's minister to Washington, to a confidant back home describing the U.S. president as a “weak and popularity-seeking ⦠hack politician.” Though probably few Americans found Dupuy de Lôme's remarks to be “THE WORST INSULT TO THE UNITED STATES IN ITS HISTORY,” as the
Journal
put it, it was an insult nonetheless. When coupled with the explosion of the battleship
Maine
in Havana Harbor four days later, the de Lôme letter brought cries for intervention to a fever pitch. In a nation eager for martial adventure, it did not take an inquiry to reveal the source of the
Maine
's demise. “The Maine was sunk by an act of
dirty treachery,” Theodore Roosevelt, assistant secretary of the navy, wrote a friend the following day. The
Journal
, meanwhile, blamed “AN ENEMY'S SECRET INFERNAL MACHINE.”
26
New York Journal
greeted readers with a letter from Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, Spain's minister to Washington, to a confidant back home describing the U.S. president as a “weak and popularity-seeking ⦠hack politician.” Though probably few Americans found Dupuy de Lôme's remarks to be “THE WORST INSULT TO THE UNITED STATES IN ITS HISTORY,” as the
Journal
put it, it was an insult nonetheless. When coupled with the explosion of the battleship
Maine
in Havana Harbor four days later, the de Lôme letter brought cries for intervention to a fever pitch. In a nation eager for martial adventure, it did not take an inquiry to reveal the source of the
Maine
's demise. “The Maine was sunk by an act of
dirty treachery,” Theodore Roosevelt, assistant secretary of the navy, wrote a friend the following day. The
Journal
, meanwhile, blamed “AN ENEMY'S SECRET INFERNAL MACHINE.”
26
McKinley did not want to go to war. If there was ever a time for the president to prove Dupuy de Lôme wrong, this was it. He wasn't up to it. Over the course of the next few weeks, McKinley struggled to retain control of U.S. foreign policy as his opportunistic young assistant secretary of war dispatched Admiral Dewey to the Philippines, as Congress passed a $50 million war appropriation (without a dissenting vote), and as Spanish general Ramón Blanco y Erenas suspended hostilities in Cuba. On April 11 the president petitioned Congress for authorization to intervene in Cuba. On April 19, Congress passed its war resolution, which the president signed the next day. On April 21 the president ordered a naval blockade of Cuba. On April 25 the United States declared war on Spain.
27
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Apart from the war declaration itself, the most significant aspect of these preliminaries went virtually unnoticed. Attached to the Congress's War Resolution was a legislative rider introduced by Senator Henry M. Teller (R-Colo.), thereafter known as the Teller Amendment, which in one sentence repudiated a century of U.S. policy toward Cuba. Clause one of the resolution asserted Cuba's independence. Clause two demanded Spain's withdrawal from Cuba. Clause three authorized the U.S. president to use the military to effect these ends. Then came the kicker: “The United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said Island except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the Island to its people.”
Historians disagree about how exactly to account for the Teller Amendment. Its passage followed the withdrawal of a more radical resolution granting immediate recognition to the revolutionary government, suggesting that a bargain had been struck.
28
Senator Teller himself hailed from the state of Colorado, home to a lucrative sugar beet industry already reeling from increased European competition; the introduction of Cuban sugar into the U.S. sugar market duty-free could potentially have ruined U.S. beet growers.
29
Then there was the roughly $1 million in cash that Tomás Estrada y Palma, exiled leader
of the Cuban Revolutionary Party in New York, handed to Samuel Janney, a Cuban lobbyist in Washington, D.C., to distribute among U.S. congressmen as he saw fit.
30
Finally, there was widespread and sincere support for Cuba Libre among the American people and some of their elected officials.
31
Whatever the explanation, there could be no doubting the amendment's effect: by appearances, anyway, for the first time in U.S. history, American officials had elevated the cause of Cuban independence above American interests on the island. Americans were heading down to Cuba to help remove the Spanish. With that mission accomplished they would leave Cuba in the hands of its people. Gazing northward from Revolutionary Army headquarters, Gómez must have found the Teller Amendment too good to be true.
28
Senator Teller himself hailed from the state of Colorado, home to a lucrative sugar beet industry already reeling from increased European competition; the introduction of Cuban sugar into the U.S. sugar market duty-free could potentially have ruined U.S. beet growers.
29
Then there was the roughly $1 million in cash that Tomás Estrada y Palma, exiled leader
of the Cuban Revolutionary Party in New York, handed to Samuel Janney, a Cuban lobbyist in Washington, D.C., to distribute among U.S. congressmen as he saw fit.
30
Finally, there was widespread and sincere support for Cuba Libre among the American people and some of their elected officials.
31
Whatever the explanation, there could be no doubting the amendment's effect: by appearances, anyway, for the first time in U.S. history, American officials had elevated the cause of Cuban independence above American interests on the island. Americans were heading down to Cuba to help remove the Spanish. With that mission accomplished they would leave Cuba in the hands of its people. Gazing northward from Revolutionary Army headquarters, Gómez must have found the Teller Amendment too good to be true.
Â
On March 24, 1898, seeking “to secure a lucrative position and better” himself, a young man named Frank Keeler left a job in Down East Maine, bound for Boston, Massachusetts, aboard a steamer named the
City of Bangor
.
32
In fair winds and following seas, Keeler arrived in Boston the next day, just as the city began to stir. After securing a place to stay, he set off to explore Boston's neighborhoods; with “plenty of money” in his pocket, he could afford to put off the hunt for work for at least a couple of days.
33
City of Bangor
.
32
In fair winds and following seas, Keeler arrived in Boston the next day, just as the city began to stir. After securing a place to stay, he set off to explore Boston's neighborhoods; with “plenty of money” in his pocket, he could afford to put off the hunt for work for at least a couple of days.
33
Like cities and towns across the United States that spring, Boston buzzed with talk of war. Due out the afternoon of Keeler's arrival was a U.S. Navy report on the cause of the explosion of the battleship
Maine
in Havana Harbor the previous month. Few doubted that the report would conclude that Spain was responsible, or that it would lead to war. The
Boston Journal
reported that President McKinley believed that a peaceful end to the Cuban War of Independence was imminent, but that column shared space with news of naval mobilization up and down the eastern seaboard and a headline announcing ominously, “SPANISH TORPEDO FLEET COMES.”
34
Maine
in Havana Harbor the previous month. Few doubted that the report would conclude that Spain was responsible, or that it would lead to war. The
Boston Journal
reported that President McKinley believed that a peaceful end to the Cuban War of Independence was imminent, but that column shared space with news of naval mobilization up and down the eastern seaboard and a headline announcing ominously, “SPANISH TORPEDO FLEET COMES.”
34
By day, Keeler strolled Boston's neighborhoods. By night, he shuttled between Tremont Temple and the Grand Opera House, where audiences were treated to theater suited to wartime:
Julius Caesar
,
Spartacus
, and the more whimsical naval yarn
Spitfire
. Bostonians were selling their private yachts to the government for use as transports.
The Springfield Armory was working round the clock to turn out thousands of new rifles. Preparations were under way for the fortification of Boston Harbor and Narragansett Bay. War was very much in the air.
35
Julius Caesar
,
Spartacus
, and the more whimsical naval yarn
Spitfire
. Bostonians were selling their private yachts to the government for use as transports.
The Springfield Armory was working round the clock to turn out thousands of new rifles. Preparations were under way for the fortification of Boston Harbor and Narragansett Bay. War was very much in the air.
35
A few days after arriving in Boston, Keeler found himself taking in the bustle at the Charlestown Navy Yard, across the channel from Boston's crowded North End. “It was there I saw the Marines at drill,” Keeler wrote in his diary. “It was a fine sight, their neat uniforms, their manly appearance impressed me.” Friendless in a new city, Keeler was seduced by the marines' “home life at the barracks.” He couldn't stay away. Returning to the yard a few days later, he once more “watched the drill of the Marines. It was grand,” he wrote. “Fate had decided that I should be a Marine.”
36
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As Keeler enlisted in the marines that spring, young men throughout the nation confronted the vexing question of whether to enroll in the army. In late April 1898, Robert Huntington Jr. wrote a letter to his father seeking advice about what to do. Robert Huntington Sr. must have seemed a likely source of clever counsel. Huntington was a Civil War veteran and a Marine Corps lieutenant soon to be promoted to lieutenant colonel, the very man who would oversee the landing of the U.S. Marines at Guantánamo Bay. “I do not think I would go for adventures in this war,” the father cautioned the son. “Going to war in almost any part of the US would be better, I would say, than Cuba in summer ⦠nothing less than high principle ought to carry a man into this fight.” Wanting such principle, Bobby took his dad's advice and spent the summer shuttling between apartments in New York City and Hartford, Connecticut, and the family cottage on New Hampshire's exclusive Squam Lake.
37
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With no one to turn to for advice (“I had not been home for five years. If killed there would be no one to mourn”), Frank Keeler found himself tethered to what turned out to be a deeply ambivalent commander as marines from across the northeastern United States converged on the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
38
In his letter to Bobby, Colonel Huntington confessed that he thought the Cubans “not worth fighting for. At least I do not think they would be much improvement on the Spaniards.” Only later would Huntington's ambivalence compromise the welfare of his troops; for now, Keeler and his fellow marines were
buoyed by the martial euphoria that brought crowds thronging to observe the marines at drill. Who was thinking about the
Cubans
anyway? It was war for war's sake that inspired the roars and whistles that spirited Keeler and his fellow marines out “the main gate of the Barracks down Flushing Avenue to the gate of the Navy Yard, and thence through the Yard to the
Panther
,” the converted passenger steamer that would carry the marines south. After a jubilant send-off, the
Panther
pulled out into New York Harbor, groaning under a load of “mosquito netting, woolen and linen clothing, heavy and light weight underwear, three months' supply of provision, wheelbarrows, pushcarts, pickaxes, shovels, barbed-wire cutters, wall and shelter tents, and a full supply of medical stores,” not to mention guns and ammunition.
39
38
In his letter to Bobby, Colonel Huntington confessed that he thought the Cubans “not worth fighting for. At least I do not think they would be much improvement on the Spaniards.” Only later would Huntington's ambivalence compromise the welfare of his troops; for now, Keeler and his fellow marines were
buoyed by the martial euphoria that brought crowds thronging to observe the marines at drill. Who was thinking about the
Cubans
anyway? It was war for war's sake that inspired the roars and whistles that spirited Keeler and his fellow marines out “the main gate of the Barracks down Flushing Avenue to the gate of the Navy Yard, and thence through the Yard to the
Panther
,” the converted passenger steamer that would carry the marines south. After a jubilant send-off, the
Panther
pulled out into New York Harbor, groaning under a load of “mosquito netting, woolen and linen clothing, heavy and light weight underwear, three months' supply of provision, wheelbarrows, pushcarts, pickaxes, shovels, barbed-wire cutters, wall and shelter tents, and a full supply of medical stores,” not to mention guns and ammunition.
39
Euphoria soon gave way to the drudgery of a prolonged deployment. Many of the young enlistees had never been to sea. A rough baptism on the first leg of the journey to Hampton Roads, Virginia, was nothing compared to the punishment meted the
Panther
off Cape Hatteras, where a spring tempest tossed the overloaded steamer “like a wash-tub,” and where “every man and the Colonel's horse were sick.”
40
The marines' introduction to sea life was made more taxing by the jealousy of their navy hosts, who resented having to share their ship with landlubbers. When the
Panther
's captain was not confining the marines “like cattle” to half the main deck, the first officer busied them with menial chores typically reserved for sailors.
Panther
off Cape Hatteras, where a spring tempest tossed the overloaded steamer “like a wash-tub,” and where “every man and the Colonel's horse were sick.”
40
The marines' introduction to sea life was made more taxing by the jealousy of their navy hosts, who resented having to share their ship with landlubbers. When the
Panther
's captain was not confining the marines “like cattle” to half the main deck, the first officer busied them with menial chores typically reserved for sailors.
On April 30, the marines arrived off Key West, in what Keeler described as “lovely sea and weather.” Anything is better than a stomach in a roiling sea, and if the Florida sun seemed a blessing at first, it soon combined with monotony and mistreatment to raise the marines' blood pressure to the boiling point. Had Huntington been more forceful, he might have defended his men from the
Panther
's crew. But, he confessed to Bobby, he was past his prime and more than a little halfhearted in taking up his latest commission. “Have been sick (grippe and malaria) and have not been on shore,” he reported. “As one grows older they had as soon somebody else went. Of course this ought to be my chance, but I think I am all of ten years' too old for this business.”
41
Panther
's crew. But, he confessed to Bobby, he was past his prime and more than a little halfhearted in taking up his latest commission. “Have been sick (grippe and malaria) and have not been on shore,” he reported. “As one grows older they had as soon somebody else went. Of course this ought to be my chance, but I think I am all of ten years' too old for this business.”
41
As days in the scorching heat became weeks, and with their commander down with fever, the marines became the playthings of the
Panther
's officers. “Should we ever set down for a moment some officer
would order us to another part of the ship,” Keeler complained, “then another would order us back. If a dozen of us ever got together at one time they would turn the hose on us.” All the while, the marines “could not say a word only mind like cattle.” Had the treatment lasted another week, Keeler imagined, “there would have been a mutiny and the officers would have been thrown overboard.”
42
Huntington confirmed Keeler's account of the mistreatment. “The Captain and Executive Officer did not treat us well,” he remarked, “and under the regulations he commands everyone on board and my men were punished without my advice and against my protest in more than one case.” One of the men got ten days in “double irons” in a small room belowdecks simply for playing cards.
Panther
's officers. “Should we ever set down for a moment some officer
would order us to another part of the ship,” Keeler complained, “then another would order us back. If a dozen of us ever got together at one time they would turn the hose on us.” All the while, the marines “could not say a word only mind like cattle.” Had the treatment lasted another week, Keeler imagined, “there would have been a mutiny and the officers would have been thrown overboard.”
42
Huntington confirmed Keeler's account of the mistreatment. “The Captain and Executive Officer did not treat us well,” he remarked, “and under the regulations he commands everyone on board and my men were punished without my advice and against my protest in more than one case.” One of the men got ten days in “double irons” in a small room belowdecks simply for playing cards.
Weeks after leaving Brooklyn, Keeler lamented being “given no chance for a bath since leaving the barracks and food was bad. We had hard tack and canned corn-beef or canned corn beef and hard tack just as we like.” This they washed down with distilled water “so warm we had to work hard to drink it.” Mornings, the marines went ashore to perform “fierce drills” in blazing sun and full uniform. Journalists assigned to the military staging areas in Florida reported taxing conditions. “With the thermometer at ninety-eight in the shade ⦠the U.S. troops sweat night and day in their cowhide boots, thick flannel shirts and winter trousers.” Details of the troops' living conditions were so bad, another journalist remarked, “if I started to tell the truth at all ⦠it would open up a hell of an outcry from all the families of the boys who have volunteered.”
43
Still, Keeler and his fellow marines were better off aboard the
Panther
than in Tampa with the army, where the soldiers received meat canned five years earlier, at the time of the Sino-Japanese War.
44
43
Still, Keeler and his fellow marines were better off aboard the
Panther
than in Tampa with the army, where the soldiers received meat canned five years earlier, at the time of the Sino-Japanese War.
44
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