The investigation was most searching. The 21st of March, 1898, the board presented a unanimous verdict. The report was most voluminous, embracing some twelve thousand pages.
The verdict was practically that "the loss of the Maine was not in any respect due to fault or negligence on the part of any of the officers or members of her crew; that the ship was destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine, which caused the partial explosion of two or more of her forward magazines; and that no evidence has been obtainable fixing the responsibility of the destruction of the Maine upon any person or persons."
Although it was not possible to obtain evidence which should convict the guilty parties, there was not and never has been the faintest doubt in the mind of any fair-minded person as to who was responsible for the tragedy. When Congress afterward spoke of the crime or the criminal negligence of the Spanish officials, the words found an ardent response in the heart of every true American.
There is no doubt but that the destruction of the Maine was the lever that started the machinery of war.
Like "Remember the Alamo!" "Remember the Maine!" is a clarion cry of battle that will go echoing down the centuries.
In Cuba we were most fortunate in having a superb representative in the person of General Fitz Hugh Lee, a man of rare intellectual ability, ever courteous but ever firm, a fine specimen of Southern chivalry.
The Spaniards, as was but natural, hated him, but when his withdrawal was suggested by the Spanish government President McKinley cabled to Minister Woodford at Madrid that the services of General Lee at Havana were indispensable and his removal could not be considered.
The relations between Spain and the United States became every day more and more strained. Every effort was made by the President to bring about a peaceable solution of the Cuban question, but Spain, stiff necked and suicidal, refused to cooperate with him.
On April 11, the president sent his famous message to Congress.
In it, he alluded to the way in which we had been forced to police our own waters and watch our own seaports in prevention of any unlawful act in aid of Cuba.