In 1907 a civil war broke out in the fair but unfortunate isle, and during the summer of that year the terrible scenes of the last struggle with Spain, under Weyler, were again re-enacted. During that year and the two following years of 1908–09, the gleaming machette once again performed its deadly work.
This fratricidal war came to an end early in 1910, when the Cubans by a plebicite, or popular vote, rendered an almost unanimous vote in favor of the annexation of Cuba to the United States. This important decision was ratified by Congress and received the official signature of President George Dewey, the hero of Manila, at noon on the 24th day of December, 1910.
CHAPTER IV.
Keynote of American Expansion.
The Awakening of America. Dewey the Idol of a great Nation. His immense responsibilities at a critical period of the war. In 1999 Manila is still on every tongue. Spain’s bargain with Germany. Discomfiture of the German Admiral.
It was the first gun of the Raleigh, fired in Manila bay at dawn on the first day of May, 1898, that sounded the keynote of America’s future greatness. The echo of that gun had not died out even in 1999. It still rang amidst the nations of the earth, reverberating across its seas and continents. It was the signal that sounded the dawn of
The United States of the Americas, a mighty Republic, which, in the year 1999, embraced every square foot of land in the Western Hemisphere, from the snow-clad huts of the Esquimos to the rock-ribbed straits of Magellan, with its teeming, hustling population of 531,000,000 souls. Uncle Samuel was boss of the ranch, from its Patagonian cellar clear to its roof in the Arctic region. With its mighty talons The Great Bird of Freedom. clutching the narrow isthmus of Panama; with its beak pointing into the Atlantic, far beyond Porto Rico; with its tail-feathers covering the expanse of the Pacific, clear into the Philippines, the American Eagle was a proud bird to behold, as its mighty wings spread from the North to the South Pole. And Dewey’s guns did it.
At critical periods the fate of nations, as well as of individuals, seems to suspend by a single, slender thread. At such moments, so keenly poised are the balances of fate, that a mere breath may disturb them. Admiral Dewey, the idol of America, unknowingly, held the fate of a vast Republic in the hollow of his hand. He knew it not; America knew it not. But in the light of events in 1999 such proved to be the case. Had he failed; had his brave squadron been annihilated by treacherous mines in Manila bay; had our American fleet been destroyed at Cavité, instead of Montojo’s squadron, the Dream of the United States of the Americas would not have been realized in 1999.
But America is unconquerable; and Dewey won. When, on the 24th day of April, 1898, the momentous message flashed across sea and continent to Dewey, ordering him to “sink or capture” the Spanish squadron, the American Eagle gave its first shrill cry of defiance. Every man on the American fleet off Hong Kong swelled with pride from Commodore Dewey to the humblest powder-monkey. Theirs was a mission to feel proud of, and when Dewey’s six warships sailed south to Manila, April 27, 1898, to interview the Castillians, every man on board the American squadron was ready to lay down his life in the cause of our noble country.