So you were—or wished to be—in the Spanish-American War?
Well, I wish to explain why the capitalists excited some young men—carefully excited them—and then sent them to Cuba in 1898.
There were very strong reasons for their doing so.
(1) American capitalists already had investments in Cuban industries, and they knew that if the United States took charge of Cuba, their investments would be more secure, would thus increase in value—and thus yield more profits.
(2) American capitalists wanted Spanish capitalists crowded out in order to give still more opportunity to American capitalists to extend their American capitalism in Cuba—and thus make more profits.
(3) Some American capitalists and craftily noble statesmen also secured some Cuban Revolutionary bonds at extremely low prices or as gifts, and they hoped and struggled to have the interest and principal guaranteed by the United States Government, and thus have these bonds rise in price at least to par—which would mean enormous profits.
(4) There was also at least some possibility (seriously discussed by prominent statesmen in Washington) that Spanish-Cuban bonds, said by some to aggregate hundreds of millions, already issued by the Spanish Government against the revenues of the Island of Cuba,—a possibility that these bonds also would be guaranteed by the United States Government.[[162]] In case of war these bonds would become doubtful, would fall very low in price, and then they could, of course, be bought up for almost nothing. Then, if guaranteed by our Government, they would rise high in price and become a “good thing” for those who bought them at a sacrifice price and then made all haste to have them thus guaranteed.
Here again the goal was profits.
(5) American capitalists well knew that intervention in Cuba would involve a costly war—so expensive as to make “necessary” the issuing of interest-bearing United States bonds, purchasing which, the buyers could milk the nation in interest for a generation or more. House Bill No. 10,100[[163]] actually proposed that our Government should issue, “for Cuban War expenses,” $500,000,000 in 3 per cent. untaxable bonds, which, if purchased at par, would annually yield the purchasers the snug little sum of $15,000,000, in profits, besides other immense pecuniary advantages.
“And under the authority to borrow conferred by the Act of June 13, 1898, $200,000,000 of 3 per cent. bonds were actually sold.... The total subscriptions [offers for the bonds] amounted to $1,400,000,000.... Within a few months the original holdings passed into the possession of a comparatively few persons and corporations.”[[164]]