Page:Anglo-American relations during the Spanish-American war (IA abz5883.0001.001.umich.edu).pdf/101



War with Spain became certain on April 19, 1898, when Congress passed a resolution authorizing and directing the President to intervene at once to stop the war in Cuba. The previous day Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts had introduced a bill in the Senate which provided that money be appropriated for the payment of the Bering Sea award to Great Britain pursuant to the stipulations of the Convention of February 8, 1896. The bill of appropriation had been drawn up by John T. Morgan of Alabama of the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations. This bill was of peculiar interest to Great Britain at this time, for the following reasons: the sum of $473,151.26 had been awarded Great Britain by the commissioners appointed pursuant to the stipulations of the convention of February 8, 1896, which provided for the settlement of the claims presented by Great Britain against the United States in virtue of the convention of February 28, 1892. (See United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XXXIX, 55th Congress, 2d session, p. 470.) The Bering Sea controversy had continued a constant source of irritation between the two powers after the latter date, and the United States had failed to make the necessary appropriation for the award granted. On April 18, 1898, Senator Lodge of the Committee on Foreign Relations proposed a bill for its payment. "I desire to say," he said, "on the question of the reference of the bill, that the message of the President of the United States communicating the report of the commissioners came to the Senate on the 14th of January, 1898. In the pressure of the great question which has been before the country the matter I suppose has been lost sight of It is a debt of honor and good faith." During the brief discussion of the bill Senator Lodge gave assurance that every member of the Foreign Relations Committee desired its payment. Even Senator John T. Morgan of Alabama spoke in its behalf. This act meant, then, that the United States was not only going to meet a debt long overdue to Great Britain and thereby help close the long controversy, but that the two men on the Senate who had been most critical of Great Britain in the past three years had acted in her behalf, (Congressional Record, Vol. XXXI, part 4, 55th Congress, 2d session, p. 4004.) Final settlement was made on June 15, 1898. (Foreign Relations, 1898, pp. 371–373.) The Times of April 23, definitely intimated the significance placed by the British press on this act. ''Cf. post,'' p. 89.