Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/224

204 caught and could not even conceive of any reason why they should not be shot on the spot. When these were American citizens, "fighting for freedom," this attitude caused the greatest fury in the United States. As a matter of fact no Americans were executed at this time, but the State Department had to make vigorous appeals several times to prevent it.

Incidents like this, and a press screaming with accounts of atrocities of "Weyler, the Butcher," together with the unquestioned anarchy and misery in the island, inflamed a Congress already in sympathy with the revolution to introduce resolutions as regularly as clockwork. In one form or another these all denounced Spain and demanded the independence of Cuba. The most violent of these Congressional broadsides was delivered by John Sherman, afterward made Secretary of State by McKinley, and was based upon a newspaper story later found to be without any foundation whatever.

Meanwhile President Cleveland had kindly