In the notification speech delivered by Mr. Stone at Madison Square Garden in New York on August 12, the Democratic party was represented as the champion of the ma.s.ses and their leader as "a plain man of the people." He defended the men of the Chicago convention against the charge of being cranks, anarchists, and socialists, declaring them to be the representatives of the industrial and producing cla.s.ses who const.i.tuted "the solid strength and safety of the state" against the combined aggressions of foreign money changers and Anglicized American millionaires--"English toadies and the pampered minions of corporate rapacity." Against the selfish control of the privileged cla.s.ses, he placed the sovereignty of the people, declaring that within both of the old parties there was a mighty struggle for supremacy between those who stood for the sovereignty of the people and those who believed in "the divinity of pelf." He took pride in the fact that the convention represented "the ma.s.ses of the people, the great industrial and producing ma.s.ses of the people. It represented the men who plow and plant, who fatten herds, who toil in shops, who fell forests, and delve in mines. But are these to be regarded with contumely and addressed in terms of contempt? Why, sir, these are the men who feed and clothe the nation; whose products make up the sum of our exports; who produce the wealth of the republic; who bear the heaviest burdens in times of peace; who are ready always to give their lifeblood for their country's flag--in short, these are the men whose st.u.r.dy arms and faithful hands uphold the stupendous fabric of our civilization."

Mr. Bryan's speech of acceptance was almost entirely devoted to a discussion of the silver question. But he could not ignore the charge, which had then become widespread throughout the country, that his party meditated an attack upon the rights of property and was the foe of social order and national honor. He repudiated the idea that his party believed that equality of talents and wealth could be produced by human inst.i.tutions; he declared his belief in private property as the stimulus to endeavor and compensation for toil; but he took his stand upon the principle that all should be equal before the law. Among his foes he discovered "those who find a pecuniary advantage in advocating the doctrines of non-interference when great aggregations of wealth are trespa.s.sing upon the rights of individuals." The government should enforce the laws against all enemies of the public weal, not only the highwayman who robs the unsuspecting traveler, but also the transgressors who "through the more polite and less hazardous means of legislation appropriate to their own use the proceeds of the toil of others."

In his opinion, the Democratic income tax was not based upon hostility to the rich, but was simply designed to apportion the burdens of government more equitably among those who enjoyed its protection. As to the matter of the Supreme Court, there was no suggestion in the platform of a dispute with that tribunal. For a hundred years the Court had upheld the underlying principle of the income tax, and twenty years before "this same Court sustained without a dissenting voice an income tax law almost identical with the one recently overthrown." The platform did not propose an attack on the Supreme Court; some future Court had as much right "to return to the judicial precedents of a century as the present Court had to depart from them. When Courts allow rehearings they admit that error is possible; the late decision against the income tax was rendered by a majority of one after a rehearing."

Discussing the monetary question, Mr. Bryan confined his argument to a few principles which he deemed fundamental. He disposed of international bimetallism by questioning the good faith of those who advocated it and declaring that there was an impa.s.sable gulf between a universal gold standard and bimetallism, whether independent or international. He rejected the proposition that any metal represented an absolutely just standard of value, but he argued that bimetallism was better than monometallism because it made a nearer approach to stability, honesty, and justice than a gold standard possibly could. Any legislation lessening the stock of standard money increased the purchasing power of money and lowered the monetary value of all other forms of property. He endeavored to show the advantages to be derived from bimetallism by farmers, wage earners, and the professional cla.s.ses, and asked whether the ma.s.s of the people did not have the right to use the ballot to protect themselves from the disastrous consequences of a rising standard, particularly in view of the fact that the relatively few whose wealth consisted largely in fixed investments had not hesitated to use the ballot to enhance the value of their investments.

On the question of the ratio, sixteen to one, Mr. Bryan declared that, because gold and silver were limited in the quant.i.ties then in hand and in annual production, legislation could fix the ratio between them, simply following the law of supply and demand. The charge of repudiation he met with an argument in kind, declaring it to come "with poor grace from those who are seeking to add to the weight of existing debts by legislation which makes money dearer, and who conceal their designs against the general welfare under the euphonious pretense that they are upholding public credit and national honor." He concluded with a warning to his hearers that they could not afford to join the money changers in supporting a financial policy which destroyed the purchasing power of the product of toil and ended with discouraging the creation of wealth.

In a letter of acceptance of September 9, 1896, Mr. Bryan added little to the speeches he had made in the convention and in accepting the nomination. He attacked the bond policy of President Cleveland and declared that to a.s.sert that "the government is dependent upon the good will or a.s.sistance of any portion of the people other than a const.i.tutional majority is to a.s.sert that we have a government in form but without vital force." Capital, he urged, was created by labor, and "since the producers of wealth create the nation's prosperity in time of peace and defend the nation's flag in time of peril, their interests ought at all times to be considered by those who stand in official positions." He criticized the abuses in injunction proceedings and favored the principle of trial by jury in such cases. He declared that it was not necessary to discuss the tariff at that time because the money question was the overshadowing issue, and all minor matters must be laid aside in favor of united action on that moot point.

A few of the advocates of the gold standard in the Democratic party, who could not accept the Chicago platform and were yet unwilling to go over to the Republicans, held a convention at Indianapolis in September, and nominated a ticket, headed by John M. Palmer for President, and Simon Buckner for Vice President. This party, through the address of its executive committee calling the convention, declared that Democrats were absolved from all obligations to support the Chicago platform because the convention had departed from the recognized Democratic faith and had announced doctrines which were "destructive of national honor and private obligation and tend to create sectional and cla.s.s distinctions and engender discord and strife among the people." The address repudiated the doctrine of majority rule in the party, declaring that when a Democratic convention departed from the principles of the party, no Democrat was under any moral obligation to support its action.

The principles of the party which, the address declared, had been adhered to from Jefferson to Cleveland "without variableness or a shadow of turning" were summed up in a policy of _laissez faire_. A true Democrat, ran the address, "believes, and this is the cardinal doctrine of his political faith, in the ability of every individual una.s.sisted, if unfettered by law, to achieve his own happiness, and therefore that to every citizen there should be secured the right and opportunity peaceably to pursue whatever course of conduct he would, provided such conduct deprived no other individual of the equal enjoyment of the same right and opportunity. He stood for freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of trade, and freedom of contract, all of which are implied by the century-old battle cry of the Democratic party 'Individual Liberty!' ... Every true Democrat ... profoundly disbelieves in the ability of the government, through paternal legislation, or supervision, to increase the happiness of the nation."

In the platform adopted at the convention, the "National Democratic party" was pledged to the general principles enunciated in the address and went on record as "opposed to all paternalism and all cla.s.s legislation." It declared that the Chicago convention had attacked "individual freedom, the right of private contract, the independence of the judiciary, and the authority of the President to enforce Federal laws." It denounced protection and the free coinage of silver as two schemes designed for the personal profit of the few at the expense of the ma.s.ses; it declared in favor of the gold standard, indorsed President Cleveland's administration, and went to the support of the Supreme Court by condemning "all efforts to degrade that tribunal or to impair the confidence and respect which it has deservedly held."

This platform received the support of President Cleveland, who, in response to an invitation to attend the meeting at which the candidates were to be notified, said: "As a Democrat, devoted to the principles and integrity of my party, I should be delighted to be present on an occasion so significant and to mingle with those who are determined that the voice of true Democracy shall not be smothered and who insist that the glorious standard shall be borne aloft as of old in faithful hands."

In their acceptance speeches, Palmer and Buckner devoted more attention to condemning the Chicago platform than to explaining the principles for which they stood. General Buckner said: "The Chicago Convention would wipe virtually out of existence the Supreme Court which interprets the law, forgetting that our ancestors in England fought for hundreds of years to obtain a tribunal of justice which was free from executive control. They would wipe that out of existence and subject it to the control of party leaders to carry out the dictates of the party--they would paralyze the arm of the general government and forbid the powers to protect the lives and property of its citizens. That convention in terms almost placed a lighted torch in the hands of the incendiary and urged the mob to proceed without restraint to pillage and murder at their discretion."

_The Campaign_

The campaign which followed the conventions was the most remarkable in the long history of our quadrennial spectacles. Terror is always a powerful instrument in politics, and it was never used with greater effect than in the summer and autumn of 1896. Some of Mr. Bryan's utterances, particularly on the income tax, frightened the rich into believing, or pretending to believe, that his election would be the beginning of a wholesale confiscation. The Republicans replied to Mr.

Bryan's threats by using the greatest of all terrors, the terror of unemployment, with tremendous effect. Everywhere they let the country understand that the defeat of Mr. McKinley would close factories and throw thousands of workingmen out of employment, and manufacturers and railways were accused by Mr. Bryan of exercising coercion on a large scale.

To this terror from above, the Democrats responded by creating terror below, by stirring deep-seated cla.s.s feeling against the Republican candidate and his managers. In a letter given out from the Democratic headquarters in Chicago, on September 12, 1896, Mr. Jones, chairman of the Democratic national committee, said: "Against the people in this campaign are arrayed the consolidated forces of wealth and corporate power. The cla.s.ses which have grown fat by reason of Federal legislation and the single gold standard have combined to fasten their fetters still more firmly upon the people and are organizing every precinct of every county of every state in the Union with this purpose in view. To meet and defeat this corrupt and unholy alliance the people themselves must organize and be organized.... It will minimize the effect of the millions of dollars that are being used against us, and defeat those influences which wealth and corporate power are endeavoring to use to override the will of the people and corrupt the integrity of free inst.i.tutions."

Owing to the nature of the conflict enormous campaign funds were secured. The silver miners helped to finance Mr. Bryan, but their contributions were trivial compared with the immense sums raised by Mr.

Hanna from protected interests, bankers, and financiers. With this great fund, speakers were employed by the thousands, newspapers were subsidized, party literature circulated by the ton, whole states polled in advance, and workers employed to carry the Republican fight into every important precinct in the country. The G.o.d of battles was on the side of the heaviest battalions. With all the most powerful engines for creating public sentiment against him, Mr. Bryan, in spite of his tremendous popular appeal, was doomed to defeat.

Undoubtedly, as was said at the time, most of the leading thinkers in finance and politics were against Mr. Bryan, and if there is anything in the verdict of history, the silver issue could not stand the test of logic and understanding. But it must not be presumed that it was merely a battle of wits, and that demagogic appeals to pa.s.sions which were supposed to be a.s.sociated with Mr. Bryan's campaign were confined to his partisans. On the contrary, the Republicans employed all of the forms of personal vituperation. For example, that staid journal of Republicanism, the _New York Tribune_, attributed the growth of Bryanism to the "a.s.siduous culture of the basest pa.s.sions of the least worthy member of the community.... Its nominal head was worthy of the cause. Nominal because the wretched, rattle-pated boy, posing in vapid vanity and mouthing resounding rottenness, was not the real leader of that league of h.e.l.l. He was only a puppet in the blood-imbued hands of Altgeld, the anarchist, and Debs, the revolutionist, and other desperadoes of that stripe. But he was a willing puppet, Bryan was,--willing and eager. None of his masters was more apt than he at lies and forgeries and blasphemies and all the nameless iniquities of that campaign against the Ten Commandments." That such high talk by those who const.i.tuted themselves the guardians of public credit, patriotism, and the Ten Commandments was not calculated to sooth the angry pa.s.sions of their opponents needs no demonstration here.

Argument, party organization and machinery, the lavish use of money, and terror won the day for the Republicans. The solid East and Middle West overwhelmed Mr. Bryan, giving Mr. McKinley 271 electoral votes and 7,111,607 popular votes, as against 176 electoral and 6,509,052 popular votes cast for the Democratic candidate.

The decisive defeat of Mr. Bryan put an end to the silver issue for practical purposes, although, as we shall see, it was again raised in 1900. The Republicans, however, delayed action for political reasons, and it was not until almost four years had elapsed that they made the gold dollar the standard by an act of Congress approved on March 4, 1900. Thus the war of the standards was closed, but the question of the currency was not settled, and the old issue of inflation and contraction continued to haunt the paths of the politicians. From time to time, the prerogatives of the national banks, organized under the law of 1863 (modified in 1901), were questioned in political circles, and in 1908 an attempt was made by act of Congress to give the currency more elasticity by authorizing the banks to form a.s.sociations and issue notes on the basis of certain securities. Nevertheless, no serious changes were made in the financial or banking systems before the close of the year 1912.

The attention of the country, shortly after the campaign of 1896, was diverted to the spectacular events of the Spanish War, and for a time appeals to patriotism subdued the pa.s.sions of the radicals.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] See below, p. 239.

[42] H. Croly, _M. A. Hanna_, p. 195.

CHAPTER VIII

IMPERIALISM

The Republicans triumphed in 1896, but the large vote for Mr. Bryan and his platform and the pa.s.sions aroused by the campaign made it clear to the far-sighted that, whatever might be the fate of free silver, new social elements had entered American politics. It was fortunate for the conservative interests that the quarrel with Spain came shortly after Mr. McKinley's election, and they were able to employ that ancient political device, "a vigorous foreign policy," to divert the public mind from domestic difficulties. This was particularly acceptable to the populace at the time, for there had been no war for more than thirty years, and, contrary to their a.s.sertions on formal occasions, the American people enjoy wars beyond measure, if the plain facts of history are allowed to speak.[43]

Since 1876 there had been no very spectacular foreign affair to fix the attention of the public mind, except the furor worked up over the application of the Monroe Doctrine to Venezuela during President Cleveland's second administration. For a long time that country and Great Britain had been waging a contest over the western boundary of British Guiana; and the United States, on the appeal of Venezuela, had taken a slight interest in the dispute, generally a.s.suming that the merits of the case were on the side of the South American republic. In 1895, it became apparent that Great Britain did not intend to yield any points in the case, and Venezuela began to clamor again for protection, this time with effect. In July of that year, the Secretary of State, Richard Olney, demanded that Great Britain answer whether she was willing to arbitrate the question, and announced that the United States was master in this hemisphere by saying: "The United States is practically sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition. Why? It is not because of the pure friendship or good will felt for it. It is not simply by reason of its high character as a civilized state, nor because wisdom and equity are the invariable characteristics of the dealings of the United States. It is because in addition to all other grounds, its infinite resources combined with its isolated position render it master of the situation and practically invulnerable against any or all other powers."

This extraordinary doc.u.ment, to put it mildly, failed to arouse the warlike sentiment in England which its language invited, and Lord Salisbury replied for the British government that this startling extension of the Monroe Doctrine was not acceptable in the present controversy and that the arbitration of the question could not be admitted by his country. This moderate reply brought from President Cleveland a message to Congress on December 17, 1895, which created in the United States at least all the outward and visible signs of the preliminaries to a war over the matter. He asked Congress to create a commission to ascertain the true boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana, and then added that it would be the duty of the United States "to resist by every means in its power, as a wilful aggression upon its rights and interests, the appropriation by Great Britain of any lands or the exercise of governmental jurisdiction over any territory which, after investigation, we have determined of right belongs to Venezuela."

He declared that he was conscious of the responsibilities which he thus incurred, but intimated that war between Great Britain and the United States, much as it was to be deplored, was not comparable to "a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor." In other words, we were to decide the dispute ourselves and go to war on Great Britain if we found her in possession of lands which in our opinion did not belong to her.

This defiant att.i.tude on the part of President Cleveland, while it aroused a wave of enthusiasm among those sections of the population moved by bold talk about the unimpeachable integrity of the United States and its daring defense of right everywhere, called forth no little criticism in high places. Contrary to expectation, it was not met by bl.u.s.ter on the part of Great Britain, but it was rather deplored there as threatening a breach between the two countries over an insignificant matter. Moreover, when the commission created by Congress set to work on the boundary dispute, the British government courteously replied favorably to a request for a.s.sistance in the search for evidence. Finally, Great Britain yielded and agreed to the earlier proposition on the part of the United States that the issue be submitted to arbitration; and this happy outcome of the matter contributed not a little to Mr. Cleveland's reputation as "a sterling representative of the true American spirit." This was not diminished by the later discovery that Great Britain was wholly right in her claims in South America.

The Venezuelan controversy was an echo of the time-honored Monroe Doctrine and was without any deeper economic significance. There were not wanting, however, signs that the United States was prepared economically to accept that type of imperialism that had long been dominant in British politics and had sprung into prominence in Germany, France, and Italy during the generation following the Franco-Prussian War. This newer imperialism does not rest primarily upon a desire for more territory, but rather upon the necessity for markets in which to sell manufactured goods and for opportunities to invest surplus acc.u.mulations of capital. It begins in a search for trade, advances to intervention on behalf of the interests involved, thence to protectorates, and finally to annexation. By the inexorable necessity of the present economic system, markets and safe investment opportunities must be found for surplus products and acc.u.mulated capital. All the older countries being overstocked and also forced into this new form of international rivalry, the drift is inevitably in the direction of the economically backward countries: Africa, Asia, Mexico, and South America. Economic necessity thus overrides American isolation and drives the United States into world politics.

Although the United States had not neglected the protection of its interests from the days when it thrashed the Barbary pirates, sent Caleb Cushing to demand an open door in China, and dispatched Commodore Perry to batter down j.a.panese exclusiveness, the relative importance of its world operations was slight until manufacturing and commerce gained their ascendancy over agriculture.

The pressure of the newer interests on American foreign policy had already been felt when the demand for the war with Spain came. In 1889, the United States joined with Great Britain and Germany in a protectorate over the Samoan Islands, thus departing, according to Secretary Gresham, from our "traditional and well-established policy of avoiding entangling alliances with foreign powers in relation to objects remote from this hemisphere."[44] Preparations had been made under Harrison's administration for the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, after a revolution, largely fomented by American interests there, had overthrown the established government; but this movement was blocked for the time being by President Cleveland, who learned through a special commissioner, sent to investigate the affair, that the upheaval had been due princ.i.p.ally to American disgust for the weak and vacillating government of the Queen. It was not until the middle of the Spanish War that Congress, recognizing the importance of the Hawaiian Islands in view of the probable developments resulting from Admiral Dewey's victory in the Philippines, annexed them to the United States by joint resolution on July 6, 1898.[45]

_The Spanish War_

It required, however, the Spanish War and the acquisition of the insular dependencies to bring imperialism directly into politics as an overshadowing issue and to secure the frank acknowledgment of the new emphasis on world policy which economic interests demanded. It is true that Cuba had long been an object of solicitude on the part of the United States. Before the Civil War, the slave power was anxious to secure its annexation as a state to help offset the growing predominance of the North; and during the ten years' insurrection from 1868 to 1878, when a cruel guerilla warfare made all life and property in Cuba unsafe, intervention was again suggested. But it was not until the renewal of the insurrection in 1895 that American economic interests in Cuba were strong enough to induce interference. Slavery was gone, but capital, still more dominant, had taken its place.

In 1895, Americans had more than fifty million dollars invested in Cuban business, and our commerce with the Island had risen to one hundred millions annually. The effect of the Cuban revolt against Spain was not only to diminish trade, but also to destroy American property. The contest between the rebels and Spanish troops was characterized by extreme cruelty and a total disregard for life and property. Gomez, the leader of the revolt, resorted to the policy made famous by Sherman on his march to the sea. He laid waste the land to starve the Spaniards and compel American interference if possible. By a proclamation of November 6, 1895, he ordered that plantation buildings and railway connections should be destroyed and sugar factories closed everywhere; what he left undone was finished by the Spanish general, Weyler, who concentrated the inhabitants of the rural districts in the centers occupied by the troops. Under such a policy, business was simply paralyzed; and within less than two years Americans had filed against Spain claims amounting to sixteen million dollars for property destroyed in the revolution.

The atrocities connected with the insurrection attracted the sympathy of the American people at once. Sermons were preached against Spanish barbarism; orators demanded that the Cuban people be "succored in their heroic struggle for the rights of men and of citizens"; Mr. Hearst's newspapers appealed daily to the people to compel governmental action at once, and denounced the tedious methods of negotiation, in view of an inevitable war. Cuban juntas formed in American cities raised money and supplied arms for the insurrectionists. All the enormous American property interests at stake in the Island, with their widespread and influential ramifications in the United States, demanded action. The war fever, always quick to be kindled, rose all over the country.

Even amid the exciting campaign of 1896, the Democrats found time to express sympathy with the Cubans, and the Republicans significantly remarked that inasmuch as Spain was "unable to protect the property or lives of resident American citizens," the good offices of the United States should be tendered with a view to pacification and independence.

Perhaps, not unaware of the impending crisis, the Republicans also favored a continued enlargement of the navy to help maintain the "rightful influence" of the United States among the nations of the earth.

President Cleveland, repudiated by his own party and having no desire to "play the game of politics," a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of neutrality in the conflict and denied to the Cubans the rights of belligerents. He offered to Spain the good offices of the United States in mediation with the insurgents--a tender which was rejected by Spain with the suggestion that the United States might more vigorously suppress the unlawful a.s.sistance which some of its citizens were lending to the revolutionists. Mr. Cleveland's second administration closed without any positive action on the Cuban question.

Within four months after his inauguration, President McKinley protested strongly to Spain against her policy in Cuba, and during the summer and autumn and winter he conducted a running fire of negotiations with Spain. Congress was impatient for armed intervention and fretted at the tedious methods of diplomacy. Spain shrewdly made counter thrusts to every demand advanced by the United States, but made no outward sign of improvement in the affairs of Cuba, even after the recall of General Weyler. In February, 1898, a private letter, written by De Lome, the Spanish minister at Washington, showing contempt for Mr. McKinley and some shifty ideas of diplomacy, was acquired by the _New York Journal_ and published. This stirred the country and led to the recall of the minister by his home government. Meanwhile the battleship _Maine_ was sent to Havana, officially to resume friendly relations at Cuban ports, but not without an ulterior regard for the necessity of protecting the lives and property of Americans in jeopardy. The incident of the Spanish minister's letter had hardly been closed before the _Maine_ was blown up and sunk on the evening of February 15, 1898. The death of two officers and two hundred and fifty-eight of the crew was a tragedy which moved the nation beyond measure, and with the cry "Remember the _Maine_"

public opinion was worked up to a point of frenzy.

A commission was appointed at once to inquire into the cause of the disaster, and on March 21 it reported that the _Maine_ had been destroyed by an explosion of a submarine mine which set off some of the ship's magazines. Within a week, negotiations with Spain were resumed, and that country made generous promises to restore peace in the Island and permit a Cuban parliament to be established in the interests of local autonomy. None of Spain's promises were regarded as satisfactory by the administration, and on April 4, General Woodford, the American representative in that country, was instructed to warn the ministry that no effective armistice had been offered the Cubans and that President McKinley would shortly lay the matter before Congress--which meant war.

After some delay, during which representatives of the European powers and the Pope were at work in the interests of peace, Spain promised to suspend hostilities, call a Cuban parliament, and restore a reasonable autonomy.

On the day after the receipt of this promise, President McKinley sent his war message to Congress without explaining fully the latest concessions made by Spain. It was claimed by the Spanish government that it had yielded absolutely everything short of independence and that all of the demands of the United States had been met. Some eminent editors and publicists in the United States have since accepted this view of the affair and sharply criticized the President for not making public the full text of Spain's last concession on the day that he sent his war message to Congress. Those who take this view hold that President McKinley believed war to be inevitable and desirable all along, but merely wished to bring public opinion to the breaking point before shifting the responsibility to Congress. The President's defenders, however, claim that no credence could be placed in the good faith of Spain and that the intolerable conditions in Cuba would never have been removed under Spanish administration, no matter what promises might have been made.

In his war message of April 11, 1898, Mr. McKinley brought under review the conditions in Cuba and the history of the controversy, coming to the conclusion that the dictates of humanity, the necessity of protecting American lives and property in Cuba, and the chronic disorders in the Island warranted armed intervention. Congress responded by an overwhelming vote on April 19, in favor of a resolution declaring that Cuba should be free, that Spain's withdrawal should be demanded, and the President be authorized to use the military and naval forces of the country to carry the decree into effect. In the enthusiasm of the hour, Congress also specifically disclaimed any intention of exercising "sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said Island except for the pacification thereof." Thus war was declared on the anniversary of the battle of Lexington.

In the armed conflict which followed, the most striking and effective operations were on the sea. In antic.i.p.ation of the war, Commodore Dewey, in command of the Asiatic station, had been instructed as early as February to keep his squadron at Hongkong, coaled, and ready, in event of a declaration of hostilities, to begin offensive operations in the Philippine Islands. The battleship _Oregon_, then off the coast of Washington, was ordered to make the long voyage around the Horn, which has now become famous in the annals of the sea. At the outbreak of the war, Rear Admiral Sampson, in charge of the main squadron at Key West, was instructed to blockade important stretches of the coast of Cuba and to keep watch for the arrival of the Spanish fleet, under Admiral Cervera, which was then on the high seas, presumably bound for Cuba.