The Politics of Intervention

98 THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTION

to intervene without Congressional assent; the second sug­
gested he "take the Island—advice about as rational as
requests I used to get at the time of the anthracite coal
strike, to 'take the coal barons by the throat.'"^46 Yet, as the
Times of London observed, neither the Republicans nor the
Democrats could gain much from a Cuban intervention, for
the former had been lauding the restraint in the new
Roosevelt-Root Latin American policy statements and the
latter had been hailing Cuba as a noble example of what the
United States might expect if the Philippines were granted
independence.^47
Diplomatically, Roosevelt was under no real pressure
because Great Britain, France, and Germany believed the
United States would protect their nationals without active
intercession; only Spain wanted to organize a common voice
to urge the United States to intervene. The Great Powers,
however, feared damaging their good relations with the
Roosevelt administration.^48 From a conversation with the
American minister to Spain, Lord Acton, the British minister,
gathered that the United States did not want to annex Cuba
and that it was agreeably surprised by the mild reaction of
the European press to the Cuban crisis.^49 The lack of foreign
interest was awkward for both the Cuban government and
Roosevelt. At one stage, Estrada Palma's ministers supposedly
considered having their troops destroy German and British
property to increase the pressure on the United States.^50
Roosevelt, on the other hand, upon learning that the European
diplomats in Havana favored intervention, observed:

I should not be at all sorry to have the foreign consuls act as to
intervention of their governments... because it would make our
course clearer and give us an even more complete justification.^51

When Taft reported that the compromise plan had failed
on September 25, Roosevelt equivocated on intervention. First,
he made a personal appeal to Estrada Palma to rise above
honor to save his country, which Estrada Palma was already
convinced he was doing by resigning and forcing the Ameri­