Places and Persons
Thompson, Frederic
184 THE COMMONWEAL June 18, 1930 Places and Persons WHEN THE MAINE SANK By FREDERIC THOMPSON FOLLOWING, with copies of the challenges sent to General Fitzhugh Lee and Admiral Sigsbee,...
...He was the one American in the Spanish legation the day when diplomatic relations were severed...
...I have the honor to be, etc., Lieutenant Ramon de Carranza, Spanish Royal Navy...
...Thompson...
...The Spanish had resented this interest, had accused Americans of smuggling arms to the revolutionaries, and of financing and fostering their discontent...
...There was a ring at the chancelry entrance of the legation...
...Y'Barnabe settled himself once more to wait for the delivery of his passports...
...I shall wait your pleasure at Toronto, eight days, my address there, at the Spanish consulate, Toronto...
...A detachment of cavalry from Fort Meyer, the army post near Washington, clattered up and deployed in a hollow square about the carriage...
...I don't make any remarks about all this affair, but I hope the gentlemen of the United States will judge it...
...It is monstrous...
...After a consultation between the two royal emissaries and an affectionate farewell, Lord Pauncefaute withdrew...
...Diplomatic relations between the two countries, Spain and America, were being severed...
...It certainly seems extraordinary that one great country should see fit to do its last business with the representative of another great country in such a fashion...
...With a gesture of finality his excellency sank back in his seat and closed his eyes...
...Emergency squads of police were arriving down Massachusetts Avenue in clanging horse-drawn patrols...
...Then the fatal explosion had occurred, and America with old-fashioned patriotic fervor and unanimity was for war...
...A cordon of police had been thrown around the building...
...He had to raise his voice to be heard above the noise of the crowd lining the sidewalks on both sides of the street...
...Dear Sir:—The stipulated time having elapsed, two days ago, I herewith send copies of the letters I addressed to Captain Sigsbee and General Fitzhugh Lee in the afternoon of April 20...
...Two letters," he said, "have been sent today by Lieutenant Carranza, with my approval, one to General Fitzhugh Lee and the other to Captain Sigsbee, challenging them to duels to be fought in Canada...
...In the general disorder at Havana, American citizens had been threatened and President McKinley had dispatched the Maine to Havana harbor to take off American citizens in case serious emergency arose...
...Not even a secretary of the State Department sent to extend the last official courtesies of the United States to the royal Spanish minister ? It was an insult...
...Lord Pauncefaute, British ambassador, entered the room...
...Remember the Maine...
...After having consulted with y'Barnabe, he withdrew...
...The roar of excited crowds outside the legation was muffled by the heavy curtains drawn across the windows...
...Y'Barnabe had his wigged and silk-breeched valet take the package and place it on a table...
...The commission sought to determine, in short, whether the wreckage of the vessel gave evidence of its having been blown outward, as would have resulted from an internal explosion, or whether it had been blown inward, as would have resulted from the external explosion of a mine placed beneath the keel...
...Cauldron Carlysles, who had acted as counselor for the Spanish legation, and Mr...
...Thompson:—I have not yet heard from Mr...
...Being today free from the restraint that my official position with the royal Spanish legation here necessarily imposed upon me, I wish now to say that, in my opinion, the man who can, without adequate proof, judge others capable of committing such a fiendish deed is himself capable of perpetrating it...
...The two persons on the American side most important in the determination of the facts, were Captain Sigsbee, later admiral, who had been aboard the Maine at the time of the explosion and was its commander, and General Fitzhugh Lee, American consul general at Havana, "who in his official position was the figure of the much-disliked American residents...
...The commission reported that the keel of the vessel had been bent inward...
...I have the honor to be, etc., Lieutenant Ramon de Carranza, S.R.N...
...Sir:—According to newspaper reports, you have stated before a committee of the Senate investigating the destruction of the U. S. S. Maine that you had always the idea that some of the Spanish officers of the Havana arsenal were guilty of setting off the torpedo or submarine mine, which the American Court of Inquiry says was the cause of the disaster above referred to...
...In the package he had found his passports...
...Thompson received in Washington the following letter: Dear Mr...
...You have wantonly calumniated Spanish naval officers as a body and if you are a man of honor, before going to Cuba, as it is said you wish to fight my fellow-officers and men, you will meet me as a representative of the body you have insulted...
...About a week later Mr...
...monstrous...
...If we do not hear from these two gentlemen, copies of our letters shall be sent to you, so that you may publish them...
...The sabres of the cavalry escort flashed to a position of carry arms, and with a clatter of hoofs and a roar of disapproval from the crowds, the little cavalcade moved down Massachusetts Avenue...
...The second received today, April 30: "Philadelphia...
...He quickly entered the cab...
...I remain, Yours very truly, Ramon de Carranza...
...Perhaps in this way our two countries may feel their honor to be satisfied without the wholesale shedding of the blood of our young men in war...
...Captain Sigsbee cannot as he desires send Lieutenant Carranza a kind letter of unbroken courtesy...
...Many unknown people have, however, written me letters of vulgar abuse in the subject as offering to fight me...
...Soon there was a clatter of hoofs before the entrance to the legation, and through the window could be seen a closed carriage drawn by a fine pair...
...His carriage, blazoned with the royal crest of Spain, was waiting at the door to carry him to the station...
...Here a special train would take him and his retinue to Canada...
...Whoever in Washington was privileged to see the challenges at the time, not only found it inadvisable to make them public, but also, no doubt, quite forgot them in the wild turmoil which swept the country as preparations were made to deal death in large ways...
...He was to go to Canada, the nearest frontier, and from there was to be given safe escort back to Spain on an English warship...
...This is the last straw," he said to Mr...
...Throughout the day, the emissaries of France and other countries called to pay their formal adieux to the Spanish minister...
...This the minister opened...
...In it, at his side, sat Lieutenant Carranza...
...I request you to inform me whether you assume the responsibility of an assertion so offensive to the Spanish officers in which case I would say that he who, without adequate proof, would thus judge of the honor of others, is himself evidently devoid of honor or lamentably lacking in it, however strange this may be in a member of a corps whose honor is known...
...A sharp command was given...
...Outside, the noisy crowds, whose temper might be taken for a gauge of the national temper throughout America, had thrown filth at the escutcheon bearing the royal Spanish coat of arms above the door of the legation...
...When the small figure of the minister appeared at the legation entrance, the crowds assembled outside behind restraining lines of police emitted a roar of catcalls and hisses...
...But I have been unavailing...
...Enclosed with this, were two letters, on the same stationery as the above—written in De Carranza's own hand...
...Thompson...
...On the way, y'Barnabe, in the curtained darkness within the cab, spoke to Mr...
...In spite of its being broad day, the room had to be lighted by lamps because of the measures taken for privacy...
...During the remainder of the journey, no one in the cab sought to make himself heard above the constant and tiring roaring of the crowds along the way...
...I am, with my best consideration, yours truly, Ramon de Carranza...
...Y'Barnabe shrugged his shoulders...
...was the repeated cry to be heard above the roar of the mob...
...To the foul insults you have endeavored to heap upon Spain, the Spaniards and the Spanish army, I could, if I were like you, respond by heaping similar insults upon your country and people, but in the first place I cannot hold the whole country and all the people, the great majority of whom I esteem and respect, responsible for the vaporings of a minority which has misled and poisoned public opinion, and in the second because the conduct of a gentleman is always different from that you have thought fit to adopt...
...He was a tall, slim Spaniard, with a dark moustache, of the type generally considered typical of the Spanish aristocrat...
...On the seat facing them were Mr...
...Lieutenant Ramon de Carranza, the naval attache of the legation, whose offices also comprised those of military attache, as there was no one to fill the latter function at the time, came into the room...
...It was incredible to one accustomed to the pomp of European courts that this shambling, smiling darky, in baggy clothes, was to convey the last official transaction of the government of the United States with the royal Spanish minister...
...Up to the present no reply has been received by me from these gentlemen, only two telegrams not signed—the first April 27: "Philadelphia...
...The Spanish acutely resented what they considered the intrusion of an American vessel of war into their affairs...
...After the last of these callers had been seen, y'Barnabe, haggard with fatigue, went through the legation bidding farewell to those retainers who, not being of Spanish nationality, would be left behind...
...By the wording of Lieutenant Carranza's challenges, it was implied that the American gentlemen would have the pleasure of choosing whether it should be swords or pistols, and in case of the choice of the latter, they would have the further pleasure of choosing at what distance and in what manner the duels should take place...
...Sherman...
...They's your passports, he said...
...184 THE COMMONWEAL June 18, 1930 Places and Persons WHEN THE MAINE SANK By FREDERIC THOMPSON FOLLOWING, with copies of the challenges sent to General Fitzhugh Lee and Admiral Sigsbee, is the story of how the military attache of the royal Spanish legation in Washington sought to prevent the Spanish-American War by duels which he hoped would satisfy the involved honors of the two countries...
...Crowds were surging down all the streets that converged on the legation...
...Figuratively the eyes of both countries were centered on the incident...
...Jeers and insults mingled with the cry of "Remember the Maine...
...He grasped y'Barnabe warmly by the hand, and expressed his commiserations...
...Your delayed letter to Sigsbee answered today if Navy Department will forward reply...
...The first, to Captain Sigsbee, was as follows: Washington, D. C. To the Captain Charles Sigsbee...
...I shall await your pleasure at Toronto eight days, my address there, at the Spanish consulate, Toronto...
...I shall wait your pleasure at Toronto, eight days . . ." These portentous words in the formal style of challenges following the old code of the duello, had they been accepted—which of course was preposterous to the American mind—would have involved the sending of seconds to Toronto, who would have arranged the delicate matter of the weapons...
...It is a story that has never before been made public...
...Sherman asked me to give these papers to you pussonally...
...Thompson...
...In a few days Mr...
...He shook his head, failing in his sense of his personal importance in the events then transpiring to see any relieving humor in the democratic action of Mr...
...The records have remained undisclosed either by the principals or by my father, to whom they were entrusted under the circumstances hereinafter related, and who was the first to open up foreign embassies as sources of news and later headed the foreign service of the world's largest news-gathering organization...
...In a few minutes an old darky, known to the intimates of the State Department as "Eddie," who was accustomed to stand outside Secretary of State John Sherman's office door to run errands, appeared June 18, 1930 THE COMMONWEAL 185 in the room, and bowing amiably, proffered y'Barnabe a rectangular package...
...War was inevitable...
...Prior to that, the American public had long been following with interest and sympathy the revolutionary activities of the Cubans to free themselves from Spain...
...Then with a sweep of his arm he dismissed Eddie...
...Yes, suh," said Eddie, nodding and smiling...
...Lee or Mr...
...Sir:—I have read that you expressed the opinion that as there were so many idle Spanish officers at Havana, one of them would well have placed the torpedo or mine, which according to the American Court of Inquiry, destroyed the U. S. S. Maine...
...Paulo y'Barnabe, royal Spanish minister to the United States, a small and greying man, sat in the room, sunk into a large chair, while secretaries and servants came and went with details of the preparations for his departure...
...Thompson received the following letter: Toronto...
...This feeling had been sustained in suspense while a commission appointed by President McKinley had investigated the claim made by Spanish officials that the explosion of the Maine had resulted from spontaneous combustion in a powder magazine...
...The latter no doubt, in simplicity, had had farthest from his thought any intention of seeking to affront the departing minister...
...Sigsbee and as soon as I hear from either of them I shall let you know...
...It may be recalled, in order to conceive the background of the events to be narrated, that two officers and 250 men of the warship Maine had been killed by the mysterious explosion at night in Havana harbor...
...For a minute he seemed stunned...
...The other letter was: Washington, D. C. To the General Fitzhugh Lee...
Vol. 12 • June 1930 • No. 7
