In 1894 a revolution broke out in Spain’s last Latin American possession, Cuba, which suffered from a U.S. tariff on its main export good, sugar. Another rebellion against the colonial rulers had been put down after 10 years in 1878. U.S. public opinion quickly sided with the revolutionaries but the Cleveland Administration decided not to recognize the provisional Cuban government; doing so would have lifted the obligation of the Spanish government to protect the  $ 50 million invested on the island.[53]

   In 1896 William McKinley won the presidential elections on the Republican ticket.
With a firm Republican majority in Congress, McKinley aimed at consolidating the president’s and the Republican Party’s power while giving the country in transition back its internal peace. Only 43 years old when he entered office he was extremely popular with the American people who had high regards for his courtesy as well as achievements as a Civil War hero, influential Congressman and Governor of Ohio where he had preserved order and upheld good contacts to the labor movement. He intended to personally determine the course of foreign policy - an assertive one. The reorganized diplomatic service and the extended war fleet provided new instru- ments for this end. McKinley extended his constitutional powers as Commander in Chief and dispatched U.S. troops to help fight down the ‘Boxer’ riots in China with- out consent from Congress.[54]

   But concerning the Cuban rebellion the alternatives were narrowing for the new government. Public sentiment was turning more and more belligerent. The head- lines of the mass media of the epoch, the yellow press dominated by the newspaper tycoons William Randolph Hearst & Joseph Pulitzer were full of tales of Spanish atrocities against the Cuban population. Thousands of Cubans were put into ‘recon- centration camps’. Americans were abhorred by the stories and pictures from the island in their backyard and easily went along with the yellow press’ demand that the more civilized United States intervene to the benefit of Cuba.[55]

   The population was polarized over the foreign affairs issue. Some said tradition dictated a strict policy of non-intervention, whereas others proclaimed that it was the character of the American public to intervene for human rights and national honor. The latter often and increasingly were to be found among discontent laborers or farmers who had „a crusading spirit to come to the aid of the oppressed and the underprivileged, an image of Cubans that corresponded to their own self-percep- tion.“[56]  Thus in handling the Cuban problem McKinley would have to keep an eye on the mounting division in the American public.
The Cubans’ fate seemed to be closely bound to the unity of the American nation.

   In early 1898 the U.S. battle ship ‘Maine’ was sent to Havana harbor to safeguard American lives and property on the island. On February 15, an explosion tore the ship apart and killed 260 sailors. „Americans quickly concluded that a bomb had taken [the sailors’] lives, and the yellow journals and congressmen screamed for war.“[57]  The Spanish government proposed negotiations but in regard to the Spanish public could never fulfil McKinley’s demand for Cuban independence. So, on April 11, the president had Congress allow for the use of force on grounds of violation of human rights on Cuba, danger for U.S. citizens and U.S. economic
interests and the threat to peace and security in the region. To preserve complete freedom of action (no entangling alliances!) he did not officially recognize the Cuban revolutionaries.
However, to soothe non-interventionist sentiments and to the anger of most hard- core expansionists, Congress also passed the Teller Amendment to the war resolu- tion declaring that the USA had no intention of annexing the rebellious island. Cubans had paid $ 1 million to lobbyists and congressmen to secure the future independence of Cuba.[58]

Walter LaFeber analyzes McKinley’s intentions:

            „The president did not want war. But he did want results that only war could
            bring: protecting property in Cuba, stopping the revolution before it turned
            sharply left, restoring confidence in the U.S. business community, insulating
            his Republican Party against Democratic charges of cowardice“[59]

   What followed was dubbed a ‘splendid little war’ that in the minds of most Ame- ricans gave armored conflict a good name and made it acceptable as a means of diplomacy; only four months after the declaration of war, a ceasefire was agreed on; only 400 Americans had lost their lives in combat; on May 1 a U.S. squadron under Admiral Dewey had destroyed the entire Spanish Pacific Fleet in Manila Bay and gained access to the Philippines; in the attempt to break the blockade of Santiago de Cuba, the Spanish Caribbean Fleet was sent to the bottom of the sea; enthusiastic volunteers, college-students and cowboys had helped defeat the Spanish troops on Cuba and made a national hero of their leader, Theodore Roosevelt, who published
a book presenting his heroism in commanding these Rough Riders.

   McKinley used the diversion of war to annex Hawaii in a joint resolution of Con- gress. He feared that Tokyo might move soon to integrate the islands into its Empire. And as an adherent of Mahan’s theories, he was anxious for a naval base in mid-Pacific, a stepping-stone  on the way to Asian markets.[60]  „We need Hawaii just as much and a good deal more than we did California. It is manifest destiny,“ [61]  McKinley was convinced.
 

   The Spanish-American war brought to a victorious end, Americans suddenly found themselves in a position many of them had longed for. They had defeated a European colonial power and the rest of its overseas possessions had fallen into their hands. Would they now turn out to be just the type of colonial rulers they had despised earlier or would they prove their ‘mantra’ of being more civilized. In mid- 1898 Americans’ innocence in their foreign relations was lost; they awoke to the reality of power, world power.