SPANISH AMERICAN WAR

Mr. Louis Reale, Veterans of Foreign Wars, honored Spanish American war dead by calling attention to heroism of this colorful volunteer army on the anniversary of the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine.

"On Feb. 15, 1898 the battleship Maine blew up in Havana Harbor killing 266 crewmen. No one knows to this day who was responsible for the explosion, but the identity of the real culprits was beside the point. The American people blamed Spain. They were already spoiling for a fight over Cuba, so fight it was.

The sectional hostilities left over from the Civil War were all but forgotten in the outpouring of volunteers from every state in the Union. Crowds cheered and threw roses at the feet of Johnny Doughboy as he marched off to liberate the suffering Cuban rebels. After two months of mobilization, 12,000 men landed, and in the Battle of El Caney soldiers walked on each others heels in three inches of mud. They moved slowly and after three hours, it seemed as though every man in the United States was under arms stumbling and slipping.

The lines passed until moons rose. They seemed endless, interminable. Midnight came and they were still slipping forward.

The Spaniards and foreign observers from other countries were astonished by the military performance of Johnny Doughboy. One Spanish officer said, "I have never seen anything to equal the courage and dash of those Americans who, stripped to the waist, offering their naked breasts to our murderous fire, literally throw themselves on our trenches."

At the Battle of San Juan Hill the enemy was shocked that infantry would attempt to assault the entrenched positions, but they walked to greet Death at every step, many of them, as they advanced, sinking suddenly or pitching forward in the high grass, but the others waded on, stubbornly forming a thin blue line that kept creeping higher and higher up on the Hill, finally taking over the Hill.

And it was this war which began April 21, 1898 and ended four months later on August 12, 1898 that launched the United States of America as a full scale world power as she took over the remains of the old Spanish empire, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Guam.

As Historian Walter Millis has written, "The war was over. We had shown the world. We had arrived. Even the English were speaking to us just as if we had been equals."

The mast of the U.S.S. Maine sunk in Havana Harbor Feb. 15, 1898 and has been preserved as a monument. It stands in Arlington National Cemetery.

William McKinley served from 1897-1901. During his regime, the Spanish-American War occurred. We settled for the Philippines and other islands. He was killed by an anarchist at the Buffalo World's Fair in 1901.