LAD 18- McKinley's War Address

McKinley's War Message

Throughout his address President McKinley highlights many reasons why it is truly neccesary for the US to go to war. This is all due to the fighting between Cuban rebels for independence and the Spanish army trying to prevent them from doing so. This fighting causes a great deal of trouble to the US and, as McKinley says, provides us with many appropriate reasons to intervine. These reasons start with the option of whether to stay neutral, pick an ally, or work in general through military means to reach a settlement. Although McKinley works toward the third option in truth everyone knew this would lead to the country's support of Cuba. This needs to be done in order to stop the blood shed as well as other reasons. These other reasons include things such as the huge finicial burden this war has on the country through the lack of trade which they were so used too. Another reason was that the citizens of Cuba clearly deserve the rights of a stable government to protect their rights and it is clear that this is not coming from the Spanish one which is currently in place. The USS Maine was also another point due to the lose of american lives which occured simply because of the unsafe conditions. In the end McKinley takes time to emphasize that although the Spanish plan on attempting to make peace it is a well known fact that this will not happen without US intervention.