In my annual message to Congress at the beginning of its present session
I referred to the contest which had then for more than a year existed in
the island of Cuba between a portion of its inhabitants and the
Government of Spain, and the feelings and sympathies of the people and
Government of the United States for the people of Cuba, as for all
peoples struggling for liberty and self-government, and said that "the
contest has at no time assumed the conditions which amount to war in the
sense of international law, or which would show the existence of a _de
facto_ political organization of the insurgents sufficient to justify a
recognition of belligerency."

During the six months which have passed since the date of that message
the condition of the insurgents has not improved, and the insurrection
itself, although not subdued, exhibits no signs of advance, but seems to
be confined to an irregular system of hostilities, carried on by small
and illy armed bands of men, roaming without concentration through the
woods and the sparsely populated regions of the island, attacking from
ambush convoys and small bands of troops, burning plantations and the
estates of those not sympathizing with their cause.

But if the insurrection has not gained ground, it is equally true that
Spain has not suppressed it. Climate, disease, and the occasional bullet
have worked destruction among the soldiers of Spain; and although the
Spanish authorities have possession of every seaport and every town on
the island, they have not been able to subdue the hostile feeling which
has driven a considerable number of the native inhabitants of the island
to armed resistance against Spain, and still leads them to endure the
dangers and the privations of a roaming life of guerrilla warfare.

On either side the contest has been conducted, and is still carried on,