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The Formulation of the “Platt” Amendment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Lejeune Cummins
Lejeune Cummins*
Affiliation:
California State College at Hayward
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Extract

Some years ago during one of the periodic crises which characterize Inter-American relations, a New York Times analyst concluded that it was almost impossible to obtain unanimity in this country on Latin American policy. With some reluctance the writer added that it was also impossible to make any policy of the United States liked “ down there.” Certainly the “ Platt ” Amendment of 1901 was one of the most controversial hemispheric policies ever formulated by the United States. Later embodied in the so-called Permanent Treaty with Cuba (1903–1934), it has evoked a wide range of praise and vilification. Yet even a cursory analysis of the extensive literature relating to this significant measure reveals serious misunderstanding concerning it.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , April 1967 , pp. 370 - 389
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1967

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References

1 The Platt Amendment to the Army Appropriation Bill, March 2, 1901, is printed in the Statutes at Large of the United States, Vol. XXXI, Part II, 895–98; The “Permanent” Treaty with Cuba of 1903 is printed in W.M. Malloy et al, Treaties, Conventions … II, 1349 ff. The text is readily available, appearing in such source collections as those of Henry S. Commager and Ruhl J. Bartlett. A monographic study of the relations between the United States and Cuba under the “Platt” Amendment is needed. The point of departure for such a study might well be the lengthy and invaluable “Memorandum on the Platt Amendment” prepared by Philip C. Jessup in 1930 for Harry F. Guggenheim, the United States Ambassador to Cuba. See Department of State File 711.37/142. National Archives. Judge Jessup remembered the long forgotten document during the course of my interview with him in New York City on September 19, 1962. Part of his work was later incorporated into a book written by the Ambassador. See Part II of Guggenheim, Harry F., The United States and Cuba, A Study in International Relations (New York, 1934)Google Scholar. The bibliographic references cited in this article should be supplemented with the following unpublished doctoral dissertations: Hitchman, James H., “Leonard Wood and the Cuban Question, 1898–1902,” (University of California, Berkeley, 1965)Google Scholar, Radke, August C. Jr., “John Tyler Morgan, An Expansionist Senator, 1877–1907,” (University of Washington, Seattle, 1953)Google Scholar and Navarrete, George, “The Latin American Policy of Charles Evans Hughes, 1921–1925,” (University of California, Berkeley, 1964).Google Scholar

2 Wellman, Walter, “Elihu Root: A Character Sketch,” Review of Reviews, XXIX (January, 1904), 38.Google Scholar

3 O.H. Platt to J.H. Flagg, January 18, 1904, Orville H. Platt Papers, Connecticut State Library, Hartford, Connecticut;, hereafter cited as OHPP; White, William Allen, “The Brain Trust, The Oligarchy that Rules the Country,” Saturday Evening Post, 175 (March 21, 1903), p. 1 Google Scholar. The other members of the Committee on Cuban Relations were: Nelson W. Aldrich, Shelby M. Cullom, James McMillan, William E. Chandler and John C. Spooner, Republicans; Henry M. Teller, Hernando de Soto Money, Matthew C. Butler and James P. Taliaferro, Democrats.

4 U. S. Congressional Record, 59th Cong., 1st Sess., 1906, XL, 5268, 5649, 5655, 5657–58.

5 “Senator Platt and the Platt Amendment,” April 21, 1906. William E. Chandler Papers, Vol. 149, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

6 Coolidge, Louis A., An Old-Fashioned Senator, Orville H. Platt of Connecticut: The Story of a Life Unselfishly Devoted to the Public Service (New York, 1910), pp. 354-56.Google Scholar

7 Cullom, Shelby M., Fifty Years of Public Service, Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Senior United States Senator from Illinois (Chicago, 1911), p. 216.Google Scholar

8 Joseph B. Foraker, Notes of a Busy Life (2 vols.; Cincinnati, 1916), II, 59–65; Hill, Howard C. accepted Foraker’s position in Roosevelt and the Caribbean (Chicago, 1921), p. 73.Google Scholar

9 Stephenson, Nathaniel W., Aldrich, Nelson W., A Leader in American Politics (New York, 1930), pp. 166, 449Google Scholar. Interestingly, the A. L. P. Dennis reference places the responsibility for the Amendment squarely on Root’s shoulders.

10 Meyer’s article is based on his doctoral dissertation. See Meyer, Leo J., “Orville Hitchcock Platt,” Dictionary of American Biography, XV (1935), 2-4Google Scholar. Also cited are Richardson, Leon B., William E. Chandler, Republican (New York, 1940), pp. 604-06Google Scholar, and Fowler, Dorothy G., John Coit Spooner, Defender of Presidents (New York, 1961), p. 251 nGoogle Scholar. Senator Platt’s authorship is also implied in the following works: Jenks, Leland H., Our Cuban Colony, A Study in Sugar (New York, 1928), p. 73 Google Scholar; Millis, Walter, The Martial Spirit (Cambridge, 1931), p. 404 Google Scholar; Callcott, Wilfred H., The Caribbean Policy of the United States (Baltimore, 1942), pp. 179-81Google Scholar, and Perkins, Dexter, A History of the Monroe Doctrine (new ed., Boston, 1955), p. 231.Google Scholar

11 James B. Scott, The Recommendations of Habana Concerning International Organization, Adopted by the American Institute of International Law at Habana, January 23, 1911, Prepared by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of International Law (New York, 1917), pp. 3–11. He included this view in his biography of the man who later became Root’s First Assistant Secretary of State, Robert Bacon, Life and Letters (Garden City, 1923), pp. 113–14n. Scott was also a co-editor of the Root papers published by the Harvard University Press 1916–1925.

12 Scott, “Elihu Root’s Service to International Law,” International Conciliation, No. 207 (February, 1925), 14. From a copy in pamphlet form in the Root Collection of the Association of the Bar of New York. Much the same attitude was expressed in an editorial which Scott evidently wrote a decade earlier. See “The Origin and Purpose of the Platt Amendment,” The American Journal of International Law, 8 (1914), 585–91.

13 Chapman, Charles E., A History of the Cuban Republic, A Study in Hispanic American Politics (New York, 1927), pp. 141, 638 ff.Google Scholar; Hagedorn, Hermann, Leonard Wood, A Biography (2 vols.; New York, 1931), I, 354Google Scholar; Munro, Dana G., The United States and the Caribbean Area (Boston, 1934), pp. 9-15Google Scholar; Fitzgibbon, Russell H., Cuba and the United States 1900–1935 (Menasha, Wisconsin, 1935), p. 81 Google Scholar; Jones, Chester L., The Caribbean Since 1900 (New York, 1936), pp. 28-32Google Scholar; Guggenheim, The United States and Cuba, pp. 67 ff., and Jessup, Philip C., Elihu Root (2 vols.; New York, 1938), I, 310–26.Google Scholar

14 Rippy, J. Fred, The Caribbean Danger Zone (New York, 1940), pp. 143, 153–54Google Scholar; Bemis, Samuel Flagg, The Latin American Policy of the United States, An Historical Interpretation (New York, 1943), pp. 138-39Google Scholar; Pratt, Julius W., America’s Colonial Experiment, How the United States Gained, Governed and in Part Gave Away a Colonial Empire (New York, 1950), pp. 120-23Google Scholar; Leopold, Richard W., Elihu Root and the Conservative Tradition (Boston, 1954), pp. 189, 321–22Google Scholar; Morgan, H. Wayne, William McKinley and His America (Syracuse, 1963), p. 448 Google Scholar; Munro, Dana G., Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean 1900–1921 (Princeton, 1964), pp. 25, 531CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Mecham, J. Lloyd, A Survey of United States-Latin American Relations (Boston, 1965), pp. 296-97.Google Scholar

15 Lockmiller, David A., Magoon in Cuba, a History of the Second Intervention, 1906–1909 (Chapel Hill, 1938), p. 11 Google Scholar, and Healy, David F., The United States in Cuba 1898–1902, Generals, Politicians, and the Search for Policy (Madison, 1963), p. 164 Google Scholar. It is also possible to classify the works of Jenks and Jessup in this group.

16 General J.H. Wilson to Root, November 3, 1899. James Harrison Wilson Papers, Box 35, MD, LC.

17 Lieutenant Colonel J.P. Sanger to Root, January 23, 1900. Elihu Root Papers, MD, LC.; hereafter cited as ERP.

18 Root to Wood, February 21, 1900, ERP.

19 Secretary of Navy J.D. Long to Root, May 11, 1900, enclosed with Root to Wood, May 14, 1900, Confidential. Leonard Wood Papers, Box 28, MD, LC; hereafter cited as LWP.

20 Root to Wood, June 20, 1900. ERP.

21 Wood to Root, June 3, July 6, August 6, September 8 and 14, 1900. LWP.

22 New York Tribune, November 11, 1900.

23 New York Evening Journal and New York Evening Telegram, November 10, 1900, in Elihu Root Scrapbooks, X, 177. New York Public Library.

24 New York Times, November 21, 1900; Wood to Root, December 22, 1900, and January 4, 1901. LWP.

25 For the intricate negotiations between the several parties involved see Jessup, Elihu Root, I, 310–26 and Hagedorn, Leonard Wood, I, 338–65. Attention will be focused here on unused materials.

26 Root to Wood, January 9 and Root to Hay, January 11, 1901. ERP. For the implications of the changes in wording of the intervention provision see, Jessup, Elihu Root, I, 312.

27 Platt to Root, January 18, Root to Wood, January 19 and Root to Platt, January 22, 1901. ERP. McKinley’s condition is readily noted from his letterbooks. See Vol. 175, January 12 to February 6, 1901. William McKinley Papers, MD, LC. The sparring between the President and Congress can be followed in the New York Sun. See, for example, articles in the issues of February 2, 5, 8, 9, 12, 16, 18, 21, 23–27.

28 Platt to Root, February 5, and Root to Wood, February 7, 1901. ERP. Healy’s account of the meeting at Chandler’s home on February 3 is faulty. He cites Richardson as the authority for the statement that a debt limitation was decided on at that time, but Richardson does not mention this point. Cf. Healy, The United States and Cuba, p. 156 and Richardson, William E. Chandler, pp. 604–06. Although Healy’s discussion of the “Platt” Amendment is the most detailed published account, I feel that it is inadequate because of significant omissions and because of uncritical acceptance of the Chandler memorandum. Healy does not mention Root’s two trips to Cuba in 1900 and the understanding he reached with General Wood. He also omits the crucial cabinet meeting of February 8, where the president accepted the conditions worked out by the War Department. Professor Hitchman’s recently completed but as yet unpublished dissertation on Leonard Wood is an invaluable source on Cuban-American relations 1898–1902. It is a major supplement to Healy’s work and may supersede it. Four chapters of his dissertation are devoted to the “Platt” Amendment. In general Professor Hitchman gives more credence to certain Platt sources than do I. He accepts the Chandler memorandum and also uses a thirteen page manuscript, “History of the Platt Amendment,” prepared in 1928 by Miss Kathleen Lawler, who had been Platt”s secretary. Hitchman, “Leonard Wood,” pp. 279 ff., but especially 280 n and 282 n. as General H. C Corbin to Senator J.C. Spooner, February 8, 1901. John Coit Spooner Papers. General Correspondence 1901, MD, LC.

29 General H. C. Corbin to Senator J. C. Spooner, February 8, 1901. John Coit Spooner Papers. General Correspondence 1901, MD, LC.

30 Root to Wood, February 9, 1901. ERP. The instructions were printed in the Report of the Secretary of War for 1901. Several differences in wording and punctuation occur in the printed version. Theoretically, it is possible that Platt and Spooner suggested the second provision to Root on February 7. The evidence for this position would have to be inferred from the Chandler memorandum, but this document is highly suspect as will be seen.

31 Olcott, The Life of William McKinley, II, 211–12 n.

32 Root to Wood, February 23, 1901. ERP.

33 Oleott, The Life of William McKinley, II. 212–213; Jessup, Elihu Root, I, 312, and Guggenheim, The United States and Cuba, pp. 74 ff. The dispute over the Isle of Pines comprises a separate problem. Senator John T. Morgan, Root’s Democratic antagonist in the senate, led the fight to retain the island as an American possession. Although there is no evidence to indicate that Morgan influenced Platt, the possibility exists that because of Morgan’s position as the ranking minority member of the Foreign Relations Committee his views were considered when it was decided to incorporate the sixth provision into the Platt Amendment. The Morgan papers contain important material on the Isle of Pines controversy. For an estimate of his influence see his obituary in the Richmond Times-Dispatch of June 15, 1907, in the John Tyler Morgan Papers, Box 36, MD, LC. For his opposition to the Platt Amendment see Radke, “John Tyler Morgan,” pp. 286–93. For the Isle of Pines controversy see Frost, Janet D., “Cuban-American Relations Concerning the Isle of Pines,” Hispanic American Historical Review, XI (1931), 336-50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 Platt to Wood, April 21, 1901. LWP.

35 Platt to E. Atkins, June 11, 1901, OHPP.

36 The problem of intent associated with the “Platt” Amendment is not so much a conflict between the strategic and other interpretations as it is a failure of many students to examine the purpose of the Amendment. This failure can be seen in varying degrees in the works of Hill, Meyer, Leopold, Dulles, Morgan and Healy. The classic economic interpretation of American foreign policy, which applies the thesis to the formulation of our Cuban relations, is Beard, Charles A., The Idea of National Interest, An Analytical Study in American Foreign Policy (New York, 1934), pp. 70, 102Google Scholar. Rippy and Lockmiller imply economic motivation, while Jenks and Perkins seem to regard the Amendment as an imperialistic plot.

37 Root to Shaw, February 23, 1901. ERP.

38 The other members were Dr. Diego Tamayo, Rafael Portuondo, Dr. Pedro González Llorent and Pedro Betancourt.

39 The following account is largely based on Philip C. Jessup’s “Memorandum on the Platt Amendment.”

40 No transcript of the meeting was made, but the Cubans took notes which their government printed in 1918 as a Memoria of the Cuban Senate. Jessup included a translation of the Memoria as Appendix A to his memorandum. For the original see, Cuba, Senado, Memoria … 1902–04, No. 72, Document M (1918). For Jessup’s discussion of the visit of the Cuban Committee see, “Memorandum,” pp. 16–24.

41 Ibid., pp. 21–24. The Convention remained obdurate throughout May, revising the conditions on the 28th. Faced with the prospect of continued military occupation, the Convention reluctantly submitted to administration policy on June 12, 1901.