Journal of Secretary of the Navy John D. Long
Washington, D.C., Saturday, April 2nd, 1898.
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Owing to Mr. Snyder’s1 illness, and my own engrossment in Departmental matters, have not written anything for my journal since the 20th March. It has been a period of incessant activity and pressure. The report of the Court of Inquiry upon the Maine disaster has come in,2 to the effect that the explosion was from the outside and, therefore, willful and malicious. The report, however, is unable to fix the responsibility upon any person or persons. The result is intense feeling in Congress. It looks very much as if war might be precipitated without sufficient previous deliberation and, perhaps, without exhausting all means of peaceable settlement. The President3 is under a weight which is almost more than man can bear, and, for the last few days, has shown a good deal of weariness and nervous strain
Source Note: Transcript, MHi, Papers of John Davis Long, vol. 78.
Footnote 1: Snyder was Long’s secretary at the Navy Department.
Footnote 2: See: Report of the Naval Court of Inquiry upon the Destruction of the United States Battleship Maine in Havana Harbor, 21 March 1898.
Footnote 3: President William McKinley.
