Orville Hitchcock Platt

Orville Hitchcock Platt 1827-1905, U.S. Senator (1879-1905), b. Washington, Litchfield co., Conn. Platt held many public offices in Connecticut before he served in the U.S. Senate. He helped frame the high protective tariff measures of 1883, 1890, and 1897 and opposed "cheap money" schemes and attempts to regulate big business. Platt was influential in the annexation of Hawaii and the occupation of the Philippines. He also sponsored the Platt Amendment —a rider attached to the Army Appropriations Bill of 1901. It stipulated the conditions for U.S. intervention in Cuban affairs and permitted the United States to lease lands for the establishment of a naval base in Cuba. The amendment, which virtually made Cuba a U.S. protectorate, was forced into the constitution of Cuba and was incorporated in a permanent treaty between the United States and Cuba; it set the terms under which the United States intervened in Cuban affairs in 1906, 1912, 1917, and 1920. Rising Cuban nationalism and widespread criticism led to its abrogation in 1934, although the United States retained its lease on Guantánamo Bay, where a naval base had been established.

Platt Amendment an amendment signed by President William McKinley on March 2, 1901 to specify conditions for the removal of U.S. troops from Cuba. Proposed by Secretary of War Elihu Root and presented to the Senate by Sen. Orville H. Platt, it required that Cuba cede land for U.S. military and naval bases, allow U.S. intervention to preserve Cuban independence, and agree not to transfer land to any other power. Cuba incorporated the provisions into its constitution, and the amendment regulated Cuban-American relations until it was abrogated in 1934.