Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net










[Etext transcriber's note:

The use of Spanish accents in this text varies and has not been altered
(ie. both Senor and Señor [tilde n], Senora and Señora [tilde n], José
[acute accented letter e] and Jose appear; both Nunez and Nuñez [tilde
n], Marti and Martí [acute accented i], Carreno and Carreño appear
[tilde n].)

Several typographical errors have been corrected
(Almandares=>Almendares, Donate=>Donato, etc.).]




[Illustration: JOSÉ MARTÍ

The first great apostle and martyr of the Cuban War of Independence,
José Martí, was born in Havana on January 28, 1853, and fell in battle
at Dos Rios on May 19, 1895. He was a Professor of Literature, Doctor of
Laws, economist, philosopher, essayist, journalist, poet, historian,
statesman, tribune of the people, organizer of the final and triumphant
cause of Cuban freedom. He suffered imprisonment in Spain and exile in
Mexico, Guatemala, and the United States, doing his crowning work in the
last-named country as the vitalizing and energizing head of the Cuban
Junta in New York. His fame must be lasting as the nation which he
founded, wide as the world which he adorned.]




THE

HISTORY OF CUBA

BY

WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON

A.M., L.H.D.

Author of "A Century of Expansion," "Four Centuries of
the Panama Canal," "America's Foreign Relations"

Honorary Professor of the History of American Foreign
Relations in New York University

_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_

VOLUME FOUR

[Illustration]

NEW YORK

B. F. BUCK & COMPANY, INC.

156 FIFTH AVENUE

1920

Copyright, 1920,

BY CENTURY HISTORY CO.

_All rights reserved_

ENTERED AT STATIONERS HALL

LONDON, ENGLAND.

PRINTED IN U. S. A.




CONTENTS


                              PAGE

  CHAPTER I                        1

Cuba for the Cubans--Era of the War of Independence--Organization of the
Cuban Revolutionary Party--Vigilance of the Spanish Government--The
Sartorius Uprising--The Abarzuza "Home Rule" Measure--Beginning of the
War of Independence--José Marti, His Genius and His Work--Members of the
Junta in New York--Independence the Aim--Marti's Departure for
Cuba--Association with Maximo Gomez--Death of Marti--His Legacy of
Ideals to Cuba.

  CHAPTER II                      19

Aims and Methods of the Junta--Efforts to Avoid American
Complications--Filibustering Expeditions--Contraband Messenger
Service--Attitude of the Various Classes of the Cuban People Toward the
Revolution--No Racial nor Partisan Differences--The Spanish Element--The
Mass of the Cuban People United for National Independence.

  CHAPTER III                     29

The First Uprising--Failure in Havana--Success in Oriente--Response of
the Spanish Authorities--Superior Numbers of the Spanish Forces--Early
Complications with the United States-Seeking Terms with the
Patriots--Grim Reception of an Envoy--Ministerial Crisis at Madrid over
Cuban Affairs--Martinez Campos, "Spain's Greatest Soldier," Sent to
Cuba--His Conciliatory Policy--His Military Preparations--Antonio
Maceo--Uprisings in Many Places--Provisional Government of the
Patriots--Campos's Barricades--Campos Beaten by Maceo.

  CHAPTER IV                      47

Declaration of Cuban Independence--First Constitutional Convention--The
First Government of Ministers--Founders of the Cuban
Government--Desperate Efforts of Campos--Disadvantages of the
Cubans--Plantation Work Forbidden--Campaigns by Maceo and Gomez--Losses
of the Spaniards at Sea--Reenforcements from Spain Welcomed--Cuban
Headquarters at Las Tunas--Invasion of Matanzas--Defeat and Narrow
Escape of Campos--Action of the Autonomists--Loyalty Pledged to
Campos--State of Siege in Havana--Campos Recalled to Spain.

  CHAPTER V                       65

General Marin--General Weyler the New Captain-General--His Arrival and
Remorseless Policy--Cuban Elections a Farce--The Trocha--A War of
Ruthless Destruction--Many Filibustering Expeditions--Interest of the
United States Government--Diplomatic Controversies--Efficiency of the
Provisional Government--Strengthening the Trocha--Activity of Maceo--His
Betrayal and Death--Campaigns of Gomez and Others--Calixto Garcia--The
Great Advance Westward--President Cleveland's Significant Message to the
United States Congress.

  CHAPTER VI                      82

Bad Effects of Maceo's Death--Weyler in the Field Against Gomez--Daring
and Death of Bandera--Dissensions in the Camp of Gomez--Weyler's
Concentration Policy--A Practical Attempt at Extermination--Senator
Proctor's Observations--President McKinley's Message--Crisis in
Spain--Weyler Recalled and Succeeded by Ramon Blanco--Further Attempts
at Reform and Conciliation--Condition of Cuba--The Revolutionists
Uncompromising--The Ruiz-Aranguren Tragedy--Organization of the
Autonomist Government--Attitude of the Spaniards--Visit of the Maine to
Havana--Destruction of the Vessel--The Investigations--Futile Efforts of
the Autonomist Government

  CHAPTER VII                    103

The Destruction of the Maine not the Cause of American
Intervention--Causes Which Led to the War--Diplomatic
Negotiations--German Intrigue--President McKinley's War Message--His
Attitude Toward the Cuban People--Spanish Resentment--Declaration of
War--American Agents Sent to Cuba--Attitude of Maximo Gomez--Supplies,
not Troops, Wanted--Blockade of the Cuban Coast--Spanish Fleet at
Santiago--Landing of the American Army--Operations at Santiago--Services
of the "Rough Riders"--Naval Battle of Santiago--Surrender of the
Spanish Army--The Armistice.

  CHAPTER VIII                   118

Departure of the Spanish Forces from Cuba--Treaty of Peace Between the
United States and Spain--Cuba to be Made Independent--The Cuban
Debt--First American Government of Intervention--The Roll of Spanish
Rulers from Velasquez in 1512 to Castellanos in 1899--Relations between
Americans and Cubans--Disbandment of the Provisional Government and
Demobilization of the Cuban Army--A Mutinous Demonstration--Paying Off
the Cuban Soldiers.

  CHAPTER IX                     139

American Occupation of Cuba--General Wood's Administration at
Santiago--His Antecedents and Preparation for His Great Work--A
Formidable Undertaking--Conquering Pestilence--Organization of the Rural
Guards--American Administration at Havana and Throughout the
Island--Grave Problems Confronting General Brooke--Agricultural and
Industrial Rehabilitation--Reorganizing Local Government--Triumphal
Progress of Maximo Gomez--Unification of Sentiment Among the
People--Finances of the Island--Church and State--Marriage
Reform--Franchises Refused--The Census--Improving the School System.

  CHAPTER X                      158

General Brooke Succeeded by General Leonard Wood--Favorable Reception of
the Soldier-Statesman--A Cabinet of Cubans--Efficient Attention Paid to
Public Education--Cuban Teachers at Harvard--Caring for Derelict
Children--Public Works--Sanitation--Port
Improvements--Roads--Paving--The Heroic Drama of the Conquest of Yellow
Fever--Work of General Gorgas--A Home of Pestilence Transformed into a
Sanitarium--Reforms in Court Procedure--Cleaning Up the Prisons--The
First Election in Free Cuba--Rise of Political Parties--Taxation and the
Tariff--Increase of Commerce.

  CHAPTER XI                     185

Preparations for Self-Government--Call for a Constitutional
Convention--The Election--Meeting of the Convention--General Wood's
Address--Organization of the Convention--Framing the
Constitution--Debates over Church and State, and Presidential
Qualifications--Signing of the Constitution--No Americans Present at the
Convention--General Provisions of the Constitution--Relations between
Cuba and the United States--Controversy between the Two
Governments--Origin of the "Platt Amendment"--Attitude of the Cubans
Toward It--Malign Agitation and Misrepresentation--A Mission to
Washington--Final Adoption of the Amendment.

  CHAPTER XII                    204

Text of the Constitution of the Cuban Republic--The Nation, Its Form of
Government, and the National Territory--Cubans and Foreigners--Bill of
Rights--Sovereignty and Public Powers--The Legislature--The
President--The Vice-President--The Secretaries of State--The Judicial
Power--Provincial and Municipal Governments--Amendments.

  CHAPTER XIII                   240

Election of the First Cuban Government--Candidates for the
Presidency--Tomas Estrada Palma Chosen by Common Consent--General Maso's
Candidacy--The Election--Close of the American Occupation--A Festal Week
in Havana--Transfer of Authority to the Cuban Government--The Cuban Flag
at Last Raised in Sovereignty of the Island--President Roosevelt's
Estimate of General Wood's Work in Cuba--President Palma's Cabinet--His
First Message--The United States Naval Station--Reciprocity Secured
after Discreditable Delay at Washington.

  CHAPTER XIV                    259

Admirable Work of the Palma Administration--Rise of Sordid
Factionalism--José Miguel Gomez, Alfredo Zayas and Orestes
Ferrara--Character of the Liberal Party, and of the Conservative
Party--Conspiracy to Discredit an Election--An Abortive
Insurrection--Pino Guerra's Intrigues--The Rebellion of José Miguel
Gomez--President Palma's Unpreparedness and Incredulity--His Faith in
the People--The Crisis--Suggestions of the American
Consul-General--American Intervention sought--Ships and Troops
Sent--Arrival of Mr. Taft--His Negotiations with the Rebels--His
Yielding to Their Threats--Resignation of Estrada Palma--Mr. Taft's
Pardon to the Rebels--Charles E. Magoon Made Provisional
Governor--Estimate of President Palma and His Administration.

  CHAPTER XV                     283

Mr. Magoon's Administration--Recognition of the Liberals--The Offices
Filled with Liberal Placeholders--Execution of Many Public Works--A New
Census Taken--New Electoral Law--Proportional Representation--New
Elections Held--Split in the Liberal Party--The Presidential
Campaign--Bargain between José Miguel Gomez and Alfredo Zayas--General
Menocal and Dr. Montoro--The Victory of the Liberals--Changes in
Provincial and Municipal Administrations--Revision of Laws--Settling
Church Claims--End of the Second Intervention.

  CHAPTER XVI                    297

Administration of President José Miguel Gomez--His Cabinet Sketch of His
Career--Sketch of Vice-President Zayas--Army Reorganization--New
Laws--The President's Sensitiveness to Criticism--Officials in
Politics--Charges of Profligacy and Corruption--Clash with the Veterans'
Association--The United States Interested--Quarrels between Gomez and
Zayas--Formidable Negro Revolt Suppressed--Reluctance to Settle
Claims--Outrage Upon an American Diplomat--Amnesty Bill--The Lottery
Established--The "Dragado" Scandal--The Railroad Terminal.

  CHAPTER XVII                   312

The Fourth Presidential Campaign--Candidacy and Career of Mario G.
Menocal--His Brilliant Work in the War of Independence and in the Sugar
Industry--Sketch of Enrique José Varona--Dr. Rafael Montoro's
Distinguished Career--His Diplomatic Services and Literary
Achievements--President Menocal's Cabinet--His Aims and Plans for His
Administration--First Message to Congress--Factional Obstruction--Paying
Off Old Debts--Trying to Abolish Gambling--The Civil
Service--Controversy Over the Asbert Amnesty Bill--A Small Insurrection.

  CHAPTER XVIII                  328

Reelection of President Menocal--Features of the Campaign--Liberal
Conspiracy to Invalidate the Election by Revolutionary Means--Disputed
Elections--The Double Treason of José Miguel Gomez--Outbreak of a
Carefully Planned Insurrection--Intrigues of Orestes Ferrara in the
United States--Vigorous Military Action of President Menocal--American
Assistance Wisely Declined--Capture of the Rebel Chieftain--Efforts of
the Insurgents at Devastation--Continuance of the Rebellion by Carlos
Mendieta--Dr. Ferrara Warned by the American Government--Attempts to
Assassinate President Menocal--Clemency Shown to Criminals--Attitude of
the United States Government--Some Plain Talk from Washington.

  CHAPTER XIX                    346

Cuba's Entry into the War of the Nations--President Menocal's War
Message--Prompt Response of Congress--Sentiments of the Cuban
People--German Propaganda--Attitude of the Church--Liberal Intrigues
with Germans--Seizure of German Ships--Conservation and Increased
Production of Food--Military Services--Generous Subscriptions to Liberty
Loans--Mrs. Menocal's Leadership in Red Cross Work--Noble Activities of
the Women of Cuba--Moral and Spiritual Effect of Cuba's Participation in
the War.

  CHAPTER XX                     355

Marti's Epigram on the Revolution--How It has been Fulfilled by the
Cuban Republic--The Sense of Responsibility--Progress in Popular
Education as a Criterion--Great Gain in Health--Enormous Growth of the
Sugar Industry--Commerce of the Island--Stable Finances--Sanitary
Efficiency--Military Reorganization--Statesmanship of President
Menocal--Cuba's Unique Situation Among the Countries of the
Globe--Significance of the Record Which She has Made from Velasquez to
Menocal.




ILLUSTRATIONS


FULL PAGE PLATES

José Marti _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

The Prado                                                             16

Maximo Gomez                                                          44

José Antonio Maceo                                                    74

Bay and Harbor of Havana                                              98

Old and New in Havana                                                134

Leonard Wood                                                         158

University of Havana                                                 164

Carlos J. Finlay                                                     172

The Capitol                                                          204

Tomas Estrada Palma                                                  248

The President's Home                                                 268

The Academy of Arts and Crafts                                       288

Mario G. Menocal                                                     312

Enrique José Varona                                                  316

Rafael Montoro                                                       320

Senora Menocal                                                       352

Boneato Road, Oriente                                                358


TEXT EMBELLISHMENTS


Ricardo del Monte                                                      2

Julian del Casal                                                       6

José Ramon Villalon                                                   13

George Reno                                                           21

La Punta Fortress, Havana                                             33

Aniceto G. Menocal                                                    50

General Weyler                                                        66

William McKinley                                                      87

Antonio Govin                                                         95

Admiral Cervera                                                      110

Admiral Schley                                                       110

Old Fort at El Caney                                                 112

Theodore Roosevelt                                                   113

Monuments on San Juan Hill                                           114

Admiral Sampson                                                      115

Peace Tree near Santiago                                             116

Part of Old City Wall of Havana                                      122

Gonzalez Lanuza                                                      146

Evelio Rodriguez Lendian                                             162

Antonio Sanchez de Bustamente                                        165

Almendares River, Havana                                             167

Old Time Water Mill, Havana Province                                 169

Street in Vedado, Suburb of Havana                                   176

Aurelia Castillo de Gonzalez                                         192

Scene in Villalon Park, Havana                                       247

Flag of Cuba                                                         250

Coat of Arms of Cuba                                                 251

William H. Taft                                                      276

José Miguel Gomez                                                    298

Dr. Alfredo Zayas                                                    300

Birthplace of Mario G. Menocal                                       313

Dr. Juan Guiteras                                                    321

General D. Emilio Nuñez                                              328

José Luis Azcarata                                                   341

Francisco Dominguez Roldan                                           357

José A. del Cueto                                                    359

Dr. Fernandez Mendez-Capote                                          360

General José Marti                                                   360

Eugenio Sanchez Agramonte                                            362

Academy of Sciences, Havana                                          364




THE HISTORY OF CUBA

CHAPTER I


Cuba for Cuba must be the grateful theme of the present volume. We have
seen the identification of the Queen of the Antilles with the Spanish
discovery and conquest of America. We have traced the development of
widespread international interests in that island, especially
implicating the vital attention of at least four great powers. We have
reviewed the origin and development of a peculiar relationship,
frequently troubled but ultimately beneficent to both, between Cuba and
the United States of America. Now, in the briefest of the four major
epochs into which Cuban history is naturally divided, we shall have the
welcome record of the achievement of Cuba's secure establishment among
the sovereign nations of the world.

The time for the War of Independence was well chosen. That conflict was,
indeed, a necessary and inevitable sequel to the Ten Years' War and its
appendix, the Little War; under the same flag, with the same principles
and issues, and with some of the same leaders. Indeed we may rightly
claim that the organization of the Cuban Republic remained continuous
and unbroken, if not in Cuba itself, at least in the United States,
where, in New York, the Cuban Junta was ever active and resolute. The
Treaty of Zanjon ended field operations for the time. It did not for one
moment or in the least degree quench or diminish the impassioned and
resolute determination of the Cuban people to become a nation.

We have said that the War of Independence was inevitable. That was
manifestly so because of the determination of the Cubans to become
independent. It was also because of the failure of the Spanish
government to fulfil the terms and stipulations of the Treaty of Zanjon,
concerning which we have hitherto spoken. It must remain a matter of
speculation whether that government ever intended to fulfil them. It is
certain that few thoughtful Cubans, capable of judging the probabilities
of the future by the actualities of the past, expected that it would do
so. We may also regard it as certain that even a scrupulous fulfilment
of those terms, while it might have postponed it, would not and could
not permanently have defeated the assertion of Cuban independence.

[Illustration: RICARDO DEL MONTE

Journalist, critic, poet and patriot, Ricardo del Monte was born at
Cimorrones in 1830, and was educated in the United States and Europe. In
Rome he was attached to the Spanish embassy. In Spain he was a
journalist with liberal and democratic tendencies. He returned to Cuba
in 1847 and edited several papers in Havana, including, after the Ten
Years War, _El Triunfo_ and _El Pais_, the organ of the Autonomists. He
was a writer in prose and verse of singular power and grace, his works
ranking in style with the best of modern Spanish literature. He died in
1908.]

The Cuban Revolutionary Party, which as we have said never went out of
existence, was reorganized for renewed activity in New York in April,
1892; from which time we may properly date the beginning of the War of
Independence. Its leader was Jose Marti, of whom we shall have much more
to say hereafter; but he did not accept the official headship of the
Junta. That place was taken by Tomas Estrada Palma, the honored veteran
of the Ten Years' War, who at this time was the principal of an
excellent boys' school at Central Valley, New York. He was the President
of the Junta. The Secretary was Gonzalo de Quesada, worthy bearer of an
honored name; a fervent patriot and an eloquent orator. The Treasurer
was Benjamin Guerra, an approved patriot, and the General Counsel was
Horatio Rubens. This New York Junta, meeting at No. 56 New Street, New
York City, was the real head of the whole movement. But it was
supplemented by many other Cuban clubs elsewhere. There were ten in New
York, 61 at Key West, Florida; 15 at Tampa, two at Ocala, two in
Philadelphia, and one each at New Orleans, Jacksonville, Brooklyn,
Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, and St. Augustine. There were also six in the
island of Jamaica, two in Mexico, and one in Hayti.

The multiplication of these organizations and their increasing activity
did not escape the observation of the Spanish government, which realized
that revolution was in the air, and that it behooved it to do something
to counteract it if it was to avoid losing the last remains of its once
vast American empire. Accordingly early in 1893 the Cortes at Madrid
enacted a bill extending the electoral franchise in Cuba to all men
paying each as much as five pesos tax yearly. The Autonomist party at
first regarded this concession with doubt and suspicion, but finally
decided to give it a trial and participated in the elections held under
the new law. But the result was unsatisfactory; owing, it was openly
charged, to gross intimidation and frauds by the Government. The sequel
was increased activity of the revolutionary organizations.

The Spanish government was vigilant and strenuous. It sent more troops
to Cuba, and it sent a large part of its navy to American waters, to
patrol the Cuban coast, to cruise off the Florida coast, and to guard
the waters between the two, in order to prevent the sending of
filibustering expeditions or cargoes of supplies from the United States
to Cuba. These efforts were so efficient that no important expeditions
got through. But in spite of that fact an insurrection was started in
Cuba in the spring of 1893.

The leaders were two brothers, Manuel and Ricardo Sartorius, of Santiago
de Cuba. On April 24 they put themselves at the head of a band of twenty
men and, at Puernio, near Holguin, they proclaimed a revolution. The
next day they were joined by eighteen more, and by the time they had
marched to Milas, on the north coast, the band was increased to 300,
while other bands, in sympathy with them, were formed at Holguin,
Manzanillo, Guantanamo, and Las Tunas. This movement, however, was
purely a private enterprise of the Sartorius Brothers; in which they
presumably expected to be supported by a general uprising of the Cuban
people. As a matter of fact there was no such uprising. The people
seemed indifferent to it. The juntas and clubs in New York and elsewhere
knew nothing about it. The Executive Committee of the Autonomist Party
in Cuba adopted resolutions condemning it and giving moral support to
the Spanish government, and the Cuban Senators and Deputies in the
Cortes at Madrid took like action.

Meantime the Spanish authorities in the island acted promptly and with
vigor. The Captain-General summoned a council of war on April 27, and
sent troops to the scene of revolt, and directed the fleet to exercise
renewed vigilance to prevent aid from reaching the insurgents from the
United States. The next day martial law was proclaimed throughout the
province of Santiago de Cuba, and four thousand troops, divided into
seven columns, were in hot pursuit of the revolutionists. The numbers of
the latter rapidly dwindled through desertions and in a couple of days
all had vanished save the two brothers and 29 of their followers. On May
2 these all surrendered, on promise of complete pardon, a promise which
was fulfilled, and on May 9 martial law was withdrawn and the abortive
revolt was ended.

This occurrence moved the Spanish government, however, to further
efforts to placate the Cubans, and in 1894 the Minister for the
Colonies, Senor Maura, proposed a bill for the reorganization of the
insular government. The six provincial councils were to be merged into a
single legislature. With this was to be combined an Executive Council,
or Board of Administration, to administer the laws; consisting of the
Governor-General as President, various high civil and military
functionaries, and nine additional members named by Royal decree. This
arrangement was strongly opposed and finally defeated, whereupon Senor
Maura resigned. Later in the same year the Cabinet was reorganized with
him as Minister of Justice and with Senor Abarzuza, a follower of Emilio
Castelar, the Spanish Republican leader, as Minister for the Colonies.
The Prime Minister was Praxedes Sagasta, the leader of the Spanish
Liberals, and a statesman of consummate ability. There was much
complaint by Conservatives that the Captain-General in Cuba, Emilio
Calleja, favored the native Autonomists over the Loyalists or Spanish
party. Despite this, Senor Abarzuza, after taking much counsel with the
Prime Minister and others, planned radical action in behalf of Cuban
autonomy, hoping to establish a new regime which, he fondly hoped, would
allay discontent, abate disaffection, and confirm Cuba in her
traditional status of the "Ever Faithful Isle." Accordingly he entered
into long and earnest consultation with the leaders of the various
political parties in Spain, including the Carlists and Radical
Republicans, and also with representative Loyalists and Home
Rulers--otherwise Spaniards and Autonomists--of Cuba. Never, indeed, was
a more thorough attempt made to secure the judgment of all parties and
thus to frame a measure that would be satisfactory to all. Moreover, an
exceptionally reasonable and conciliatory spirit was shown by all the
leading politicians, of all shades of opinion, so that it seemed for a
time that the resulting bill, framed by Senors Sagasta and Abarzuza,
would be accepted with scarcely a word of criticism and would mark the
opening of a new era in colonial affairs.

[Illustration: JULIAN DEL CASAL

During his brief life, from 1863 to October 21, 1891, Julian del Casal,
invalid and misanthrope though he was, made a brilliant record in the
world of letters, and gave to Cuban poetry its greatest modern impulse.
Most of his life was spent in penury, on the meagre earnings of a hack
journalist, but his memory is cherished as that of one of the foremost
men of letters of his time.]

The bill was drafted. It was in purport a West Indies Home Rule bill.
Its salient feature was the establishment in Cuba of an Insular Council,
which would be the local governing body of the colony. Of it the Spanish
Viceroy, or Captain General, would be the President; and of course he
would continue to be appointed by the Crown. Of the members of the
Council, one half would be appointed by the Crown, from among certain
specified classes of the inhabitants of Cuba; and the other half would
be elected by the suffrages of the Cuban people. This body would have,
subject only to the veto of the Captain-General, control of all insular
affairs, including supervision of provincial and municipal councils. It
would also, subject to the approval of the Madrid government, legislate
for the regulation of immigration, commerce, posts and telegraphs,
revenue, and similar matters. On the face of it the measure promised
great improvement in the government of the island, and the investing of
the people of Cuba with a very large measure of self-government, both
legislative and executive. It was the last and probably the best
voluntary attempt ever made by Spain to give Cuba self-government.

Unfortunately for Spain there were two fatal flaws in the scheme; one
subjective, one objective. The former was the fact that the appointment
of half the members of the Council by the Crown would assure in that
body a constant majority devoted to and subservient to the Crown, and
that circumstance, together with the veto power, would prevent the
possibility of any legislation not entirely pleasing to Madrid. That
made the thing quite unacceptable to all Cubans whose aim was the
independence of the island or even genuine autonomy and home rule. The
other flaw was the fact that while Cuban Loyalists and Autonomists were
called into consultation over the bill, and gave it their approval,
Cuban advocates of Independence were not called; they would not have
entered into conference; and they were irrevocably committed against any
scheme that did not provide for the complete separation of the island
from Spain and the creation of an entirely independent government. The
bill was adopted by the Spanish Chamber of Deputies by a practically
unanimous vote, on February 14, 1895, and was likewise adopted by the
Senate. In Cuba it was regarded by the Autonomists as not satisfactory,
in that it retained too much power for the Crown. As for the party of
Cuban Independence, it looked upon it as unworthy of serious
consideration. Ten days after its passage by the Chamber of Deputies,
the Cuban Revolution was proclaimed.

The reproachful comment has been made by some writers that the Cuban
leaders started the revolution at that date, February 24, 1895, in order
to defeat the beneficent designs of Spain in granting autonomy to the
island, and that if they had not done so, the Abarzuza law would have
been generally accepted and successfully applied, and Cuba would have
remained a colony of Spain, contented, loyal and prosperous. For this
strange theory there is no good foundation. It had been made perfectly
clear for more than two years preceding that no such arrangement--indeed,
that nothing short of complete separation from Spain--would satisfy the
Cuban people. Moreover, preparations had been copiously made for the
revolution, long before the passage of this measure. Cubans in the
United States, of whom there were many, had contributed freely of their
means for the purchase of arms and ammunition. There were considerable
stocks of arms in Cuba which had remained concealed since the Ten Years'
War, and these had been added to by surreptitious shipments from the
United States. It is a matter of record that considerable quantities of
first rate Mauser rifles were obtained from the arsenals of the Spanish
government, being secretly purchased from custodians who were either
corrupt or in sympathy with the revolutionists. Efforts were also made
to land expeditions from the United States. One formidable party was to
have sailed from Fernandina, Florida, a month before the passage of the
Abarzuza law, but it was checked and disbanded by the United States
authorities.

The year 1895 was not inappropriate for the beginning of a war which
should annihilate the Spanish colonial empire and should add a new
member to the world's community of sovereign nations. In almost every
quarter of the globe great things were happening. At the antipodes Japan
was completing her crushing defeat of China and was thus bringing
herself forward as one of the great military and naval powers. The
ancient empire of Siam was establishing an enlightened constitutional
and parliamentary system of government. In Africa the epochal conflict
between Boer and Briton was developing inexorably, and France was about
to achieve the conquest of Madagascar. In Europe, Nicholas II was newly
seated upon the throne of the Czars, and the strange resignation of the
Presidency by Casimir-Perier threw France into such a crisis as she had
scarcely known before since the foundation of the Republic. Nearer home,
Peru and Ecuador were convulsed with revolution, and the controversy
between Venezuela and British Guiana began to loom acute and ominous. In
such a setting was the War of Cuban Independence staged.

The foremost director of that war, its organizer and inspirer, was José
Marti; one of those rare geniuses who have appeared occasionally in the
history of the world to be the incarnation of great ideals of justice
and human right. He was indeed many times a genius: Organizer,
economist, historian, poet, statesman, tribune of the people, apostle of
freedom, above all, Man. In himself he united the virtues, the
enthusiasm and the energising vitality which his countrymen needed to
have aroused in themselves. To his disorganized and disheartened country
he brought a magic personality which won all hearts and inspired them
all with his own irrepressible and indestructible ideal, National
Independence.

Marti was a native Cuban, born in Havana on January 28, 1853. In his
mere boyhood he became an eloquent and inspiring advocate of the ideal
to which he devoted his life and which he did so much to realize; and at
the outbreak of the Ten Years' War, when he was scarcely yet sixteen
years old, the Spanish government recognized in him one of its most
formidable foes and one of the most efficient propagandists of Cuban
independence. For that reason, before he had a chance to enter the ranks
of the patriot army, he was deported from the island and doomed to
exile. He made his way to Mexico, thence to Guatemala, and there, a lad
still in his teens, became Professor of Literature in the National
University of that country--a striking testimonial to his erudition and
culture. After the Treaty of Zanjon he was permitted to return to Cuba,
but he was one of those whom the Spanish government most feared, and he
was therefore kept under the closest of surveillance by the police. It
was not in his nature to dissemble, or to be afraid. He quickly came
before the public in a series of memorable orations, memorable alike for
their sonorous eloquence, their cultured erudition, and their intense
patriotism; in which he set forth the deplorable state in which Cuba
still lay, after her ten years' struggle for better things, and the need
that the work which had been so bravely undertaken by Cespedes and his
associates should be again undertaken and pressed to a successful
conclusion. His orations seemed to have the effect attributed to
Demosthenes in his Philippics: They made his hearers want to take up
arms and fight against their oppressors.

This of course brought upon him the wrath of Spain. He was arrested, and
since he was altogether too dangerous a person to be set free in exile,
he was carried a close prisoner to Spain. But he quickly made his escape
and found asylum in the United States of America; and there his greatest
work for Cuba was achieved. Porfirio Diaz had invited him to make his
home in Mexico, where he might have risen to almost any eminence in the
state, but he declined. "I must go," he said, "to the country where I
can accomplish most for the freedom of Cuba from Spain. I am going to
the United States." In New York City, where he made his home, he engaged
in literary work, and was for some time a member of the staff of the New
York _Sun_. But above all he devoted his time, thought, strength and
means to organizing the Cuban revolution.

He gathered together in the Cuban Revolutionary Party all the surviving
veterans of the Ten Years' War, Cuban political exiles--like
himself--the remnants of Merchan's old "Laborers' Associations," and
welded them into a harmonious and resolute whole. He also traveled about
the United States, in Mexico and Central America, and in Jamaica and
Santo Domingo, wherever Cubans were to be found, rousing them to
patriotic zeal and organizing them into clubs tributary to the central
Junta in New York. In Cuba itself many such clubs were organized, in
secret, which maintained surreptitious correspondence with the New York
headquarters.

We have already mentioned some of those with whom he surrounded himself:
Tomas Estrada Palma, the President of the Junta; Gonzalo de Quesada, its
Secretary, who lived to see the Republic established and to become its
Minister to Germany, where he died; Benjamin F. Guerra, its Treasurer;
and Horatio Rubens, its Counsel, who had been trained in the law office
of Elihu Root. Others of that memorable and devoted company were General
Emilio Nunez, afterward Vice-President of the Cuban Republic; and Dr.
Joaquin Castillo Duany, formerly an eminent physician in the United
States Navy, who had distinguished himself in the relief of the famous
Jeannette Arctic expedition. These two had charge of the filibustering
or supply expeditions which were surreptitiously dispatched from the
United States to Cuba. At first General Nunez had charge of all, but
when Dr. Duany came from Cuba the work was divided, and the former
devoted himself to the coast from Norfolk to the Rio Grande, while the
latter supervised that from Norfolk to Eastport, Maine. Dr. Duany and
his brother had been prominent citizens and officials in Santiago de
Cuba. As soon as the War of Independence began they joined the patriot
forces, and Dr. Duany was made Assistant Secretary of War in the
Provisional Government. As such, he ran the Spanish blockade of the
island, in company with Mr. George Reno, another ardent patriot, and
bore to New York authority from the Provisional Government for the
issuing of $3,000,000 of Cuban bonds. He also carried with him in a
little satchel $90,000 in cash, which had been contributed by various
patriotic residents of Cuba.

Another of Marti's associates in New York was Dr. Lincoln de Zayas, a
brilliant orator, afterward Secretary of Public Instruction of the Cuban
Republic; a man greatly loved by all who knew him. Dr. Enrique
Agramonte, brother of that gallant Ignacio Agramonte who was a leader in
the Ten Years' War and was killed in that conflict, was a member of the
Junta in New York, who inspected and selected all the men who were to
go on filibustering expeditions; a keen judge of the physical, mental
and moral fitness of all the candidates who presented themselves before
him. Colonel José Ramon Villalon was also active in the Junta; and he
has since been Secretary of Public Works at Havana under President Mario
G. Menocal. Nor must Ponce de Leon, a publisher and bookseller, of No.
32 Broadway, New York, be forgotten. His office was frequently the
meeting place of the conspirators, if so we may call the patriots, and
he and his two sons--one a physician, the other in charge of the
archives of the Cuban government--were among the most earnest and
efficient workers for the cause of independence.

[Illustration: JOSE RAMON VILLALON

José Ramon Villalon, Secretary of Public Works, was born at Santiago in
1864. He was sent to Barcelona to be educated and later studied at the
Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa., where he graduated as civil engineer
in 1899. On the outbreak of the war he accompanied General Antonio Maceo
on his famous raid in Pinar del Rio province, and was present at the
engagements of Artemisa, Ceja del Negro, Montezuelo, attaining the rank
of lieutenant-colonel of engineers. While serving under Maceo he
designed and constructed the first field dynamite gun, now in the
National Museum in Havana. After the war he was made Secretary of Public
Works under the military government of General Leonard Wood. Col.
Villalon is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the
American Institute of Mining Engineers, the Academy of Sciences
(Havana), and the Cuban Society of Engineers.]

The ideal of Marti and these associates was unequivocally that of Cuban
independence. They had no thought of accepting or even considering mere
autonomy under Spanish sovereignty, or any promises of reforms in the
insular government. They might not have been inexorably opposed to
annexation to the United States, had opportunity for that been offered.
They might have accepted it, in fact, for the sake of getting entirely
away from Spain; for that would at least have meant independence from
Spain. But as a matter of fact, annexation was not considered. It was
never discussed. It formed no part of the programme, not even as an
alternative.

Although a poet and a seer, Marti was one of the most practical of men.
He realized with Cicero that "endless money forms the sinews of war."
One of his first cares, therefore, was to finance the revolution. To
that end he made a direct appeal to Cuban workmen--and women,
too--wherever he could get into contact with them, to give one tenth of
their weekly wages to the cause of Cuban independence. Probably never
before or since in the world's wars has such a system of voluntary
tithing been so successfully conducted. It seemed as though every Cuban
in the United States responded. Wealthy men gave one tenth of their
large incomes, and Cuban girls in cigar factories gave one tenth of
their small wages. In many cases they did more, giving one day's wages
each week. Indeed, this is said to have been the general rule in the
cigar and cigarette factories of the United States. Next to Marti
himself, Lincoln de Zayas was perhaps the most successful money raiser.
Numerous speakers and canvassers went to all parts of the country where
Cubans might be found, soliciting funds. Appeal was also made to
Americans, but not so much for pecuniary aid as for sympathy and moral
aid. But in fact much money was given by liberty loving Americans. John
Jacob Astor, afterward a Colonel in the United States army in the war of
intervention, gave $10,000. William E. D. Stokes, of New York, was also
a large contributor and manifested much interest in the cause,
presumably in part because his wife was a Cuban.

Most of this work of Marti's was done in 1893 and 1894. His original
plan was to launch a vast plan of numerous invasions of the island and
simultaneous uprisings in all the provinces in 1894. He purchased and
equipped three vessels, the _Amadis_, the _Baracoa_ and the _Lagonda_,
only to suffer the mortification and very heavy loss of having them
seized by the American authorities for violation of the neutrality law.
Undaunted and undismayed, he renewed his efforts, and at last had the
satisfaction of seeing the revolution openly begun at Baire, near
Santiago, on February 24, 1895. And then occurred one of the most
lamentable and needless tragedies of the whole war--indeed, of all the
history of Cuba.

It was not in Marti's generous and valiant spirit to remain at the rear
and send others forward to face the fire of the foe. Accordingly, as
soon as the revolution was started, he went from New York to Santo
Domingo to confer with the old war horse of the Ten Years' conflict,
Maximo Gomez, and from that island he issued his manifesto concerning
the purposes and programme of the revolution. Well would it have been
for him and for Cuba had he remained there, or had he returned to New
York, to continue the work which he had been so successfully doing. But
because of a thoughtless clamor in the press and on the part of the
public he was moved to proceed to Cuba with Gomez. They landed in a
frail craft at Playitas on April 11, with about 80 companions, many of
them veterans of the Ten Years' War. They at once joined the cavalry
forces of Perico Perez, and plunged into the thick of the fighting;
Marti showing himself as brave in battle as he had been wise in council.
Meantime a Provisional Government had been formed, by the proclamation
of Antonio Maceo, with Tomas Estrada Palma as Provisional President of
the Cuban Republic, Maximo Gomez as Commander in Chief of the Army, and
José Marti as Secretary General and Diplomatic Agent Abroad. This
appointment was agreeable to Marti, and would have meant the most
advantageous utilization of his masterful talents for the good of Cuba.
But it was not possible for him immediately to begin such duties. He was
with the army in the interior of the island, and his approach to the
coast whence he was to sail on his mission must be effected with
caution.

While Gomez set out for Camaguey, Marti turned toward the southern
coast, intending to go first to Jamaica, whence he could take an English
steamer for New York or any other destination he might select. Marti had
with him an escort of only fifty men, and soon after parting company
with Gomez he was led by a treacherous guide into a ravine where he was
trapped by a Spanish force outnumbering the Cubans twenty to one. The
Cubans fought with desperate valor, Marti himself leading a charge which
nearly succeeded in cutting a way through the Spanish lines. But the
odds were too heavy against them, and without even the satisfaction of
taking two or three Spanish lives for every life they gave, the Cubans
were all slain, Marti himself being among the last to fall. Word of the
conflict reached Gomez, and he came hastening back, just too late to
save his comrade, and was himself wounded in the furious attack which he
made upon the Spaniards in an attempt at least to recover Marti's body.
But his vengeful valor was ineffectual. Marti's body was taken
possession of by the Spaniards, who demonstrated their appreciation of
his greatness, though he was their most formidable foe, by bearing it
reverently to Santiago and there interring it with all the honors of
war.

[Illustration: THE PRADO

Havana's most fashionable residence street and driving thoroughfare
extends from the gloomy Punta fortress along the line of the ancient
city wall, past the Central Park to Colon Park, shaded with laurels and
lined with handsome homes and clubs. In 1907 a hurricane wrecked many of
the great laurels, as well as the royal palms of Colon Park, but in the
genial climate of Cuba the ravages of the elements were rapidly
repaired. The Prado was officially renamed by the Cuban Republic the
Paseo de Marti, in honor of José Marti, but the old name still clings
inseparably to it.]

Thus untimely perished the man who should have lived to be known as the
Father of His Country. But he left a name crowned with imperishable
fame. A Spanish American author has said that the Spanish race in
America has produced only two geniuses, Bolivar and Marti. If that
judgment be too severe in its restriction, at least it is not an
over-estimate of those two transcendent patriots. Marti left, moreover,
an example and an inspiration which never failed his countrymen during
the subsequent years of war. Their loss in his death was irreparable,
but they were not inconsolable; for while he perished, his cause
survived. That cause was well set forth by him in the manifesto which he
issued at Monte Cristi, Hayti, on March 25, 1895, and which read as
follows:

"The war is not against the Spaniard, who, secured by his children and
by loyalty to the country which the latter will establish, shall be able
to enjoy, respected and even loved, that liberty which will sweep away
only the thoughtless who block its path. Nor will the war be the cradle
of disturbances which are alien to the tried moderation of the Cuban
character, nor of tyranny. Those who have fomented it and are still its
sponsors declare in its name to the country its freedom from all hatred,
its fraternal indulgence to the timid Cuban, and its radical respect for
the dignity of man, which constitutes the sinews of battle and the
foundation of the Republic. And they affirm that it will be magnanimous
with the penitent, and inflexible only with vice and inhumanity.

"In the war which has been recommenced in Cuba you will not find a
revolution beside itself with the joy of rash heroism, but a revolution
which comprehends the responsibilities incumbent upon the founders of
nations. Cowardice might seek to profit by another fear under the
pretext of prudence--the senseless fear which has never been justified
in Cuba--the fear of the negro race. The past revolution, with its
generous though subordinate soldiers, indignantly denies, as does the
long trial of exile as well as of the respite in the island, the menace
of a race war, with which our Spanish beneficiaries would like to
inspire a fear of the revolution. The war of emancipation and their
common labor have obliterated the hatred which slavery might have
inspired. The novelty and crudity of social relations consequent to the
sudden change of a man who belonged to another into a man who belonged
to himself, are overshadowed by the sincere esteem of the white Cuban
for the equal soul, and the desire for education, the fervor of a free
man, and the amiable character of his negro compatriot.

"In the Spanish inhabitants of Cuba, instead of the hateful spite of the
first war, the revolution, which does not flatter nor fear, expects to
find such affectionate neutrality or material aid that through them the
war will be shorter, its disasters less, and more easy and friendly the
subsequent peace in which father and son are to live. We Cubans
commenced the war; the Cubans and Spaniards together will terminate it.
If they do not ill treat us, we will not ill treat them. Let them
respect us and we will respect them. Steel will answer to steel, and
friendship to friendship."

It may be that not all the generous and altruistic anticipations of this
exalted utterance were fully realized. It may be confidently declared
that all were sincerely meant by their author; and the world will
testify that seldom if ever was a war begun with nobler ideals than
those thus set forth by Jose Marti.




CHAPTER II


We have said that there was no consideration of annexation to the United
States, on the part of the organizers and directors of the Cuban War of
Independence. Neither was there much if any thought of intervention by
the United States in Cuba's behalf; though that was what ultimately
occurred. No doubt, if ever a fleeting thought of that passed through a
Cuban patriot's mind, he esteemed it "a consummation devoutly to be
wished." But it was not reckoned to be within the limits of reasonable
possibility. Certainly it was never discussed, and it may be said with
even more positiveness that there was never any attempt to bring it
about by surreptitious means. The charge was occasionally made, in
quarters unfriendly to the Cuban cause, that the Junta was endeavoring
to embroil the United States in a war with Spain. That was absolutely
untrue. No such effort was ever made by any responsible or authoritative
Cuban.

It might rather be said that the Junta was solicitous to avoid so far as
possible danger of complications between the United States and Spain.
For example, it did not encourage Americans to enter the Cuban army, but
discouraged them from so doing and often rejected them outright. An
expert ex-Pinkerton detective was employed by the Junta to serve
constantly in its New York office. His duties were in part to detect if
possible any spies or Spanish agents who might come in and want to
enlist with, of course, the intention of betraying the cause. But he
also did his best to dissuade all but Cubans from enlisting. He was
under directions from the Junta to warn all American applicants, of whom
there were many, that they had better not enter the Cuban service:
First, because they did not realize the formidable and desperate
character of the undertaking in which they were seeking to participate;
second, because the Junta could give them no assurance of pay, or even
of food; and third, because they were sure soon to grow tired of the
arduous discouraging, up-hill campaign which was before them. The only
men who were wanted, and the only men who were generally accepted were
Cubans, whose patriotic interest in the island would enable them to
endure cheerfully what would be intolerable to an alien. They were
believed by the Junta to be the only men who would permanently stand the
test.

As a matter of fact only a very few Americans were accepted; probably
not more than forty or fifty all told. They were accepted partly because
they were so insistent and persistent in their desires and demands, and
partly because of some qualifications which made them of special value.
They were chiefly sharpshooters who had formerly served in the United
States army. When they were accepted they were reminded that they were
forfeiting all claim upon the United States government for protection or
rescue, no matter what might befall them. Thus if they were killed or
captured and ill treated in any way by the Spanish they would be
debarred from appealing to the United States, and there would be no
danger of any friction between the United States and Spain on their
account.

The only way in which the Junta deliberately incurred the risk of
causing international trouble was in the organization and dispatching of
filibustering and supply expeditions from the United States to Cuba. Of
course, all such performances were illegal. Spain protested and raged
against them, and the United States government sincerely and
indefatigably strove to prevent them. But it was to no avail. The
expeditions kept going. For two years there was an average of one a
month, carrying men, arms and ammunition, and other supplies.

[Illustration: GEORGE RENO]

Another important traffic between Cuba and the United States was that in
information between the patriots in the island and the Junta in New
York. The chief agent in this perilous but essential work was Mr. George
Reno, who has since served in important capacities under the civil
government of the Cuban Republic. It was his duty periodically to run
the blockade between the little town of Guanaja and Nassau. The former
was a little place of a few hundred inhabitants on the Bay of Sabinal,
on the northern coast of Camaguey; and the latter was the capital of New
Providence Island in the British Bahamas, the favorite resort of
blockade runners during the Civil War in the United States, and since
then the terminus of a cable line running to Jupiter, on the Florida
coast. At Nassau Dr. Indalacio Salas, a Cuban physician, who had lived
there many years, represented the Junta and acted as a sort of Cuban
postmaster; receiving letters and messages from Cuba and forwarding them
to the United States, and vice versa.

This contraband messenger service between Cuba and Nassau was one of the
romantic features of the campaign of which the public knew nothing. The
trips were made in a little sloop-rigged yacht, carrying three or four
men, and while they afforded no spectacle to the public eye and did not
figure in the news as did various filibustering expeditions, they were
often of vital importance to the patriot cause, and they were fraught
with much peril. The passage of several hundred miles was made across
the Great Bahama Bank and the Tongue of Ocean; perilous waters dotted
with reefs and rocks and subject to violent storms, and closely watched
at the south by Spanish cruisers. The portion of the trip nearest the
Cuban coast was generally made at night, to avoid the Spaniards, but the
darkness added to the peril in other respects.

This service was the chief though not the sole means of communication
between the Cuban patriots and the rest of the world. Some
correspondence was smuggled out of Havana on American steamers, but that
was perilous work and was seldom attempted. Some was carried by a Cuban
sailor in a little cat-rigged boat, with which he made trips when
occasion offered between some point on the southern coast of Oriente and
the island of Jamaica. On these trips, both from Nassau and Jamaica,
were carried not only letters and communications of all sorts but also
important supplies of medicines, surgical instruments, and other small
articles which were often of indispensable value. The service was
therefore of the greatest possible value to the Cubans, and it was
arduous and perilous to those who rendered it. It was performed,
however, without remuneration or compensation of any kind, save the
satisfaction of aiding the patriot cause. The Cuban revolution had no
money with which to pay salaries, but all men served for the sake of
Cuba Libre.

The attitude of the people of Cuba toward the revolution, so far as at
this early date they knew what was going on, was varied according to
their occupations, interests and relationships. The professional
classes, the lawyers, physicians, educators, men of letters and others,
for the most part wished for complete separation from Spain, and aided
the cause of independence with their money and their influence. There
were, however, some of them, including not a few of the most estimable
and most patriotic men on the island, whose faith was not able to
forecast victory. They saw on the side of the Cubans lack of money, lack
of arms and ammunition, and lack of that direct connection with the
outer world which was indispensable for support; and on the side of
Spain plenty of money, equipment and communications, and an army of
200,000 trained soldiers thrown into a territory about the size of the
State of Pennsylvania, together with an inflexible resolution never to
surrender the island but to suppress every insurrection at no matter
what cost. It was surely not strange that they regarded such odds as too
formidable to be overcome, by even the most ardent and self-sacrificing
patriotism, and therefore thought that the course of greater wisdom
would be to persuade, compel or otherwise prevail upon Spain to bestow
upon the island a genuine and satisfactory measure of autonomy.

The merchants and commercial classes very largely consisted of
Spaniards, a fact which sufficiently indicates their attitude. They were
not only resolutely committed against the revolution, and indeed against
autonomy, but they were almost incredibly bitter against the Cuban
Independence party. It was from those classes that the notorious "Cuban
Volunteers" had been recruited in the Ten Years' war, men who, though
living in Cuba and enriching themselves from her resources, were "more
Spanish than Spain." They corresponded with the Tories of the American
Revolution, and not merely the Tories who sat in their chairs and railed
against the Revolution, but rather those who took up arms in the
British cause, and who allied themselves with the Red Indians with
tomahawk and scalping knife. The animus of these Spaniards in Cuba was
not, generally speaking, love of Spain, nor yet hatred of the Cubans,
but rather greed of gain. They were not patriotic, but simply sordid.
With Cuba under Spanish domination, they were enabled to amass great
wealth, and they wanted such conditions and such opportunities of
enrichment continued. That was not an exalted attitude, and it was
naturally odious to the Cuban patriots who were serving without pay and
sacrificing their all for the independence of the island and for the
attainment of a degree of material prosperity as well as of civic and
spiritual enfranchisement immeasurably beyond the sordid conceptions of
these selfish time-servers.

The attitude of another important though less numerous and less
demonstrative class, the manufacturers of sugar and tobacco, varied
greatly according to the individual. Some were Spaniards; and they, like
the merchants, were inflexibly opposed to the revolution, for similar
reasons. Some were Autonomists, and they inclined toward compromise.
They did not want their lands to be ravaged and their cane fields and
buildings to be burned in war; not because they would hesitate at any
necessary sacrifice for the welfare of Cuba but because they regarded
such sacrifices as unnecessary. Some were members of the Cuban
Independence party, and they cordially and eagerly supported the
revolution; saying: "Let our fields and buildings be burned. If it is
necessary in order to free the island that our property shall be ruined,
let it be ruined!"

This patriotic attitude of some of the great property-owners, who had
most to lose through the ravages of war but who were ready to risk all,
was finely displayed in the very midst of the conflict. There were in
the Province of Santa Clara two very wealthy Cuban women, sisters. They
were Marta Abreu, who became the wife of the Vice-President of the Cuban
Republic, and who died in France, and Rosalie Abreu, whose home is
preeminently the "show place" of Cuba and is perhaps the most beautiful
residence in all the tropical regions of the world. These women gave
large sums of money for the revolution and made many sacrifices for it,
beside running great risks of utter disaster to their fortunes. They
were both in Paris when news came of the death of Antonio Maceo, the
brilliant and daring commander who had carried the war westward into
Havana and Pinar del Rio and who fell in battle in the former province.
His death was a disaster well calculated to shake the fortitude of the
patriots, if not to strike them with despair. But immediately upon
hearing the news Marta Abreu sent a cable dispatch to Benjamin Guerra,
the Treasurer of the Junta, urging him not to be discouraged but to
"keep the good work going," and adding that she and her sister were each
mailing him a check for $50,000. Such a spirit was indomitable.

The small farmers of the island, or "guajiros," the peasantry and rural
workingmen, were strongly in favor of the revolution, although it meant
unspeakable hardships to them. They sent their families up into the
mountains, where they would be comparatively safe from the actual
fighting, and where the old men, the women and the children could
cultivate little patches of ground, planted with sweet potatoes, yucca
and other food plants, which would supply them with nourishment and also
contribute to the feeding of the patriot army. Then the men joined the
ranks of the revolutionary army. It should be added that among the most
eager recruits were many sons of Autonomists. Their fathers deprecated
the war, but the sons realized its necessity. There were even some sons
of Spanish Loyalists in the patriot army, who fought faithfully for the
Cuban cause against their own fathers.

The priesthood of the island was absolutely against the revolution and
in favor of maintaining the sovereignty of the Spanish crown in Cuba.
There may have been a few exceptions, of priests who not only favored
independence but who actually went into the field with the patriot army
and fought for it. But apart from them the Church was solidly for Spain.
The great majority of the priests had come from Spain, and remained
Spaniards at heart and in political sympathy. They preached from their
pulpits against the revolution, and undoubtedly exerted considerable
influence in that direction. That fact was not forgotten after the war,
and it explained the very general antipathy toward or at least lack of
sympathy with the Church which then and thereafter prevailed among the
men of Cuba. The women, even the most patriotic, largely remained
faithful to the Church and subject to its spiritual influence, but the
men renounced it because of what they regarded as its unfaithfulness to
the cause of Free Cuba.

There were at this time happily no racial nor partisan differences among
the patriots of Cuba. There were white men, there were negroes, and
there were those of mixed blood. But the same spirit of independence
animated them all, and they fought side by side in the field, and sat
side by side in council, with never a thought of prejudice. Antonio
Maceo, one of the most honored and trusted patriot generals, was a
mulatto, but he was regarded as the peer of any of the white commanders,
white men gladly served under him, and we have already seen how his
death was regarded by the Abreu sisters, who were aristocrats of the
purest Creole blood. It was only in later years, after Cuban
independence had been attained, that so much as an attempt was made at
the raising of race issues in Cuba, and then only through the exercise
of the most sinister and unworthy influences for sordid ends.

Nor were there partisan differences. Indeed at this time the Cuban
Independence Party was a harmonious unity. There were no symptoms of any
factional division. The rise of partisanship did not occur until after
the war of independence had been won and, if we may for a moment
anticipate the course of events, until it was realized that the United
States really meant to keep its word and make Cuba an independent
Republic. For, truth to tell, when the United States intervened in the
conflict between Cuba and Spain, in the spring of 1898, while there was
assured confidence throughout the island that the end of Spanish rule
was at hand, there was also a general belief that annexation to the
United States was inevitable. The great majority of the Cuban people
probably did not know of the pledge which was appended to the
Declaration of War, that the United States would withdraw and leave Cuba
to self-government, and they assumed that American intervention meant
American conquest and annexation. The comparatively few who did know
about it had little expectation that it would ever be fulfilled. Even if
the United States made the promise in good faith, something would happen
to prevent its being carried out. When at last it was found that the
United States was in earnest, and that Cuba was indeed to have
independence, just as though she had won it without aid, there was
surprise amounting almost to stupefaction, there was unbounded
exultation, and there was, unhappily, division of the people into
antagonistic parties. Of these we shall hear more hereafter.

Thus was the issue joined. The great mass of the Cuban people was united
and harmonious in its determination at last to achieve that independence
of the island for which so many men during so many years had wished and
worked and suffered. The Spanish party was implacable; and the
Autonomists were largely unsympathetic--not all, for some in time joined
the revolution; but the Cuban Independence party, comprising the large
majority of the population, was resolute and irrepressible in its
course.




CHAPTER III


The war was on. Marti and his comrades had planned to have a
simultaneous uprising in all six provinces on February 24. In each a
leader was appointed, an organization was formed, and such supplies as
could be obtained were provided. But in only three provinces did an
actual insurrection occur. These were Oriente, or Santiago as it was
then called, Santa Clara, and Matanzas; the extreme eastern and the two
central provinces. In Oriente uprisings occurred at two points, under
Henry Brooks at Guantanamo, and at Los Negros under Guillermon Moncada.
In Matanzas there were also two uprisings; one at Aguacate, on the
Havana borderline, under Manuel Garcia, and one at Ybarra. In Santa
Clara the chief demonstration was near Cienfuegos, under General
Matagas. The uprising in Havana was to have been under the leadership of
Julio Sanguilly, but in some way never satisfactorily explained he was
betrayed and arrested and the outbreak did not occur. There were not a
few who at first suspected and even charged that Sanguilly himself had
betrayed the cause, for Spanish money, but his sentence to life
imprisonment by the Spanish authorities seemed abundantly to disprove
this charge.

The insurgents naturally made most headway at first in Oriente. There
were fewer Spanish troops in that province and there were more mountain
fastnesses for refuge in case of enforced retreat, than in the more
densely settled and populated central provinces. We have already seen
that a numerous company of patriots marched from Baire to Santiago to
present to the Spanish commander there, General Jose Lachambre, their
demands for the independence of Cuba. That officer of course rejected
their demands, and on their retirement sent Colonel Perico Perez after
them with 500 troops, to capture or disperse them. But Perez and his men
did neither. Instead, they joined the insurgents under Henry Brooks, and
were among the foremost to do effective work against the Spaniards. Maso
Parra recruited a strong band near Manzanillo, but instead of fighting
there proceeded to Havana Province, accompanied by Enrique Cespedes and
Amador Guerra, in hope of raising the standard of revolution where
Sanguilly had failed. The Spanish forces were so strong there, however,
as to overawe most of the Cubans, or at any rate to make it seem more
expedient to put forward their chief efforts in other places. In
Matanzas the earliest engagements were fought by troops under Antonio
Lopez Coloma and Juan Gualberto Gomez, with indifferent results. Another
sharp conflict occurred at Jaguey Grande, and there were yet others at
Vequita; at Sevilla, where the patriots defeated 1,500 Spanish regulars
commanded by General Lachambre; at Ulloa, at Baire, and at Los Negros. A
belated uprising in Pinar del Rio under General Azcuy came speedily to
grief, as did another near Holguin. By the early days of March the
entire movement seemed to have subsided save in the southern parts of
Oriente.

The Spanish authorities had acted promptly and vigorously. The
revolution began on February 24. The very next day a special meeting of
the Spanish Cabinet was held at Madrid, as a result of which the
Minister for the Colonies, Senor Abarzuza, authorized Captain-General
Callejas to proclaim martial law throughout Cuba. This was in fact done
by Callejas before Abarzuza's order reached him, and he also put into
operation the "Public Order law" which provided for the immediate
punishment of anyone taken in the performance or attempt of a seditious
act. The Captain-General had at his disposal at this time nominally six
regiments of infantry and three of cavalry, two battalions of garrison
artillery and one mountain battery, aggregating about 19,000 men, and
nearly 14,000 local militia, remains of the notorious Volunteers of the
Ten Years' War; a total of nearly 33,000 men. But these figures were
delusive. Callejas himself reported, on his return to Spain two or three
months later, that half of the regular forces existed only on paper, and
that the militia was altogether untrustworthy. He had learned the latter
fact by bitter experience when at the very beginning Perico Perez and
his 500 men had deserted to the Cuban cause. The fact is that the leaven
of patriotism had begun to work even among the old Volunteers and still
more among their sons, and many of them came frankly over to the cause
which they or their fathers had formerly so savagely opposed. Callejas's
forces were very weak in artillery, but that did not greatly matter,
since the revolutionists at this time had none at all. He enjoyed the
great advantage of having possession of all the large towns and cities
along the coast with their fortifications both inland and seaward;
fortifications which were somewhat antiquated but still sufficiently
effective against ill-armed insurgents without artillery. The Spanish
navy in Cuban waters comprised five small cruisers and six gunboats; not
a formidable force, but infinitely superior to that of the
revolutionists, which consisted of nothing at all. It assisted in
protecting the coast towns, and served for the transportation of troops
and supplies, but its chief function was to guard the coast against
filibustering and supply expeditions.

Although the Spanish forces were very considerably superior to the
revolutionists numerically as well as in equipment and abundance of
supplies, Calleja realized that they would not be sufficient to cope
with the patriots on their own ground and in the increasing numbers
which he prudently anticipated would rally to their standard.
Accordingly early in March he sent to Spain an urgent call for large
reenforcements for both army and navy, declaring that he could not hold
his own, much less suppress the revolt, without them, and giving warning
that unless he received them promptly he would not be responsible for
the consequences. In response a battalion of regulars was immediately
transferred to Cuba from Porto Rico, and 7,000 more were sent from
Spain. All the civil prefects throughout the island were replaced with
military officers. In Havana and elsewhere all prominent Cubans
suspected of complicity or even sympathy with the revolution were
arrested and imprisoned. The Morro Castle at Havana was crowded with the
best citizens of the metropolitan province. But this attempt at
repression only added fuel to the flame. The revolution burst out anew
in the Province of Oriente, and when Callejas ordered the local troops
of Havana to proceed thither, they mutinied and refused to go. In such
circumstances Callejas, who at first had affected to regard the outbreak
as mere sporadic brigandage, now openly confessed that it was an
island-wide revolution.

Complications with the United States also speedily arose. The arrest of
Julio Sanguilly and others at Havana has been mentioned. These men had
been in the United States for years, and had become naturalized citizens
of that country, wherefore the United States consul-general at Havana,
Ramon O. Williams, made formal demand that they should be tried before a
civil court and should have the benefit of counsel, instead of being
summarily disposed of by court martial. This was a legitimate demand,
which had to be granted, but it incensed Callejas so much that he asked
the Spanish government to demand Williams's recall; which that
government very prudently did not do. At Santiago, also, two American
sailors, who had landed there in a small boat, and had been arrested as
filibusters, made appeal to the American consul there, who also insisted
that they should have a civil trial; as a result of which they were
acquitted.

[Illustration: LA PUNTA FORTRESS, HAVANA]

While thus careful to protect the rights of its citizens, native or
naturalized, the United States government was equally energetic in its
endeavors to prevent violations of the neutrality law by filibustering
expeditions, and went to great expense and pains therein. It watched and
guarded all Atlantic and Gulf ports to prevent the departure of such
expeditions, and gave hospitality to a Spanish cruiser which lay at Key
West to watch for and intercept them. Hannis Taylor, the American
Minister at Madrid, assured the Spanish government that the United
States would do all that was in its power to prevent such expeditions
from departing from its shores, and that promise was fulfilled with
exceptional efficiency. Indeed, the United States administration
incurred much popular censure for its energy in stopping the sailing of
vessels which were suspected of carrying supplies to Cuba; for it did
stop a number of them, to the very heavy pecuniary loss of the patriots.
Nevertheless some vessels were successful in eluding the vigilance of
the federal guards, and that fact gave umbrage in Spain; so that while
at home the American government was charged with hostility to the Cuban
cause, in Spain it was charged with too greatly favoring it.

With the receipt of reenforcements, Callejas made renewed efforts to
suppress the revolution; though he had little heart in the matter and
seemed to realize the hopelessness of the task. Practically all the
fighting was in Oriente. Colonel Santocildes made an unsuccessful attack
upon the patriots near Guantanamo on March 10, and a week later Colonel
Bosch had an equally unsatisfactory meeting with them under Brooks and
Perez near Ulloa. So strong were the insurgents becoming in that
province that they began to exercise the functions of civil government,
in the carrying of mails and the collection of taxes. Beside Henry
Brooks and Perico Perez, under whom were the largest forces, Bartolome
Maso, who had returned from Havana, held Manzanillo with a thousand
troops, Jesus Rabi occupied Baire and Jiguani with 1,500, and Quintin
Banderas, Amador Guerra and Esteban Tomayo had among them 2,000 more.
After his repulse at Guantanamo the Spanish Colonel Santocildes went to
Bayamo, where he was attacked and routed with heavy loss. A few days
later, on March 24, a battle was fought at Jaraguana between Amador
Guerra, with 900 Cubans, and Colonel Araoz, with 1,000 Spanish regulars,
in which the latter suffered the heavier losses, though they finally
compelled the Cubans to retire from the field.

At this time an effort was made by both the Captain-General and some
leaders of the Cuban Autonomists to make terms with the revolutionists.
With the assent and cooperation of Callejas a commission of Autonomists,
headed by Juan Bautista Spotorno,--who had once been for a time
President of the Cuban Republic, shortly after the Ten Years'
War,--proceeded to Oriente and sought a conference with Bartolome Maso
at Manzanillo. That sturdy patriot received them grimly. He listened to
their proposals in ominous silence. Then, in a voice all the more
menacing for its repression of passion, he addressed Spotorno:

"You were once President of the Cuban Republic in the Field?"

"Yes, Bartolome; you know that."

"You then as President issued a decree of death against anyone who
should seek to persuade the Cuban government to accept any terms short
of independence?"

"Yes, but...."

"Then, Bautista Spotorno, for this once, go in peace; but go very
quickly, lest I change my mind as you have changed yours. And be assured
that if you or any of your kind ever come hither with such proposals
again, I shall execute upon you or upon them your own decree!"

The next day Jose Marti and Maximo Gomez issued in Hayti the manifesto
which we have already cited, which had the result of assuring all
wavering or doubtful Cubans that the most authoritative leaders of their
nation were directing the revolution, and that it was to be indeed a
struggle to a finish. There was another result. The Spanish
Captain-General, Emilio Callejas, despaired of coping with the steadily
rising storm, and on March 27 he placed his resignation in the hands of
the Queen Regent of Spain. That sovereign immediately summoned a Cabinet
council, herself presiding. It was no longer the Liberal Cabinet of
Praxedes Sagasta. That body had fallen a few days before, in a
political crisis which had arisen in Madrid over a newspaper controversy
about Cuban affairs. An advanced Liberal paper, _El Resúmen_, had
imputed cowardice to army officers who, it said, were always eager to
serve in Cuba in time of peace, but shunned that island whenever there
was fighting going on. At this a mob of officers attacked and wrecked
the offices of the paper, and the next evening attacked the offices of
_El Heraldo_ and _El Globo_, which had denounced their doings. The next
day all the papers of Madrid notified the government that they would
suspend publication unless assured of protection against such outrages.
General Lopez Dominguez approved the conduct of the riotous officers and
demanded that the editors of the papers be delivered to him for trial by
court martial. The Prime Minister, Sagasta, replied that that would not
be legal, since all press offences against the army short of treason
must be tried before civil juries. Then Marshal Martinez Campos, who as
Captain-General had ended the Ten Years' War in Cuba, led a deputation
of army officers to demand of Sagasta that he should suppress _El
Resúmen_ and have more strict press laws enacted. Sagasta refused and,
finding his support in the Cortes untrustworthy in the face of military
bullying, offered the resignation of the Ministry, on March 17. The
Queen Regent invited Campos to form a Ministry, but he declined; though
he announced that all newspaper men attacking the army would be shot,
and he arbitrarily haled before military tribunals a number of editors,
while other journalists fled the country.

The Queen Regent then called upon Canovas del Castillo, the Conservative
leader, to form a cabinet, and on March 25 he did so, despite the fact
that his party was in a minority in the Cortes, and it was this
Conservative cabinet which the sovereign consulted four days later
concerning the resignation of Callejas and affairs in Cuba in general.
It was decided to accept Callejas's resignation, with special thanks for
his loyal services, to appoint Martinez Campos to succeed him, to ask
fresh credits of $120,000,000 for the expenses of the war, to send large
reenforcements to Cuba, and to increase the peace footing of the Spanish
army from 71,000 to 82,000 men. The troops in Cuba were at once to be
increased to 40,000 men, and 40,000 more were to be added, if needed, in
four months. Thus did Spain rouse herself to fight her last fight for
the retention of her last American possession.

It was not, however, until April 15 that Callejas received a message
from the Queen Regent, formally accepting his resignation, thanking him
for "the activity, zeal and ability" with which he had conducted the
military operations against the revolutionists, complimenting all the
forces under his command for their valor, and directing him to return to
Spain by the next steamer that sailed from Havana after the arrival of
his successor. And his successor landed the very next day, at
Guantanamo. There was much adverse comment among Spaniards in Cuba upon
this summary recall of Callejas. The explanation of it was that the
government regarded him as culpable for letting the revolution gain so
great headway, but it did not deem it politic to censure him publicly,
or at all until he was back at Madrid. As for Martinez Campos, he
promised on his acceptance of the appointment that he would quickly
suppress the revolt, as he had done the Ten Years' War; and doubtless he
expected that he would be able to do so.

Indeed, in sending Martinez Campos to Cuba, Spain "played her strongest
card." He had long been known as "Spain's greatest General," and also as
the "King-Maker," since it was he who had restored the Bourbon dynasty
to the throne. He was undoubtedly a soldier of great valor, skill and
resource. He was also a statesman of more than ordinary ability, and had
been for a time Prime Minister of Spain, and for fifteen years had been
making and unmaking ministries at will. Now, at the age of sixty-four he
was still in the prime of his powers and at the height of his popularity
and influence. His departure from Madrid for Cuba was attended with
demonstrations, both official and popular, which could scarcely have
been exceeded for royalty itself. He reached Guantanamo on April 16, and
on the following day assumed his office. It was not until a week later
that he reached Havana. There he was received with unbounded rejoicings
by the Spanish party, and with sincere satisfaction by the Autonomists,
while it must be confessed that many Cuban patriots regarded his coming
with dismay. There could be no doubt that it portended the putting forth
of all the might of Spain against the revolution, under the command of a
great soldier-statesman who had never yet failed in an undertaking.

On the very day after his arrival at Guantanamo the new Captain-General
issued a proclamation to the people of Cuba. In it he pledged himself to
fulfil in good faith all the reforms which had been promised in his own
Treaty of Zanjon and in subsequent legislation by the Spanish Cortes,
provided the loyal parties in Cuba would give him their support; this
admission of dependence upon the people being obviously a bid for
popularity. The parties in question were, of course, the Spaniards, who
were divided into Conservatives and Reformists, and the Autonomists, or
Cuban Home Rulers. They or their leaders at once pledged him their
support, and the Spaniards gave it, for a time. But a number of the
Autonomists were dissatisfied because he would promise nothing more
than the fulfilment of reforms which had never been regarded as
sufficient, and on that account refused him their support. Instead, they
gave it to the revolutionists, and many of them, especially the younger
men, actually joined the revolutionary army, or went to Jamaica or the
United States to assist in the raising of funds and the equipping of
expeditions. It was thus at this time that the disintegration of the
once influential Autonomist party began.

To the revolutionists he tried to be conciliatory. He offered full and
free pardon to all who would lay down their arms, excepting a few of the
leaders, and he doubtless expected that there would be a numerous
response. It does not appear that there was any favorable response
whatever. If any insurgents did surrender themselves--of whom there is
no record--they were outnumbered a hundred to one by the Autonomists who
at that time were transformed into revolutionists.

Campos did not rely, however, upon his proclamation for the suppression
of the insurrection. He set to work at once with all his consummate
military skill and his knowledge of the island and of Cuban methods of
warfare, to organize a military campaign of victory. He made General
Garrich governor of the Province of Oriente, with General Salcedo in
command of the First Division, at Santiago, and General Lachambre of the
Second Division, at Bayamo. He undertook the organization of numerous
bodies of irregular troops, to wage a guerrilla warfare against the
Cubans similar to that which the Cubans themselves waged successfully
against Spanish regulars. When he found his troops from Spain
disinclined toward such work, or unsuited to it, he sought the services
of young Spaniards who had for some years been settled in Cuba, such as
had been so ready to serve in the former war. They generally declined,
whereupon he sought to draft them into the service, and at that they
threatened mutiny. As a last resort he sent for Lolo Benitez, a life
prisoner at Ceuta. This man had been a guerrilla leader, on the Cuban
side, in the Ten Years' War, but had been guilty of cruelties which
caused the Cubans to repudiate him. He had been captured by the
Spaniards and sent to the penal colony in Africa for life. But Campos
brought him back and gave him a free pardon and commission as lieutenant
colonel in the Spanish army, on condition that he would conduct a
guerrilla warfare against his own countrymen. When this was done, and
when under this man were placed numerous criminals released from Cuban
jails, there were vigorous protests from Spanish officers against such
degradation of the Spanish army, and warnings that such unworthy tactics
would surely react against their author.

The official attitude of the Spanish government was at this time set
forth by the Spanish Minister to the United States, Senor Dupuy de Lome.
He belittled the reports of Spanish oppressions and of Cuban uprisings.
"There is very little interest," he said, "being taken in the revolt by
the people of Havana. I think the uprising will speedily be put down.
The arrival of General Martinez Campos has brought order out of chaos.
He has shown clearly to the people that their interests will be
protected, and as a result has caused a feeling of security. He is every
inch a soldier, not a toy fighter. He is loyal to his country, but he is
humane, and as far as possible he will treat his enemies leniently. In
the case of the leaders of the revolt, however, severe justice will be
meted out."

Meantime the revolution was proceeding. The most formidable figure in
its ranks in Cuba was that of Antonio Maceo, the mulatto general who
above most of his colleagues possessed a veritable genius for war, both
in strategy and in direct fighting. He had come of a family of fighters,
and had been born in Santiago in 1849, and had fought in the Ten Years'
War. He was highly gifted with the qualities of leadership among men,
with valor and resolution, with keen foresight and great intelligence.
He was probably the ablest strategist in the War of Independence, and
personally the most popular commander. At the end of March he arrived in
Cuba from Costa Rica with an expedition well equipped with rifles and
small field pieces. With him were his brother Jose Maceo, Flor Crombet,
Dr. Francisco Agramonte, and several other officers. The landing was
made at Baracoa, the Spanish gunboats which were watching the coast
being successfully eluded. Soon after landing the patriots were attacked
by General Lachambre's troops at Duaba, but the latter were repulsed
with considerable loss. A part of the expedition was then sent around by
sea to Manzanillo, on a British schooner. That vessel was wrecked and in
consequence its captain and crew were captured by the Spaniards, who put
the captain to death. Dr. Agramonte was one of several members of the
expedition who were also taken, but he, being an American citizen,
escaped court martial and was more leniently dealt with by a civil
court, on the demand of the American consul at Santiago.

In a short time this masterful leader, Antonio Maceo, had control of
practically all of the Province of Oriente outside of a few fortified
coast cities and camps. The Captain-General, vainly imagining that the
insurrection would be confined to that province, sent thither all
available troops, leaving Havana, Matanzas and the others with scarcely
more than police guard. Thus greatly outnumbered, Maceo wisely resorted
not so much to guerrilla warfare as to what may be called Fabian
tactics. He maintained his army in complete organization and observed
all the rules of civilized warfare. But he also maintained a high degree
of mobility, avoiding any general engagement, and wearing out the morale
of the Spaniards with forced marches, surprise attacks, and all the
bewildering and baffling tactics of which so resourceful and alert a
commander was capable. Early in April he was indeed in much peril, being
almost completely surrounded by superior forces near Guantanamo, and
actually suffering severe losses at Palmerito; but he cut his way out by
desperate fighting in which he also showed himself a master hand. The
most serious loss at that time was the death of the brave revolutionist
Flor Crombet. He was killed not by Spaniards but by a traitor in his own
command, whom Maceo presently detected and hanged. Soon after the affair
at Palmerito, however, Maceo captured El Caney, in the very suburbs of
Santiago, and seized the rich supplies in the Spanish arsenal at that
place.

The sending of so many troops from the other provinces to Oriente
emboldened the patriots of Havana and Matanzas to take up arms, and
uprisings occurred at various places, particularly at Cardenas and the
city of Matanzas. In the city of Havana itself a daring attempt was made
to seize Cabanas and El Morro, liberate the political prisoners, and
destroy the magazines if they could not be held. To encourage these
movements Maceo sent detachments of his forces from Oriente westward,
into Camaguey, then still known as the Province of Puerto Principe.
Jesus Rabi occupied Victoria las Tunas, near the boundary of the latter
province, and soon had bands operating beyond the border. There was an
Autonomist organization at Camaguey, which at first disavowed the
revolution and gave its adherence to the Captain-General, but it became
demoralized upon the approach of the revolutionary forces, and many of
its members were soon serving zealously in Maceo's ranks.

The arrival of Jose Marti and Maximo Gomez in Cuba at the middle of
April, as already related, almost simultaneously with the arrival of
Martinez Campos, was promptly followed by increased activity on the part
of the Cubans. Floriano Gascon organized a force of negro miners at
Juragua, and inflicted a crushing defeat upon a Spanish garrison at
Ramon de las Jaguas; the Spanish commander being afterward tried by
Spanish court martial and condemned to death for inefficiency. At the
end of the month a Spanish force was entrapped and almost destroyed by
Jose Maceo, near Guantanamo. The first half of May was also marked with
much fighting in the southern part of Oriente, in which the
revolutionists were generally successful. Railroads were destroyed to
break Spanish lines of communication, valuable supplies were captured,
and Martinez Campos was made to realize the formidable character of the
insurrection which he had so confidently promised to suppress.

Mention has already been made of the Provisional Government which was
proclaimed by Maceo early in April. On May 18 this was succeeded by
another organization elected by a convention of delegates consisting of
one representative of each 100 revolutionists actually in the field.
Bartolome Maso, who had been in control of the district of Bayamo since
early in March, was unanimously chosen President; Maximo Gomez was
designated as Commander in Chief of the army; and Antonio Maceo was made
Commander of the Division of Oriente. The next day occurred the tragedy
of Marti's death, whereupon Tomas Estrada Palma, who had formerly been
Provisional President, was named to succeed him as the delegate at large
of the Cuban Republic to the United States and other countries; Manuel
Sanguilly being later associated with him at Washington.

All through that summer the strife continued, steadily extending its
area westward into Camaguey and Santa Clara. Campos endeavored to
confine the war to Oriente, by stretching a line of 4,000 Spanish troops
across the island at the western boundary of that province, but on June
2 Maximo Gomez broke through that line, crossed the Jobabo River, and
entered Camaguey. There he was joined by a nephew of Salvador Cisneros,
Marquis of Santa Lucia, with a large force, and by Marcos Garcia, mayor
of Sancti Spiritus, who came across from the Province of Santa Clara.
With these reenforcements Gomez soon had control of all the southern
part of Camaguey, and on June 18 the Captain-General was compelled to
declare that province in a state of siege.

[Illustration: MAXIMO GOMEZ

The foremost military chieftain of the War of Independence, Maximo Gomez
y Baez, was a Cuban by adoption rather than birth, having been born at
Bani, Santo Domingo, in 1838. He was an officer in the last Spanish army
in that island, and went with it thence to Cuba. There he became
disgusted with the brutality of the Spanish officers toward the Cubans,
personally assaulted his superior, General Villar, and quit the Spanish
service, returning to Santo Domingo, where he engaged in business as a
planter. At the beginning of the Ten Years' War he returned to Cuba,
joined the patriots, and did efficient service, rising to the chief
command. After that war he returned to his plantation in Santo Domingo,
but in 1895 joined José Marti in leading the Cuban War of Independence.
Thereafter his story was the story of the Cuban cause. Declining to be
considered a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, he retired to
private life after the establishment of independence, and died in 1905,
full of years and honor.]

Then Campos attempted a second barricade. He placed a line of troops
across the island from Moron to Jucaro, near the western boundary of
Camaguey, to prevent Gomez from going on into Santa Clara province. This
was the line along which was afterward built a military railroad, and on
which was constructed the famous "Trocha" or barrier of ditches, wire
fences and block houses. It almost coincided with the line of
demarcation between the two ecclesiastical dioceses into which the
island was divided. But this attempt to confine the insurrection was no
more successful than the other. Indeed it was folly to try to shut the
revolution out of Santa Clara when it was already there. Marcos Garcia
had left behind him many fervent patriots at Sancti Spiritus, and
these soon organized a formidable force under the competent lead of
Carlos Ruloff, and took the field, advancing northward and westward as
far as Vega Alta. General Zayas and other patriotic leaders operated in
the southern part of Santa Clara, and soon that province was almost as
fully aflame with revolution as Oriente itself. This was the more
significant, because it was a populous and opulent province, where the
inhabitants had much to lose through the ravages of war. But like the
Romans in the "brave days of old," the Cubans of the revolution "spared
neither lands nor gold, nor limb nor life," for the achievement of their
national independence.

Meantime in Oriente the Cubans were more than holding their own. They
suffered a sore loss in the death of the dashing champion Amador Guerra,
who was treacherously slain in the moment of victory at Palmas Altas,
near Manzanillo. But Henry Brooks landed supplies of artillery and
ammunition at Portillo; Jesus Rabi almost annihilated a strong Spanish
force in a defile near Jiguani and thus frustrated General Salcedo's
plans to surround Maceo's camp at San Jorge; and on July 5 Quintin
Bandera and Victoriano Garzon attacked and dispersed a newly landed
Spanish army and captured its stores of arms and ammunition. These
reverses for his arms exasperated Campos into the issuing of a
proclamation on July 7, in which, while still offering pardon to all who
voluntarily surrendered, he threatened death to all who were captured
under arms, and exile to African prisons to all who were convicted of
conspiring against the sovereignty of Spain.

Following this, Campos, "Spain's greatest soldier," took the field in
person. Of this there was need, for Maceo was besieging Bayamo,
capturing all supplies which were sent thither, and threatening the
Spanish garrison with starvation. Campos hastened to the relief of that
place with General Santocildes and a strong force. But Maceo did not
hesitate to measure strength with Campos. He attacked him openly at
Peralejo, out-manoeuvered him and out-fought him and came very near to
capturing him with his whole headquarters staff. Campos was indeed saved
from capture only by the desperate valor of Santocildes, who lost his
life in defending him: but he did lose his entire ammunition train and
was compelled to retreat with the remnant of his shattered forces into
Bayamo and there undergo the humiliation of being besieged by the
"rebels" whom he had affected to despise. There he remained for a week,
until General Suarez Valdez could come with an army, not to defeat the
Cubans but to help Campos to flee in safety over the road by which he
had come. Then, when the Spaniards had concentrated more than 10,000
troops at Bayamo for a supreme struggle the wily Maceo quietly and
swiftly removed his forces to another scene of action.

Meantime in the far east of the province the patriots besieged the fort
in Sabana and would have forced its surrender had not Spanish
reenforcements arrived from Baracoa for its relief. The fort was
destroyed, however, and the place had to be abandoned by the Spanish.
Also at Baire, where the revolution began, Jesus Rabi captured a Spanish
fort and its garrison. Everywhere throughout Oriente the Spaniards were
on the defensive, while in every other province, even in Pinar del Rio,
the revolution was ominously gaining strength.




CHAPTER IV


It now seemed opportune to effect a more complete organization of the
civil government of the Cuban Republic, and for that purpose a
convention was held in the Valley of the Yara, at which on July 15 a
Declaration of Cuban Independence was proclaimed, and on August 7, near
Camaguey the action of May 18 was confirmed and amplified, Bartolome
Maso being retained as President; Maximo Gomez as Vice-President and
Minister of War; Salvador Cisneros as Minister of the Interior; Gonzalo
Quesada as Secretary for Foreign Affairs, with residence in the United
States; Antonio Maceo as General in Chief of the Army; and Jose Maceo as
Commander of the Army of Oriente.

This was not, however, a finality. A national Constitutional Convention
was called, at Najasa, near Guiamaro, in the Province of Camaguey, at
which were present regularly elected representatives from all six
provinces of the island. It afterward removed to Anton, in the same
province, where it completed its labors on September 23, when the
Constitution of the Republic of Cuba was completed and promulgated.
Salvador Cisneros y Betancourt, Marquis of Santa Lucia, was chosen by
acclamation to preside over the deliberations of this important body,
and associated with him were the ablest and best minds of the Cuban
nation.

This Constitution provided for the government of Cuba by a Council of
Ministers, until such time as the achievement of independence and the
signing of a treaty of peace with Spain should make it practicable for a
Legislative Assembly to be convoked and to meet for the performance of
its functions. The Council of Ministers was to consist of six members: a
President, Vice-President, and Secretaries of War, Foreign Affairs,
Interior, and Treasury. This Council was to have full governmental
powers, both legislative and administrative, civil and military; to levy
taxes, contract loans, raise and equip armies, declare reprisals against
the enemy when necessary, and in the last resort to control the military
operations of the Commander in Chief. Treaties were to be made by the
President and ratified by the Council. It was provided, however, that
the treaty of peace with Spain, when made, must be ratified not only by
the Council but also by the National Legislative Assembly which was then
to be organized. No decree of the Council was valid unless approved by
four of the six members, including the President. The President had
power to dissolve the Council, in which case a new Council had to be
formed within ten days. It was required that all Cubans should be
obliged to serve the republic personally or with their property, as they
might be able. But all property of foreigners was to be exempt from
taxation or other levy, provided that their governments recognized the
belligerency of Cuba. It was provided that there should be a national
judiciary entirely independent of the legislature and executive.

Under this system the Council was organized as follows: President,
Salvador Cisneros y Betancourt, of Camaguey; Vice-President, Bartolome
Maso, of Manzanillo, Oriente; Secretaries--of War, Carlos Roloff, of
Santa Clara; of Foreign Affairs, Rafael Portuondo, of Santiago; of the
Treasury, Severa Pina, of Sancti Spiritus; of the Interior, Santiago J.
Canizares, of Los Remedios. Each Secretary appointed his own Deputy, who
should have full power when taking his chief's place, as follows: War,
Mario G. Menocal, of Matanzas; Foreign Affairs, Fermin G. Dominguez;
Treasury, Joaquin Castillo Duany, of Santiago; Interior, Carlos Dubois,
of Baracoa. The Commander in Chief was Maximo Gomez; the
Lieutenant-General, or Vice-Commander in Chief was Antonio Maceo, and
the Major Generals were Jose Maceo, Maso Capote, Serafin Sanchez, and
Fuerto Rodriguez. Tomas Estrada Palma was minister plenipotentiary and
diplomatic agent abroad. Later Bartolome Maso and General de Castillo
were made special envoys to the United States.

Salvador Cisneros, the President, has already been frequently mentioned
in this history. He came of distinguished ancestry, the names of
Cisneros and Betancourt frequently occupying honorable places in the
annals of Cuba. Born in 1832, he was by this time past the prime of
life, but he was just as zealous and efficient in the cause of Cuban
freedom as he was when he sacrificed his title of Marquis of Santa
Lucia, and sacrificed his estates, too, which were confiscated by the
Spanish government, when he joined the Ten Years' War, later to succeed
the martyred Cespedes as President. Of Bartolome Maso, too, we have
spoken much. He also was advanced in years, having been born in 1831,
and he, too, had served through the Ten Years' War and had in
consequence of his patriotism lost all his estates.

Carlos Roloff, the Secretary of War, was a Pole, who had come to Cuba in
his youth and settled at Cienfuegos; bringing with him the passionate
love of freedom which had long been characteristic of the Poles. He
fought through the Ten Years' War and gained distinction therein, by his
valor and military skill.

Mario G. Menocal, the Assistant Secretary of War, was a native of Jaguey
Grande, Matanzas, at this time only twenty-nine years old. He came of a
family eminent in Cuban history, and indeed in the history of North
America, since he was a nephew of that A. G. Menocal who was perhaps the
most distinguished and efficient of all the engineers and surveyors for
the Isthmian Canal schemes, both at Nicaragua and Panama. He himself
was, even thus early in life, one of the foremost engineers of Cuba.

[Illustration: ANICETO G. MENOCAL]

Rafael Portuondo y Tamayo, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, was another
young man--born at Santiago in 1867--of distinguished family and high
ability. His Assistant Secretary, Fermin Valdes Dominguez, was one of
the most eminent physicians of Havana, and was one of those students
who, as hitherto related, were falsely accused by the Volunteers of
desecrating an officer's grave. He escaped the fate of shooting, which
was meted out to one in every five of his comrades, but was sent to
life-long penal servitude at Ceuta. After the Treaty of Zanjon he was
released and returned to Havana, where he attained great distinction in
his profession.

Severa Pina, Secretary of the Treasury, belonged to one of the oldest
families of Sancti Spiritus. His Assistant, Dr. Joaquin Castillo Duany,
has already been mentioned as one of the organizers of the Cuban Junta
in New York. He had served on the United States Naval relief expedition
which went to the Arctic regions in quest of the survivors of the
_Jeannette_ exploring expedition.

Santiago J. Canizares, Secretary of the Interior, was one of the
foremost citizens of Los Remedios, and his Assistant, Carlos Dubois,
enjoyed similar rank at Baracoa.

Meantime Martinez Campos was straining every effort to fulfil his
promise of victory. At the middle of July he had nearly 40,000 regular
infantry, more than 2,500 cavalry, more than 1,000 artillery and
engineers, 4,400 civil guards, 2,700 marines, and nearly 1,200
guerrillas. His navy comprised 15 vessels, to which were to be added six
which were approaching completion in Spain and 19 which were being
purchased of other European nations. Thus his troops outnumbered the
Cubans by just about two to one. For the latter aggregated only 24,000,
of whom 12,000 were under Maceo in Oriente, 9,000 in Camaguey under
Gomez, and 3,000 under Roloff and Sanchez in Santa Clara. In August
large reenforcements for Campos arrived from Spain, and they were no
longer, as before, half trained boys, but were the very flower of the
Spanish army. They brought the total that had been sent to Cuba up to
80,000, of whom 60,000 were regular infantry. However, probably between
18,000 and 20,000 must be subtracted from those figures, for killed,
deserted, and died of yellow fever and other diseases. But even if thus
reduced to 60,000, the Spanish were still twice as many as the Cubans,
who had increased their forces to not more than 30,000.

The plans of campaign gave the Cubans, however, a great advantage. Fully
half of the Spaniards had to remain on garrison duty in the cities and
towns, especially along the coast, so that the number free to take the
field against the Cubans was no greater than that of the latter. With
numbers anywhere near equal, the Cubans were almost sure to win, because
of their superior morale and their better knowledge of the country.

The Cubans suffered much, it is true, from lack of supplies, and this
lack became the more marked and grievous as the Spaniards increased
their naval forces and drew tighter and tighter their double cordon of
vessels around the island. Several costly expeditions which were fitted
out in the United States during the year came to grief, being either
restrained from sailing by the United States authorities or intercepted
and captured by the Spanish. One such vessel, fully laden with valuable
supplies, was seized at the mouth of the Delaware River, as it was
setting out for Cuba, and the cargo was confiscated. The company of
Cubans in command of the vessel were arrested and brought to trial, but
were acquitted since the mere exportation of arms and ammunition in an
unarmed merchant vessel was no violation of law. Far different was the
fate of any such who were captured by the Spanish at the other end of
the voyage, as they were approaching the Cuban coast. The mildest fate
they could expect was a term of many years of penal servitude at Ceuta.
Such was the sentence imposed upon sailors who were guilty of nothing
more than smuggling the contraband goods into Cuba. As for Juan
Gualberto Gomez and his comrades in an expedition which presumptively
was intended for fighting as well as smuggling, twenty years at Ceuta
was their sentence.

During the summer of 1895 a severe but necessary order was issued by the
Cuban commander in chief. This, addressed to the people of Camaguey
Province, directed the cessation of all plantation work, save such as
was necessary for the food supply of the families there resident; and
also strictly forbade the supplying of any food to the Spanish garrisons
in the towns and cities. Disobedience to these orders, it was plainly
stated, would mean the destruction of the offending plantation. It was
the purpose of General Gomez to deprive the Spaniards of all local
supplies and make them dependent upon shipments of food, even, from
Spain. This meant, no doubt, much hardship to the Cuban people. But
there was little complaint, and it was seldom that the rule was
violated. Whenever a flagrant violation was detected, the torch was
applied, and canefield and buildings were reduced to ashes. There was
also much destruction of railroads, bridges, telegraph lines and what
not, to deprive the Spanish of means of transport and communication. It
was a fine demonstration of the patriotism of the Cuban people that they
almost universally acquiesced in this plan of campaign, without demur
and without repining, although it of course meant heavy loss and untold
inconvenience and often severe suffering, to them. They realized that
they were at war, and that war was not to be waged with lace fans and
rosewater.

At the end of September, after the close of the Constitutional
Convention, preparations were made for renewing the military campaign
with more aggressive vigor. Jose Maceo was assigned to the command of
the eastern part of Oriente, General Capote and General Sanchez took
respectively the northern and southern parts of the western half, and
General Rodriguez led the advance into Camaguey. Maximo Gomez himself
accompanied Rodriguez's army, and was presently joined by Antonio Maceo,
and together they planned the great campaign of the war, which was
conceived by Gomez and executed by Maceo. This was nothing less than the
extension of the war into every province and indeed every district and
village of the island, by marching westward from Oriente to the further
end of Pinar del Rio.

Early in October Antonio Maceo set out to join Gomez in Camaguey, taking
with him 4,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry. At San Nicolas he suffered a
setback at the hands of General Aldave and a superior force of
Spaniards, but resolutely continued his progress. Gomez meanwhile pushed
on into Santa Clara, established headquarters near Las Tunas, where he
could be in touch with expeditions from Jamaica, and began the
aggressive against the Spaniards around Sancti Spiritus. Roloff,
meanwhile, was operating at the northern part of the province, at
Vueltas. Martinez Campos himself was in the field near Sancti Spiritus,
but failed to check the Cuban advance. In fact, at almost every point
the campaign was going steadily against the Spanish; so much against
them that Campos feared to let the truth be known to the world.
Accordingly he issued a decree forbidding the publication of any news
concerning the war save that which was officially given out at his
headquarters or by his chief of staff at Havana. Only Spanish and
foreign--no Cuban--correspondents were permitted to accompany the army,
and they only on their compliance with the rules.

Still Campos appeared to cherish the thought that he could end the war
by compromise, through pursuing a policy of leniency toward at least the
rank and file of the insurgents; and in this he had the support of the
Madrid government. That government had staked its all upon him, and was
naturally disposed to give him a free hand and to approve everything
that he did. However, it insisted that the rebellion must be crushed and
that no further reforms for Cuba could be considered until that was
done. It was feeling the strain of the war severely, especially since
its last loan for war funds had to be placed at more than fifty per cent
discount.

October was a disastrous month for the Spanish at sea. One of their
gunboats was wrecked on a key, and another, which had just been
purchased in the United States, was boarded and seized by a party of
revolutionists in the Cauto River, stripped of all its guns and
ammunition, and disabled and scuttled. General Enrique Collazo, who
earlier in the season had several times been baffled in such attempts,
at last got away from Florida with a strong party of Cubans and
Americans and effected a safe landing in Cuba. A little later Carlos
Manuel de Cespedes did the same, bringing a large cargo of arms. Two
expeditions also came from Canada, under General Francisco Carillo and
Colonel Jose Maria Aguirre. The latter, by the way, was an American
citizen who had been arrested in Havana at the very beginning of the
war, along with Julio Sanguilly, but was released at the very urgent
insistence of the United States government. Sanguilly, who was suspected
by some Cubans of having betrayed their cause, was held, tried, and
condemned to life imprisonment; a fact which cleared him of suspicion of
complicity with the Spaniards.

Maceo advanced through Camaguey and on November 12 reached Las Villas
with an army of 8,000 men. Gomez had meanwhile moved northward almost to
the Gulf coast, and was operating with 5,000 men between Los Remedios
and Sagua la Grande, where he joined forces with Sanchez, who had
marched westward, and with Roloff, Suarez, Cespedes and Collazo. He
established headquarters near the Matanzas border, where he was in touch
with Lacret, Matagas and other guerrilla leaders who were actively
engaged in the latter province. In that same month Maceo fought a
pitched battle with General Navarro, near Santa Clara, and a few days
later Gomez similarly fought General Suarez Valdes in the same region.
These were two of the greatest battles of the war, in point of numbers
engaged and losses suffered, and were both handsomely won by the
Cubans.

In view of these losses, Campos welcomed the arrival of 30,000
additional troops from Spain, under General Pando and General Marin. He
also resorted to recruiting troops in some of the South American
countries, particularly in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, thinking to
find them hardier and better able to endure the climate and the
hardships of Cuba than men from the Peninsula. Such recruiting was not
regarded with favor in those countries, where sympathy was generally on
the side of the Cubans; but a considerable number of adventurers were
found who were willing to serve for good pay as soldiers of fortune.
More and more, too, the Spanish soldiery indulged in excesses against
the inhabitants of Cuba as well as against the revolutionists in the
field, and the conflict showed symptoms of degenerating into the
savagery which marked it at a later date. It is to be recalled to the
credit of Campos that he resisted all such tendencies, and that he
indeed sent back to Spain two prominent Generals, Bazan and Salcedo,
because of their barbarous methods and their criticisms of his humanity.
General Pando, on arriving with the fresh troops from Spain, was placed
in command at Santiago; General Marin was assigned to Santa Clara;
General Mella operated in Camaguey; and General Arderius was charged
with the hopeless task of guarding Matanzas, Havana and Pinar del Rio
from invasion by the revolutionists.

The Cuban government, of President Cisneros and his colleagues,
established its headquarters at Las Tunas, and there approved another
military proclamation by the Commander in Chief, ordering the burning of
all cane fields and the laying waste of all plantations which were
providing or were likely to provide supplies to the Spaniards, and
threatening with death all persons found giving the Spaniards aid or
comfort. One notable blow was struck at the south, before the final
advance was made toward Havana and the west. This was at the middle of
December. Campos himself was at Cienfuegos, with 20,000 troops, and
Gomez and Maceo decided to give him battle. The redoubtable negro
farmer, Quintin Bandera, from Oriente, who at the age of sixty-three
years had become one of the most agile, daring and successful guerrilla
leaders, raided the Spanish lines and drew out a considerable force,
upon which the Cubans fell at Mal Tiempo, thirty miles north of
Cienfuegos. Only a couple of thousand men were engaged on each side, but
it was one of the most significant battles of the war, because it was
the first in which the Cubans relied upon the machete, and the result of
the experiment made that fearful weapon thereafter their favorite arm,
particularly in cavalry charges, and it struck a terror into the hearts
of the Spanish soldiers such as nothing else could do. The machete was
an enormous knife, as long as a cavalry sabre or longer, with a single
edge as sharp as a razor on a blade almost as heavy as the head of a
woodsman's axe. It had been used on sugar plantations, for cutting cane,
and was so heavy that a single stroke was sufficient to cut through half
a dozen of the thickest canes. Swung by the expert and sinewy arm of a
Cuban soldier, it would sever a man's head from his body, or cut off an
arm or leg, as surely as the blade of a guillotine. At Mal Tiempo a
whole company of Spanish regulars was set upon by Cuban horsemen armed
with nothing but machetes, and every one of them was killed.

Turning swiftly away from Mal Tiempo, where they had both been present,
Gomez and Maceo led their troops swiftly to the northwest and before
Campos realized what their objective was they were raiding and defeating
Spanish troops around Colon, in the east central part of the Province
of Matanzas, between Campos and Havana. The distracted Captain-General
hastened thither and, learning that they were retiring eastward toward
the town of Santo Domingo, in Santa Clara, directed his course thither;
only to find himself outwitted by the Cubans who had really moved
further toward Colon. At last he came into contact with them, and with
Emilio Nunez who had joined them, near the little village of Coliseo,
and there he was badly worsted in the fight, and came near to losing his
life, his adjutant being shot and killed at his side. The coming of
night saved him from further losses. But then the Cubans, pursuing
Fabian tactics, withdrew to Jaguey Grande, in Santa Clara, well content
with their achievement, where they took counsel over plans for the great
drive which was to carry them through Matanzas and Havana clear into
Pinar del Rio.

Campos made the best of his way hastily back to Havana, in a far
different frame of mind from that in which he had come to Cuba eight
months before. He had at that time in the island more than 100,000
troops in active service. Since his appointment as Captain-General
nearly 80,000 men had been sent thither from Spain. In addition there
were the Volunteers, or what was left of them. According to Spanish
authorities at Havana at that time the Volunteers numbered 63,000. True,
they would not take the field. But they were serviceable for police and
garrison duty in cities and towns, thus permitting all the regular army
to be put into the field. The same authorities declared that with the
Volunteers, marines and all other branches, Campos had at his disposal
189,000 men. It is probable that the entire force under Gomez and Maceo
in that first invasion of Matanzas did not exceed 10,000 men. These
things gave "Spain's greatest General" much food for thought; not of
the most agreeable kind.

It gave others food for thought; the Spanish Loyalists of both
Constitutionalist and Reformist predilections, and the dwindling but
still resolute body of Cuban Autonomists. The last-named were at this
desperate conjuncture of affairs Campos's best friends. The
Constitutionalists were hostile to him. They had from the first
disapproved his moderate and humane methods, wishing to return to the
savagery of Valmaseda in the Ten Years' War. The Reformists were
hesitant; they had little faith in Campos, yet they doubted the
expedience of openly repudiating him. The Autonomists, having faith in
his sincerity, respecting his humanity, and deploring the devastation
and ruin which was befalling Cuba, urged that he should be supported
loyally in at least one last effort to pacify the island and abate the
horrors of civil war.

The intellectual and moral power of the Autonomists carried the day. The
Reformists first and then the Constitutionalists agreed to join them in
making a demonstration of loyalty and confidence to the Captain-General,
to cheer and sustain him in the depression--almost despair--which he was
certainly suffering. So the representatives of all three factions
appeared publicly before Campos. For the Constitutionalists, Santos
Guzman spoke; an intense reactionary, who could not altogether conceal
his feelings of disapproval of Campos's liberal course, or his
realization of the desperate plight in which the country was at that
time. But he made an impassioned pledge of the loyalty of his party to
the Captain-General. For the Autonomists, Dr. Rafael Montoro was the
spokesman, one of the foremost orators and scholars of the
Spanish-speaking world. He had been a Cuban Senator in the Spanish
Cortes, and perhaps more than any other man in Cuba commanded the
respect and confidence of all parties, Spanish and Cuban alike. He also
pledged to Campos the unwavering support of the Autonomists in what he
believed sincerely to be the best policy for both Cuba and Spain. A
representative of the Reformists spoke to the same effect. Then Campos
responded with a frank confession that he had meditated resignation,
fearing that he had lost the united confidence of the various parties;
but that after this demonstration of loyalty, he would continue his
military and civil administration with restored hope of success in
pacifying the island.

We have called the Autonomists at this time the best friends of Campos.
It might be possible, however, to argue successfully that they were his
worst friends, or at least badly mistaken friends. It might have been
better, that is to say, for him to have persisted in retirement at that
time, instead of merely postponing the day of wrath. For his renewed
efforts either to crush or to pacify the revolutionists were vain. At
the very moment when he was gratefully listening to those pledges of
loyal support, Gomez and Maceo were pushing unrelentingly forward, not
merely through Matanzas but far into Havana province itself. And like
Israel of old, they were guided or accompanied by a pillar of fire by
night and a pillar of cloud by day. The plantations near the capital
were sources of supply for the Spanish, and they must be destroyed. It
seemed savage to doom canefields and factories to the torch. But it was
more humane to do that and thus make the island uninhabitable for the
Spaniards, than to lose myriads of lives in battle. Moreover, the
destruction of the sugar crop, then ripe for harvest, would do more
than anything else to cripple the financial resources of Spain in the
island. All Spain wanted of Cuba, said Gomez, grimly but truly, was what
she could get out of it. Therefore if she was prevented from getting
anything out of it she would no longer desire it but would let it go.

So night after night "the midnight sky was red" with the glow of blazing
canefields and factories, and day after day the tropic sun was half
obscured by rolling clouds of smoke from the same conflagrations; while
behind them the advancing armies left a broad swath of blackened
desolation, above which gaunt, tall chimneys towered solitary, above
twisted and ruined machinery, grim monuments of the passing of the
destroyer. Day after day the inexorable terror rolled toward the
capital. On the last day of the year the vanguard of the patriot army
was at Marianao, only ten miles from Havana, and every railroad leading
out of the city was either cut or had suspended operations. Two days
later Campos proclaimed martial law and a state of siege in the
Provinces of Havana and Pinar del Rio. Thus the new year opened with the
entire island involved in the War of Independence. Nor was it merely a
nominal state of war. Already Pinar del Rio was overrun by bands of
Cuban irregulars, who destroyed the cane fields of Spanish Loyalists and
ravaged the tobacco plantations of the famous Vuelta Abajo. But this was
not enough. On January 5, 1896, Gomez, leaving Maceo and Quintin Bandera
to hold Campos in check at Havana, drove straight at the centre of the
Spanish line which strove to bar his progress westward, broke through
it, and marched his whole army into Pinar del Rio.

That was the beginning of the end for Campos. In desperation he flung
all available troops in a line across the western part of Havana
Province vainly hoping, since he had not been able thus to keep him out
of Pinar del Rio, that thus he could keep Gomez shut up in that
province, deprived of supplies or succor. Meantime he sent three of his
ablest generals, Luque, Navarro and Valdez, into the western province,
in hope of capturing Gomez. But the wily Cuban chieftain played with
them, marching and countermarching at will and wearing them out, until
he had completed his work there. Then as if to show his scorn at
Campos's military barriers, he burst out of Pinar del Rio and reentered
Havana, sweeping like a besom of wrath through the southern part of that
province, and defeating the army of Suarez Valdez near Batabano. Then,
while all the Spanish columns were in full cry after Gomez, Maceo
crossed the border into Pinar del Rio at the north, and marched along
the coast as far as Cabanas, destroying several towns on his way.

From Batabano the Cubans under Gomez and Angel Guerra turned northward
again, and by January 12 were at Managuas, in the outskirts of Havana,
from which the sound of firing could be heard in the capital itself. The
railroads had been stopped before, and now all telegraph communication
with Havana was cut, save that by submarine cable. The city was not
merely in a technical state of siege but was actually besieged, and if
Jose Maceo and Jesus Rabi, who were on the eastern border of the
province, had been able promptly to join Gomez and Bandera, Havana would
probably have been captured. In this state of affairs the Spanish
inhabitants of the city were frantic with fear, and with faultfinding
against Campos for his inability to protect them from the
revolutionists. The Volunteers mutinied outright refusing to serve
longer under his orders unless he would alter his policy to one of
extreme severity. The Spanish political leaders openly inveighed against
him.

In these circumstances Campos invited the leaders of the various
parties, the very men who shortly before had pledged their support to
him, to meet him again for a conference. They came, but in a different
spirit from before. Santos Guzman was first to speak. He declared that
the Constitutionalists had lost confidence in the Captain-General and
did not approve his policy, and that they could no longer support him.
The spokesman of the Reformists was less violent of phrase but no less
hostile in intent and purport. From neither of the factions of the
Spanish party could Campos hope for further support. There remained the
Cuban Autonomists, and with a constancy which would have been sublime if
only it had been exercised in a better cause, they reaffirmed their
loyalty to Campos and to his policy and renewed their pledges of
support. But this was in vain. Campos realized that a Spanish
Captain-General who had not the support and confidence of the Spanish
party would be an impossible anomaly. He would not resign, but he
reported to Madrid the state of affairs, and placed himself, like a good
soldier, at the commands of the government; excepting that he would not
change his policy for one of ruthless severity. If he was to remain in
Cuba, his policy of conciliation, in cooperation with the Autonomists,
must be maintained.

The answer was not delayed. On January 17 a message came from Madrid,
directing Campos to turn over his authority to General Sabas Marin, who
would exercise it until a permanent successor could be appointed and
could arrive; and to return forthwith to Spain. Of course there was
nothing for him to do but to obey. In relinquishing his office to his
temporary successor he spoke strongly in defence of the policy which he
had pursued. Later, out of office, he talked with much bitterness of the
political conspiracies which had been formed against him by the
Spaniards of Cuba, of their moral treason to the cause of Spain, and of
the sordid tyranny which they exercised. He declared that Spain herself
was at fault for the Cuban revolution, which never would have occurred
if the island had been treated as an integral province of Spain and not
as a subject and enslaved country; and he prophesied that the verdict of
history would be, as it had been in the case of Central and South
America, that Spain had lost her American empire through the perverse
faults of the Spaniards themselves. "My successor," he added, "will
fail." Three days later he sailed for Spain.




CHAPTER V


The administration of General Marin lasted only a few weeks, but it was
marked with strenuous doings. His first effort was to do what Campos had
failed to do, namely, to maintain an impassable barrier between Pinar
del Rio and Havana. He massed troops on the line between Havana and
Batabano, and took command himself at the centre, hoping to draw Maceo
into a general engagement. But Maceo sent Perico Diaz with 1,400 men
from Artemisia to create a diversion just north of the centre, which was
done very effectively, Diaz and General Jil drawing a large Spanish
force into a trap and inflicting terrible slaughter with a cavalry
machete charge. Taking advantage of this, Maceo with a small detachment
easily crossed the trocha at the south. At once the Spanish forces all
rushed in that direction, to head off Maceo and to prevent him from
joining Gomez, whereupon the remainder of Maceo's troops crossed the
trocha at the centre and north. After raiding Havana Province at will,
and capturing fresh supplies, Maceo returned to Pinar del Rio, fought
and won a pitched battle at Paso Real, won another at Candelaria, where
the Spanish General Cornell was killed, and captured the city of Jaruco
and its forts with 80 guns.

By this time the new Captain-General had arrived. This was General
Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau; the man most of all desired--and indeed
earnestly asked for--by the Volunteers and other extremists among the
Spanish party in Cuba, the man most undesired by the Autonomists, and
the man most hated by the Cuban revolutionists. He had made himself
unspeakably odious in the Ten Years' War as the chief aid of Valmaseda
in his savage outrages, and he was confidently expected to renew in Cuba
the horrors of that campaign; as he did. Upon the announcement of his
appointment the Autonomists largely abandoned hope of any amicable
arrangement, and those of them who were mayors or other officers
promptly resigned their places, being unwilling to serve under him. Many
of them left Cuba altogether, dreading the horrors which they knew were
impending. As for the masses of the Cuban people, they flocked to the
standard of the revolution in greater numbers than before. Within a
month after Weyler's arrival at Havana, more than 15,000 fresh recruits
were following the banners of Gomez and Maceo.

[Illustration: GENERAL WEYLER]

It was on February 10 that Weyler landed in Cuba. He promptly issued a
number of decrees addressed to both the Spanish Loyalists and the Cuban
Revolutionists. He chided the former for their indifference and fears,
warned them that they must expect to make sacrifices and endure
sufferings, and demanded of them that they should themselves undertake
the guardianship of their cities and towns so as to release all his
troops for service in the field. The latter he threatened with all
possible pains and penalties if they persisted in their contumacy. Death
or life imprisonment was to be the fate of all who circulated news
unfavorable to the government, who interfered with the operation of
railroads, telegraphs or telephones, who by word of mouth disparaged
Spain or Spanish soldiers or praised the enemy, who aided the enemy in
any way, or who failed to help the government and to injure the
revolutionists at every opportunity. All inhabitants of Oriente,
Camaguey and the district of Sancti Spiritus in Santa Clara were
required to register at military headquarters and receive permits to go
about their business. Later he ordered all persons living in rural
districts to move into fortified towns, and confiscated the property of
all who were absent from their homes without leave. It should be added
that at the beginning of his administration he sought to curb and even
reproved and punished the cruelties of his subordinates.

In spite of the repudiation of Campos and his policy of pacification,
and the accession of Weyler and his policy of severity, the Spanish
Prime Minister, Canovas del Castillo, determined to make another attempt
at amicable settlement. Elections for a new Cortes were to be held, and
he directed that they should be held in Cuba as well as in the
Peninsula. To that end it was desirable to raise the state of siege in
at least the three western provinces, and on March 8 Weyler issued an
order which he hoped would conduce to that end. The civil guard, or
rural military police, was to be restored to duty, amnesty was offered
to all insurgents who surrendered within fifteen days and who had not
been guilty of burning or confiscating property, and all others were to
be treated as bandits, to be put summarily to death. All loyal
inhabitants were required actively to assist in repairing railroads,
telegraph lines, etc. A similar proclamation was issued for the other
provinces.

The elections were set for April 12, and were then held. The Reformist
faction of Spaniards refused to take part in them, not approving the
policy of Weyler. The Cuban Autonomists also refused to vote, or to
nominate candidates, excepting for Deputies from the University of
Havana and the Economical Society of Havana. They did this at great risk
to themselves, because Weyler after trying persuasions resorted to the
most ominous threats against them if they would not take part in the
elections, and there really was much danger that at least their leaders
would be arrested and imprisoned for treason. The outcome was that only
Constitutionalists voted, and only their candidates were elected;
representing an insignificant fraction of the Cuban people.

Meantime the war raged unceasingly. Having failed to keep the Cubans
from invading Pinar del Rio, and then from emerging from that province,
Weyler again formed a trocha from Havana to Batabano to prevent them
from moving further east. But both Gomez and Maceo broke through, the
former marching into the heart of Matanzas and playing havoc with the
sugar plantations, and the latter going southward to the Cienaga de
Zapata and thence into Santa Clara, where he received strong
reenforcements from Oriente and Camaguey. Then, when Weyler was massing
his troops in Santa Clara, Maceo with 10,000 men swept back to the very
gates of Havana. With the adoption of Weyler's policy as announced in
his proclamations, the war became a campaign of destruction on both
sides, each burning towns in order that they might not be occupied by
the other. In this fashion in a few weeks there were burned or laid in
ruins in Pinar del Rio the towns of Cabanaz, Cayajabos, Vinales,
Palacios, San Juan Martinez, Montezuelo, Los Arroyos, Cuano, San Diego,
Nunez, Bahia Honda, Hacha and Quiobra; in Havana there perished La
Catalina, San Nicolas, Nueva Paz, Bejucal, Jaruco, Wajay, Melena and
Bainoa; in Matanzas, Los Ramos, Macagua, Roque, San Jose and Torriente;
and in Santa Clara, Amaro, Flora, Mata, Maltiempo, Ranchuelo, Salamanca
and San Juan. Many other towns were partially destroyed. On March 13
Maceo attacked Batabano, one of the most strongly defended Spanish coast
towns, took 50 guns and much ammunition, and destroyed the town. Nine
days later Gomez sent troops into the city of Santa Clara, and captured
240,000 rounds of ammunition. He established his headquarters so near
Las Cruces that General Pando fled from that place to Cienfuegos; for
which cowardice he was recalled to Spain, as were several other
generals. Maceo, after his exploit at Batabano, returned to Pinar del
Rio, routed General Linares at Candelaria and another Spanish army at
Cayajibaos, and destroyed part of the town of Pinar del Rio.

Filibustering was now rife. In spite of the vigilance of the United
States government and of the Spanish navy, numerous expeditions carried
men and arms to the Cuban patriots. Those which were successful were
little heard of by the public, while those which failed often attracted
much attention. General Calixto Garcia, one of the most resolute and
daring veterans of the Ten Years' War, sent one on the steamer
_Hawkins_, which was lost at sea. He organized another on the British
steamer _Bermuda_, which was detained by the United States authorities
on February 24, and he was arrested and tried for "organizing a military
expedition," but was acquitted. A little later he reorganized the
expedition and reached Cuba with it in safety. Enrique Collazo and
others sent an expedition from Cedar Keys on the _Stephen R. Mallory_,
which was detained, for a time, but finally got off and landed most of
the cargo in Matanzas. The Danish steamer _Horsa_ was seized by the
United States authorities for carrying a military expedition. The
_Commodore_ carried a cargo of arms safely from Charleston, S. C. The
_Bermuda_ took another expedition from Jacksonville under Col. Vidal and
Col. Torres, but was attacked by a Spanish gunboat before all the cargo
was landed, and took to flight, throwing the rest of the cargo
overboard. Other successful expeditions in the early part of 1896 were
five on the steamer _Three Friends_, one of which was led by Julian
Zarraga and one by Dr. Joaquin Castillo Duany; three on the _Laurada_,
of which one was led by Juan Fernandez Ruiz and one by Rafael Portuondo;
several led by Rafael Cabrera, one by General Carlos Roloff, and one by
Juan Ruiz Rivera. One came from France, under Fernando Freyre y Andrade,
bringing 5,000 rifles and 1,000,000 cartridges. President Cleveland
issued a warning, that all violators of the United States neutrality
laws would be prosecuted and severely punished, and General Weyler
offered large rewards for information leading to the capture of such
expeditions, but the chief effect was to stimulate Cuban patriots to
greater efforts, if also to increased precautions.

Much attention was meanwhile paid to Cuban affairs by the United States
government, not only in trying to check filibustering but also in
looking after the rights--and wrongs--of American citizens, and also in
seeking an ending of a war which was commercially ruinous and humanely
most distressing. Several joint resolutions were introduced in the
Congress at Washington, for recognizing the Cubans as belligerents, for
inquiry into the state and conditions of the war, for intervention, and
for recognizing the independence of the Cuban Republic. There were
finally adopted on April 6 resolutions favoring recognition of Cuban
belligerency and the tender of good offices for the settlement of the
war on the basis of Cuban independence. It was of course necessarily
left to the discretion of the President to execute these designs. He did
not deem it expedient to recognize Cuban belligerence, but he did
promptly, on April 9, direct the American Minister at Madrid to make the
tender of good offices for ending the war on the basis of reforms which
would be satisfactory to the Cuban people. True, it had been made clear
that the great mass of the Cuban people would accept nothing short of
independence; but the American Secretary of State, Mr. Olney, believed
that if a genuine measure of Home Rule were granted and put into effect,
the Cubans and their friends in the United States would withdraw their
support from the revolution and thus constrain the revolutionists to
yield and accept the compromise. To this overture of the United States
government Spain made no reply; nor did it to a similar suggestion
offered by the Pope. But Tomas Estrada Palma, speaking for the Cuban
Junta in New York and for Cubans and Cuban sympathizers throughout the
United States, declared that they were not at all interested in any such
scheme, and that they would consider nothing short of absolute
independence.

The Spanish government did, indeed, consider a scheme of so-called
autonomy, somewhat resembling that of Senor Abarzuza at the beginning of
the war; but in the speech from the throne at the opening of the Cortes
on May 11 it was frankly recognized that the revolutionists would accept
nothing short of independence, and that therefore it would be expedient
to attempt any such reforms until the insurrection had been subdued by
force of arms; which was, of course, General Weyler's policy.

There were numerous diplomatic controversies between Spain and the
United States over Cuban affairs. The American Consul-General at Havana,
Ramon O. Williams, intervened in behalf of numerous American citizens
who had been arrested for complicity in the revolution, insisting upon
their trial by civil and not by military courts. In the case of five
American sailors taken on a filibustering expedition, death by shooting
was ordered by Weyler, but the Spanish government quashed the sentence
and ordered a civil trial on Mr. Williams's threat to close the
Consulate and thus suspend relations. Antagonism between the consul and
the Captain-General became so intense that Mr. Williams offered to
resign his office, but the President requested him to remain. However he
finally retired, at his own volition, and was succeeded on June 3 by
Fitzhugh Lee; who proved equally resolute in his protection of American
interests.

Meantime, what of the revolutionary civil government of the Republic of
Cuba? At the beginning it was a fugitive in the mountain fastnesses of
the Sierra Maestra, in the southern part of Oriente, between Santiago
and Manzanillo. Thence it removed to Las Tunas, in the same province.
But after the great eastward drive by Gomez and Maceo it established
itself permanently in the Sierra de Cubitas, in the Province of
Camaguey, midway between the city of Camaguey and the north coast of
Cuba. There it remained, in a practically impregnable stronghold, and
there it surrounded itself with such military industries as it was
capable of conducting--largely the manufacture of dynamite, machetes,
and of clothing. From that capital it directed an efficient
administration of the major part of the island. It levied and collected
taxes, and gave to about two-thirds of the island a mail service at
least as efficient as that of the Spanish government had ever been. A
complete judicial and police system was maintained, and was more
respected by the people than that of Spain. In brief it was
substantially true, as President Cisneros declared, that the island was
peaceful, law-abiding and well-governed, excepting in those places where
the Spanish invaders were making trouble!

But the Spanish did make trouble. Weyler once more strove to place an
impassable barrier between Pinar del Rio and Havana, to keep Maceo shut
up in the former province. He constructed it so strongly, with ditches,
block houses, barbed wire fences, artillery and what not as to make it
almost impossible of passage. Then he put 10,000 of his best troops west
of it, to fight Maceo, and distributed 28,000 more along the trocha to
keep Maceo from breaking out. The result was most unfortunate for the
Spanish troops west of the trocha. They were there to hunt down Maceo.
Instead, Maceo hunted them. If they ventured to attack him, he repulsed
them. More often he attacked them, and almost invariably routed them. At
Lechuza he cut to pieces Colonel Debos's column and drove its survivors
to the shelter of a gunboat at the shore. At Bahia Honda and Punta Brava
the Spanish were badly beaten. In the Rubi Hills a Spanish force was all
but annihilated, and the commanders began to clamor for reenforcements;
though Maceo had only 11,000 men, and the Spanish had 50,000 along the
trocha to keep him from crossing it. During the summer the campaign
slackened a little, though Maceo won several spirited engagements and
maintained his control of practically all the province excepting parts
of the coast. In the early fall, with his army increased to 20,000 he
resumed the aggressive; using for the first time a dynamite gun which
thoroughly demoralized the Spaniards. Near Pinar del Rio city, at Las
Tumbas Torino, at San Francisco, at Guayabitos and at Vinales, he
defeated the enemy and inflicted heavy losses. The same record was made
early in October at San Felipe, at Tunibar del Torillo, at Manaja, at
Ceja del Negro, and Guamo. A solitary Spanish victory was won at
Guayabitos.

Like the general government at Cubitas, Maceo had headquarters in the
mountains, and there guarded effectively a large and fertile region,
where supplies ample for feeding his army could be produced. He also
conducted workshops for the manufacture of arms and ammunition. Against
this position, in his rage and desperation, Weyler himself in November
led an army of 36,000 picked troops, with six Generals. For several days
attack after attack was made, every one being repulsed by Maceo with
heavy loss to the Spaniards, until at last, with a third of his army
destroyed, Weyler abandoned the attempt and retreated. Unfortunately, on
December 4 Maceo with his staff and a small force decided to undertake a
secret expedition to seek a conference with leaders in Havana Province.
They accordingly crossed the Bay of Mariel in a small boat and thus
reached the eastern side of the trocha. Messages were sent to
revolutionary chiefs in Havana and Matanzas, asking them to come to a
council of war at a designated point near Punta Brava, familiar to them
all as secure rendezvous. A few came promptly, but in some way the
secret of the meeting became known to the Spanish. In consequence, on
December 7, while he was expecting the arrival of more of his friends,
Maceo heard the sound of firing at the outposts of his camp. Riding to
the scene, he found Spanish troops attacking him. He rallied his troops
and under his directions they were soon mastering the enemy, when a shot
struck Maceo and he fell mortally wounded; his last words, referring to
the progress of the skirmish, being, "It goes well."

[Illustration: JOSÉ ANTONIO MACEO

Born at Santiago de Cuba in 1849, of a family of patriots and brave
fighters, and dying in battle at Punta Brava, near Havana, on December
7, 1896, José Antonio Maceo was one of the most gallant soldiers in the
Ten Years' War and one of the very foremost chieftains of the War of
Independence. Gifted with military genius and with leadership of men, he
was the greatest strategist and the most popular commander in the
Liberating Army, and the greatest terror to the foe. Partly of Negro
blood, he was an equal honor to both races, and finely typified in
himself their union in the cause of Cuban independence. A monument to
his imperishable memory crowns Cacagual Hill, where his remains were
buried.]

At his fall his troops were panic stricken and gave way, so that the
Spaniards occupied the field and plundered and stripped the dead. It was
said that they did not know that it was Maceo whom they had killed until
a native guide who was with them recognized his body. While they were
still plundering the dead Cuban reenforcements under Pedro Diaz came up,
furious at the loss of their peerless chief, and a desperate fight
ensued, which ended in the rout of the Spaniards and the recovery of
Maceo's body by the Cubans. When the defeated Spaniards got back to
headquarters and reported that they had slain Maceo, they were not
believed. It was not considered possible that he had crossed the trocha.
But a little later convincing confirmation came to them from a Cuban
source. This was furnished when Dr. Maximo Zertucha, who had been
Maceo's surgeon-general and who was the only member of his staff who had
survived the disastrous fight at Punta Brava, came to Spanish
headquarters and surrendered himself. He explained that he did so
because he had seen Maceo killed, and he regarded the loss of that
leader as certainly fatal to the cause of the Cuban revolution. The
Spanish authorities accepted his surrender and granted him full amnesty,
a circumstance which caused many Cubans to suspect that he had betrayed
his chief, by sending word of his whereabouts to the Spanish commander.
Of this there appears, however, to have been no proof. Thus perished
Antonio Maceo, who would have been the generalissimo of the Cuban forces
but for the prudent fear that maligners might then have spread
successfully the damaging libel that the revolution was nothing but a
negro insurrection; a fear which he himself felt, and on account of
which he insisted that Maximo Gomez should be the Commander in Chief of
the Cuban Revolutionary armies. Thus perished Antonio Maceo, a soldier
and a man without a superior in either of the contending armies, and a
commander, indeed, who, in personal valor, in strategic skill, in
resource, in resolution, in knowledge of the art of war, and in all the
elements of military greatness, was worthy to be ranked among the great
captains of all lands and of all time. The loss of him was irreparable.
But it was not fatal to the Cuban cause. Thereafter the effort of every
Cuban soldier and patriot was to increase his own efficiency to some
degree, so that the aggregate would atone for the loss that had been
sustained.

While Maceo was thus baffling the Spanish in the far west of the island,
Gomez and his lieutenants were more than holding their own in the other
five provinces. Jose Maceo in April marched from Oriente all the way to
the western side of Havana, where he was joined by Serafin Sanchez,
Rodriguez, Lacret, Maso, Aguirre and others, until nearly 20,000 Cubans
were gathered there. Gomez remained in Santa Clara, where the Spaniards
had a precarious foothold at Cienfuegos, protected by their fleet.
Colonel Gonzalez, commanding in the district of Remedios, routed the
forces of General Oliver. Then, the Spanish power in the three great
eastern provinces having been rendered negligible, a general movement
westward was undertaken, following in the trail of the two Maceos. Gomez
himself took supreme command, and Collazo, Calixto Garcia and others
marched their forces to join him. Calixto Garcia, after only Maximo
Gomez and Antonio Maceo, was the foremost chieftain of the patriots, and
not unworthy to rank with them in a trinity of military prowess. He was
now advanced in years, having been born in 1839, at Holguin, Oriente.
From childhood a fervent patriot, at the outbreak of the Ten Years' War
he took the field under Donato Marmol. His native bent for military
achievement assured him advancement, and at Santa Rita and Baire he was
a Brigadier General under Gomez. In 1871 he besieged Guisa and Holguin,
and then, when Gomez marched westward into Camaguey, thence to force
passage of the trocha between Jucaro and Moron, Garcia was left in
supreme command in Oriente. In that capacity he was active, triumphing
at Santa Maria, Holguin, Chaparra, the siege and capture of Manzanillo,
and at Ojo de Agua de los Melones. Then came the incident which for the
time ended his military career and which gave him that scar in the
centre of his forehead which was ever after so conspicuous a feature. At
San Antonio de Baja he and only twenty of his men were surprised and
surrounded by a large force of Spaniards. Seeing that escape was
impossible, and having vowed never to fall alive into the hands of
Spain, he put the muzzle of a pistol beneath his chin and fired. The
bullet passed through the tongue, the roof of his mouth, behind his
nose, and out at the centre of his forehead. But not thus was he to die.
The Spaniards took him to a hospital at Santiago, where he recovered,
and then sent him to prison in Spain; whence he returned to Cuba after
the Treaty of Zanjon. He was a leader in the "Little War"; then,
enjoying the respect and friendship of Martinez Campos, he went back to
Spain and for a time was a bank clerk at Madrid. Thus he was engaged
when the War of Independence began. Suspected and watched, he was not
able to escape until a year later. But on March 24, 1896, he landed at
Baracoa with an important expedition, and thereafter he was a raging and
consuming flame of war.

The westward march was marked with victory. On May 14 Colonel Segura's
whole battalion was captured. On June 9 and 10 near Najasa General
Jiminez Castellanos was soundly beaten and forced to retreat to
Camaguey. Then, hoping to bar the Cubans from Santa Clara, the Spanish
reconstructed the eastern trocha, from Jucaro to Moron, and sent forces
inland from Santiago and other coast towns to create a back fire in
Oriente. Calixto Garcia turned upon these latter, and routed them on the
Cauto River, at Venta de Casanova, and near Bayamo, and captured great
stores of supplies. At Santa Ana several stubbornly contested battles
occurred between Garcia and General Linares, in which the latter was
finally worsted. At Loma del Gato on July 5 the Cubans under Jose Maceo
and Perequito Perez defeated the forces of General Albert and Colonel
Vara del Rey, but at the heavy cost of Maceo's death. Meanwhile Juan B.
Zayas, Lacret and others penetrated Havana Province at will, in
guerrilla warfare; but Zayas was finally killed in an engagement near
Gabriel.

During the rainy season there was comparatively little activity, but in
the fall the advance westward began in earnest. Garcia captured
Guaimaro, and Gomez pushed on to Camaguey, but left the place to be
dealt with by Garcia and hastened on, with Rodriguez, Rabi, Bandera and
Carrillo. He crossed the trocha with ease, penetrated Santa Clara, and
was soon in Matanzas, where Aguirre joined them with 3,200 men. He put
an end to sugar making throughout most of the province, and then
encamped in the Cienaga de Zapata, leaving a number of active guerrilla
bands to harass and menace Havana. In the latter province at the
beginning of December Raoul Arango and Nicolas Valencia attacked the
town of Guanabacoa, only five miles from Havana, and seized great
stores of supplies. Beyond the western trocha Ruiz Rivera succeeded
Antonio Maceo in command, and carried on his work with much success.
Thus the second year of the war drew to a close with the patriots
despite some heavy losses decidedly in the ascendant, and the Spanish
campaign of ruthless severity no more successful than that of moderation
and conciliation had been.

One other incident of the year 1896 was highly significant. At the
beginning of December the President of the United States, Mr. Cleveland,
in his annual message to Congress, discussed the Cuban problem very
fully and frankly. He practically reasserted the historic policy toward
that island first enunciated by John Quincy Adams, as quoted in a
preceding volume of this history. He reasserted the Monroe Doctrine. He
made it clear that the United States had special interests in Cuba,
which not only all other nations but also Spain herself must recognize
and acknowledge. Concerning the war he said, most justly:

"The spectacle of the utter ruin of an adjoining country, by nature one
of the most fertile and charming on the globe, would engage the serious
attention of the government and people of the United States in any
circumstances. In point of fact, they have a concern with it which is by
no means of a wholly sentimental or philanthropic character. It lies so
near us as to be hardly separated from our territory. Our actual
pecuniary interest in it is second only to that of the people and
government of Spain. It is reasonably estimated that at least from
$30,000,000 to $50,000,000 of American capital are invested in
plantations and in railroad, mining and other business enterprises on
the island. The volume of trade between the United States and Cuba,
which in 1889 amounted to about $64,000,000, rose in 1893 to about
$103,000,000, and in 1894, the year before the present insurrection
broke out, amounted to nearly $96,000,000. Beside this large pecuniary
stake in the fortunes of Cuba, the United States, finds itself
inextricably involved in the present contest in other ways both
vexatious and costly."

Then he added, in words the purport of which was unmistakable:

"When the inability of Spain to deal successfully with the insurrection
has become manifest, and it is demonstrated that her sovereignty is
extinct in Cuba for all purposes of its rightful existence, and when a
hopeless struggle for its reestablishment has degenerated into a strife
which means nothing more than the useless sacrifice of human life and
the utter destruction of the very subject-matter of the conflict, a
situation will be presented in which our obligations to the sovereignty
of Spain will be superseded by higher obligations, which we can hardly
hesitate to recognize and discharge."

To those who knew Mr. Cleveland, and who appreciated the care with which
he selected every word in all important addresses, this could have but
one meaning. It meant that American intervention was inevitable. Note
that he did not say "_If_ the inability of Spain _should_ ... a
situation _would_ ..." as though the thing were still problematic. No;
but he said plumply "When the inability of Spain _has_ become manifest
... a situation _will_ be presented...." In his mind the thing was
certain to come. It had already come, and only awaited disclosure and
recognition. Remember, too, that of all men of his time Mr. Cleveland
was one of the most opposed to "jingoism," and meddling with the affairs
of other lands; while to any suggestion of conquest and annexation of
Cuba to the United States he would have offered the most resolute
opposition of which he was capable. In view of those facts, that
utterance in his message was of epochal import. It foreshadowed
precisely what did occur less than a year and a half later. It was in
effect a declaration of intervention and of war with Spain in behalf of
Cuban independence, made more than a year before the steamer _Maine_
entered Havana harbor.




CHAPTER VI


We have said that the death of Antonio Maceo moved Cuban patriots to
redouble their efforts to atone for the grievous loss which their cause
had thus suffered. Unfortunately not all of them were capable of so
doing, while those who did so were unable to make devotion and zeal take
the place of consummate military genius. In consequence, despite the
utmost efforts of Gomez and his colleagues matters went badly for the
revolution through most of the following year. Gomez himself indeed felt
that he had lost his right arm. He was at La Reforma, near Sancti
Spiritus, at the beginning of 1897, and he summoned the other
revolutionary leaders to meet him there, to concentrate their forces,
and to plan a new campaign. They came promptly and eagerly, some of them
unfortunately thus leaving without protection important strategic points
and centers of revolutionist industry, which were pounced upon and
captured by the Spanish. When the patriot forces were thus gathered it
was expected that there would be immediately undertaken a general
advance westward, into Matanzas and Havana; for which it was believed
the Cuban army was strong enough, and which the Spanish were not
believed to be able to resist.

Instead, Gomez decided first to effect the reduction of Arroyo Blanco.
This was a small and unimportant town in the Province of Camaguey, near
the Santa Clara border; containing a Spanish garrison under Captain
Escobar. Gomez first summoned Escobar to surrender, in order to avoid
the destruction which would be caused by the bombardment of the place
with a dynamite gun, which he threatened to begin forthwith. Escobar
defied him, and the bombardment was undertaken, but proved ineffective,
and before Gomez could capture the place strong Spanish reenforcements
arrived and the attempt had to be abandoned. Thereafter Gomez contented
himself with sending several strong bands westward, to conduct guerrilla
warfare against the Spaniards wherever they could, while he himself
remained near Sancti Spiritus, also engaging in irregular operations.

There he was presently menaced by Weyler himself. That formidable foe
had practically achieved the conquest of Pinar del Rio. After Maceo's
death the Cuban forces in that province had largely dispersed, some
abandoning the struggle altogether as hopeless, and others going to the
east, to join themselves with Gomez, Garcia or other surviving leaders.
Only a few roving bands remained. Accordingly Weyler announced that the
western province was pacified. That was sufficiently true; but it was
conspicuously true in the sense expressed by Tacitus, and Byron. They
had made a solitude, and called it peace. Seldom had any comparable
region been so thoroughly devastated and desolated. Then Weyler felt
himself free to lead his army elsewhere.

He set out from Havana with an imposing array of troops, and marched
through the heart of the province and of Matanzas, into Santa Clara. On
the way there was little fighting to do, not even to beat off guerrilla
bands. His attention was given, therefore, to devastating the country,
and to driving the inhabitants into "concentration camps," where they
were doomed to starve to death by thousands. By the end of February he
was triumphantly encamped at the foot of the Guamuhaya Mountains,
between Santa Clara and Trinidad, and had the satisfaction of having
wrought vast destruction upon the property of Cubans and upon the
essential supplies of the Cuban army.

A few weeks later Quintin Bandera with a small force came from Camaguey
and, by wading through the shallow water of the Bay of Sabanabamar, got
around the trocha and joined Gomez. The latter directed him to continue
westward, and to harass the Spaniards with guerrilla attacks. This was
done, and Bandera proceeded as far as Trinidad. Then failing to receive
necessary support he turned back, and on July 4 was killed in a skirmish
at Pelayo. East of the trocha Calixto Garcia continued his formidable
career against such Spanish forces as remained in that region. He
captured Las Tunas after forty-eight hours of almost incessant fighting.
In Matanzas and Havana the revolutionary bands were badly broken up by
the Spaniards, and they seemed to lack efficient leadership. Their
leader, General Lacret, fell into an unfortunate controversy with Gomez
over his treatment of Cubans who disregarded government orders,
especially in their attitude toward the Spaniards. Gomez, remorseless,
would have had them shot as traitors, but Lacret insisted upon more
lenient treatment of them, realizing that they were almost literally
"between the devil and the deep sea" and were therefore entitled to
sympathetic consideration. The outcome was that Gomez relieved Lacret of
his command and appointed Alexander Rodriguez in his place, in Matanzas.
That officer failed to command the loyalty of his troops, and the result
was that the latter generally deserted and dispersed. Mayia Rodriguez
was then ordered to the scene, but was unable to collect a sufficient
force, and remained in Santa Clara, hemmed in by the Spanish. General
Jose Maria Aguirre, who died in December, 1896, was succeeded in command
in the Province of Havana by Nestor Aranguren, who performed some
creditable minor operations, particularly against Spanish railroad
communications, but achieved nothing of real importance. His lieutenant,
General Adolfo Castillo, in the southern part of the province, was
killed in battle, in September, and was succeeded by Juan Delgado. The
Spanish General Parrado in October marched without opposition as far as
Los Palos, and there received the surrender of a small Cuban band; and
in November General Pando with a powerful army made his way without
serious opposition from Havana to the western part of Oriente.

It was during this year that Weyler's ever infamous "concentration"
policy, which was really a policy of extermination, reached its infernal
climax and was then repudiated and abandoned. This system, as already
related, was decreed on October 21, 1896. It required all Cubans, men,
women and children, to leave their homes in the rural regions and enter
concentration camps. These were simply huge pens, enclosed with fences
and barbed wire and guarded by Spanish soldiers. There the hapless
prisoners were huddled together, without shelter from the elements, and
with little or no food save such as could be procured by stealth. There
was none to be had within the enclosures, of course, and the prisoners
could not go out to get any, even if any was to be found in the
devastated country around them. Their friends outside seldom dared
approach the camps to bring them food, because as they had not
themselves surrendered as commanded by Weyler, they were liable to be
shot at sight.

Elsewhere Cubans by thousands were driven into towns and cities which
were still under Spanish control, and were there kept prisoners within
the Spanish lines. They were not quite so badly off as those in the
concentration camps, though the difference was not great. They had no
means of obtaining food, save as the municipal authorities, more
merciful than Weyler, opened "soup kitchens" and thus in charity kept
some of them from starvation. As it was the mortality from starvation,
disease and exposure was appalling. As it was reported that many of
these sufferers were American citizens, the President of the United
States asked Congress to appropriate $50,000 for their relief. This was
done, and the sum was sent to the Consul-General at Havana. He was,
however, able to reach only a small proportion of the sufferers, and
thus was presently compelled to report that he had been unable to expend
more than a fraction of the sum at his disposal. This monstrous policy
of waging war against non-combatants, including women and children, did
more perhaps than anything else to crystallize public opinion throughout
the United States against Weyler and against the Spanish government
which he represented and which was responsible for him, and to
strengthen the demand that was being made for intervention in behalf of
humanity.

This demand was made not merely by the "yellow press," which was
inspired by sordid and sinister motives, but also by the most
thoughtful, disinterested and upright men of America. Fitzhugh Lee, the
highly competent and trustworthy consul-general at Havana, officially
reported in December, 1897, that in the Province of Havana alone there
had been 101,000 of the "reconcentrados," of which more than half had
died. About 400,000 innocent and unoffending persons, chiefly women and
children, had been transformed into imprisoned paupers, to be sustained
by charity or to die of disease and famine. Senator Proctor, of Vermont,
one of the foremost members of the United States Senate, made a personal
tour of investigation in such parts of the island as were accessible,
and reported to his colleagues that "It is not peace, nor is it war; it
is desolation and distress, misery and starvation." The people of the
United States thus came to the conclusion that the Spanish were unable
to subdue the Cubans, and that the Cubans were unable to expel the
Spanish, and that the war was therefore nothing but a campaign of
destruction and extermination, which would end only when one side was
exhausted or extirpated. It was impossible that a civilized and humane
nation should regard such a spectacle at its very doors with
indifference. We have hitherto quoted the significant remarks of
President Cleveland on the subject in his message of December, 1896,
clearly foreshadowing intervention. His successor, President McKinley,
in his message of just a year later, in December, 1897, expressed in
slightly different language the identical convictions and purposes. He
said:

[Illustration: WILLIAM MCKINLEY]

"The near future will demonstrate whether the indispensable conditions
of a righteous peace, just alike to the Cubans and to Spain, as well as
equitable to all our interests so intimately involved in the welfare of
Cuba, is likely to be attained. If not, the exigency of further and
other action by the United States will remain to be taken. When that
time comes, that action will be determined in the line of indisputable
right and duty.... If it shall hereafter appear to be a duty imposed by
our obligations to ourselves, to civilization, and to humanity, to
intervene with force, it shall be without fault on our part, and only
because the necessity for such action will be so clear as to command the
support and approval of the civilized world."

If McKinley, a less aggressive and more conciliatory man than Cleveland,
spoke a little less positively than his predecessor, in that he employed
the hypothetical form, the purport of his words was the same. The one a
Democratic President, the other a Republican President, long before that
incident of the _Maine_ which has incorrectly been regarded by some as
the cause of the American war with Spain, openly and in the most
explicit manner contemplated the prospect of forcible intervention in
Cuba and of consequent war.

Meantime Spain herself passed through a political crisis, which made a
change in her Cuban administration. Loud protests were made there
against the ruthless and inhuman policy of Weyler, but the Prime
Minister, Canovas del Castillo, was deaf to them and persisted in
retaining Weyler in command. But on August 8 Canovas was assassinated by
an Anarchist, and was succeeded by General Azcarraga, Minister of War,
who continued his policy unchanged. But on September 29 the whole
Cabinet resigned, and on October 4 Sagasta, the Liberal leader, became
Prime Minister. He promptly recalled Weyler and appointed General Ramon
Blanco to be Captain-General of Cuba in his stead. Weyler departed,
breathing wrath and hatred against Cuba and against America, and
predicting failure for his successor, even as Campos had predicted it
for Weyler himself.

Blanco arrived at Havana on November 1, 1897, with the purpose, as he
had announced before sailing, of putting sincerely into effect the
reforms which Sagasta had outlined, reforms which would, he believed, be
acceptable to the Cuban people. He found the condition of affairs in the
island to be far worse than it had been reported, or than he had
expected. The "reconcentrados" had been dying and were still dying by
tens of thousands. The soldiers had not been paid for months and in
consequence were disaffected and mutinous, and were looting to obtain
food which they had no money to buy. Both the Spanish and the Cuban
Autonomists were profoundly dissatisfied; while the Revolutionists,
though making no progress, were as implacable as ever. He at once
ordered the concentration camps to be abolished, saying that he would
not make war upon women and children, and he secured a credit of
$100,000 from the Spanish government to assist the Cuban peasantry in
the rehabilitation of their ruined farms. All American citizens were
released from prison, as were also many Cubans who were under sentence
of death. Cuban refugees and exiles were invited to return home, and
every facility possible was afforded for the resumption of sugar making
and agriculture. He then undertook to put into effect a system of home
rule which he fondly hoped would satisfy the Autonomists and would bring
the masses of the Cuban people over to the side of that party.

Let us review briefly the state of Cuba at this epochal time, the ending
of 1897 and the beginning of 1898, the ultimate climax of four centuries
of Cuban history. The War of Independence had been in progress less than
three years. Five successively unsuccessful Captains-General had striven
to conquer a brave people resolved to be free. No fewer than 52,000
Spanish soldiers had lost their lives in battle or from disease, 47,000
had been returned to Spain disabled, 42,000 were in hospitals unfit for
duty, and 70,000 regulars and 16,000 irregulars still kept up the
fatuous struggle. The infamies of Weyler had destroyed by starvation and
disease 250,000 Cubans, the majority of them women and children,
reducing the population of the island to 1,100,000 Cubans intent on
independence and 150,000 Spaniards opposed to their having it. The Cuban
army consisted of 25,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry, fairly well armed,
with some artillery. Maximo Gomez was Commander in Chief. Major-General
Calixto Garcia commanded in Camaguey and Oriente, with Pedro Perez,
Jesus Rabi and Mario G. Menocal as his lieutenants. Major-General
Francisco Carrillo commanded in Santa Clara, aided by Jose Rodriguez,
Hijino Esquerra, Jose Miguel Gomez and Jose Gonzales. In the western
three provinces Major-General Jose Maria Rodriguez commanded, with Pedro
Betancourt, Alexandra Rodriguez, Pedro Vias and Juan Lorente as his
chief aids. The civil government of the Republic had been changed
somewhat, Bartolome Maso being President, Domingo Mendez Capote
Vice-President and Secretary of War, Andreas Moreno Secretary of Foreign
Affairs, Ernesto Fonts-Sterling Secretary of Finance, and Manuel Silva
Secretary of the Interior. This organization, with its provincial and
municipal subordinates, was performing the functions of government under
great difficulties, yet much more efficiently and to a much wider extent
throughout the island, than the Spanish administration.

The uncompromising attitude of the Revolutionists, and the hopelessness
of any attempt at amicable adjustment of affairs, was at this time
strikingly shown in a tragic incident. It was in December, 1897. There
was in Havana a young Spanish officer named Joaquin Ruiz, who had
formerly served as a civil engineer, and had been intimately associated
with Nestor Aranguren, another young engineer who had become a leader of
the Revolutionists and had made himself particularly active and annoying
to the Spanish in the Province of Havana. The two were close friends,
and were both men of charming personality. The Spanish authorities in
Havana determined to use this friendship in an attempt to seduce
Aranguren into betraying or at least deserting the patriot cause. So
Ruiz was directed to open a correspondence with Aranguren, with a view
to securing a personal interview with him. Aranguren wrote to Ruiz that
he would be glad to meet him personally, but could not do so if he came
on any political errand; and he warned him that for him to come to the
Cuban camp with any proposal of Cuban surrender or acceptance of
autonomy would subject him to the penalty of death, which would
infallibly be carried out. Despite this warning, and presumably against
his own better judgment, Ruiz obeyed the orders of his superiors, and
undertook the errand. He had no safe conduct. He bore no flag of truce.
He went through no agreement between the commanding officers of the
respective sides. He went in the circumstances and manner of a spy; and
his purpose was to persuade, if possible, a Cuban officer to betray his
trust and become a traitor to his own cause.

When in these circumstances Ruiz reached Aranguren, the latter was so
distressed that it is said he burst into tears and, embracing his old
friend, exclaimed, "Why have you come? It will mean your certain death!
I cannot save you!" And such indeed was the case. Aranguren was devoted
to his friend, but still more to Cuba. Ruiz was taken before a court
martial. He made no defence. He admitted the character and purpose of
his errand. And he received the sentence of death with the fortitude of
a brave man. An attempt was made by the Spanish authorities to exploit
Ruiz as a martyr to Cuban savagery, but it recoiled upon their own
heads. It was shown that they had unworthily employed a brave and
devoted soldier in a discreditable errand, and that he had been dealt
with according to the stern but just rules of war. It was also
demonstrated that Cuban patriots were not thus to be corrupted. By a
strange turn of fate, only a few weeks later Nestor Aranguren was killed
by the Spanish during one of his daring raids against Havana. It was
said that he was betrayed by a Spaniard who had become one of his
followers for the purpose of avenging Ruiz. His body fell into the hands
of the Spanish, and, despite their former assumed wrath over the
execution of Ruiz, they treated it with all respect and interred it in
the Columbus Cemetery at Havana, close to the grave of Ruiz.

This was not the only incident of the sort. Only a few weeks after the
death of Ruiz a civilian named Morales went to the camp of Pedro Ruiz,
in the Province of Pinar del Rio, with proposals for compromise on the
basis of autonomy. He was promptly taken before a court martial, tried,
condemned, and put to death. Whether Blanco himself was responsible for
this policy of sending emissaries to the Cuban camp with proposals which
he would not venture to make openly in an accredited manner to the Cuban
government, did not appear. The presumption, because of his known
character, is that he was not, and indeed that he was not aware that
they were being made. There is even reason for thinking that after the
Morales case was brought to his attention, he prohibited any more such
clandestine and illegal enterprises. Tragic as the incidents were, and
especially regrettable as was the sacrifice of such a man as Ruiz, it
was well to have it made unmistakably clear that the Cubans were not
inclined to end the war by surrender or by compromise, but were intent
upon fighting it out to the end.

In such circumstances Blanco strove for the last time to defeat the
Cuban national desire for independence. He probably realized in advance
the certainty of failure. He had been Captain-General before, succeeding
Campos after the Ten Years' War and during the Little War, and he must
have known the temper of the Cuban people and the unwillingness of the
great majority of them to accept the delusive scheme of autonomy which
Spain was fitfully offering, and in which he himself never had any real
faith and which, indeed, he had never favored. But he was a loyal
Spanish soldier, of the better type, and he was personally as little
odious to the Cubans as any Spanish Captain General could be, for he had
never been notably tyrannical or cruel. The decree of autonomy was
adopted by the Spanish government on November 25, 1897, largely because
of the urgings--to use no stronger term--of the United States, and was
promulgated by Blanco in Cuba early in December. The scheme provided for
universal suffrage; a bi-cameral Legislature consisting of a Council of
eighteen elected members and seventeen appointed by the crown, and a
House containing one elected member for each 25,000 inhabitants. To this
Legislature were nominally committed most of the functions of
government. But it was provided that "The supreme government of the
colony shall be exercised by a Governor-General." That was the crux of
the whole matter. That made the Captain-General, or Governor-General as
he was thereafter to be called, the practical dictator of the island.

To this entirely illusive and delusive scheme, the remnant of the
Autonomist party gave adherence with a devotion worthy of a better
cause. The Reformist faction of the Spanish party also, though not so
readily, approved it. The intransigent Constitutionalists would have
none of it. Tenuous and futile as were its apparent concessions to the
Cubans, they were far too much for these insular Bourbons to be willing
to grant. They socially ostracised Blanco, and before the system was to
go into effect they called a convention at Havana to protest and to
foment against it. The president of the party, the Cuban-born Marquis de
Apezteguia, was indeed in favor of giving autonomy a trial. But he could
not control the party whose other members were almost unanimously
against it. They had defeated and expelled Campos. Now they resolved to
do the same with Blanco. At the convention Apezteguia was rebuked and
repudiated, though left in office. A telegram of sympathy was sent to
Weyler. Speeches were made denouncing the United States, its President
and its Congress. A resolution was adopted condemning and opposing
autonomy, and another declaring that Constitutionalists would not vote
nor take any part in public affairs.

[Illustration: ANTONIO GOVIN

Antonio Govin, born at Matanzas in 1849 and deceased in Havana in 1914,
was a jurist, publicist, orator and patriot of distinction. He was
Professor of Administrative Law at the University of Havana, and was the
author of a number of volumes on law and on Colonial history. He was one
of the founders and strong advocates of the Autonomist party and a
member of the Autonomist cabinet.]

In the face of these circumstances, Blanco organized his Autonomist
Cabinet. The date was January 1, 1898. The place was the historic throne
room of the Captain-General's palace. There were present beside the
Cabinet the various foreign consuls and the dignitaries of the Roman
Catholic Church. A small crowd of the people gathered outside, but the
public in general paid little attention to the event. Yet the Cabinet
which then came into brief existence was a body of men that in other
circumstances would have commanded most favorable attention. The nominal
head, President of the Cabinet without portfolio, was José Maria Galvez,
a lawyer and orator, the author of the Autonomist manifestoes of 1879
and 1895. The real head, the most forceful and influential member, not
only, indeed, of the Cabinet but of the whole Autonomist party, was Dr.
Rafael Montoro, the "Cuban Castelar" as his friends used to call him. He
had long been an advocate of real autonomy, he had been the chief
founder of the Autonomist party, he had been a Cuban Deputy to the
Spanish Cortes, he had signed the Autonomist manifestoes of 1879 and
1895, and he had approved the insular reforms proposed by Canovas del
Castillo. As lawyer, orator, scholar, writer, he had no superior if
indeed a peer in Cuba. It was the inscrutable tragedy of a great career
that he identified himself with the Autonomist movement. He was Minister
of Finance. The Minister of Justice was Antonio Govin, also one of the
original Autonomists, a man of great courage and ability, who on the
failure of the Autonomist regime left Cuba and settled in the United
States. Francisco Zayas, an accomplished educator, was made Minister of
Instruction. Laureano Rodriguez, a Peninsular Spaniard, was Minister of
Agriculture, Labor and Commerce. Eduardo Dolz, a Reformist, was also a
member, who was supposed to be the special representative of the Spanish
crown. Two other men, not Ministers but high in Autonomist councils,
Senors Amblard and Giberga, were regarded by the Spanish party as
traitors who were really in league with the Revolutionists. Blanco swore
in these Ministers, addressed them with an exhortation to support
autonomy and to suppress the revolution, and gave them as the watchword
of their administration "Long live Cuba, forever Spanish!"

For a few days the glamor and the illusion lasted. Some inconspicuous
revolutionists yielded to Spanish blandishments and surrendered; to whom
the honest and chivalrous Blanco granted in good faith the amnesty which
he had promised. Some Cuban refugees returned from the United States.
The Autonomists--the few who still remained; for the majority had by
this time joined the Revolutionists, gone into exile, or been
imprisoned--declared their adherence to the new order of affairs and
professed satisfaction with it. Apparently they accepted at face value
the explanations which were voluminously put forth by the government, to
the effect that the system was practically identical with that of
Canada, under which that country had long been contented, loyal and
prosperous. Technically, no doubt, there was a tolerably close analogy
between the two. It was quite true that the powers reserved to the
Spanish crown in Cuba through the Governor-General were similar to those
reserved to the British crown in Canada through the Viceroy. But the
decisive factor in the case, which the Autonomists apparently ignored,
was this, that while in Canada it was an unwritten but unbroken law
that the crown did not exercise its powers save in accordance with the
will of the people, it was morally certain that in Cuba the Spanish
crown would exercise its powers to the full, whether the people liked it
or not. The Cuban Autonomists in the United States, where many of them
deemed it prudent to remain, did not suffer from the illusions of their
compatriots in Cuba, and generally expressed dissatisfaction with the
scheme, or at least reserved their judgment upon it.

The Spanish Reformists in Cuba also approved the scheme. They had
deserted and betrayed Campos, and had been ignored by Weyler. Now they
struggled to return to public recognition and influence. True, they had
never before wanted or approved autonomy. But they saw that now they
must do so or remain in retirement. So they joined hands with the Cuban
Autonomists, congratulated the Spanish government, and pledged their
loyalty to Blanco. This gave the Spanish government ground for its
exultant belief that these two parties had united in its support, and
would probably control the island in behalf of autonomy.

But there were still the Constitutionalists to be reckoned with. They
were implacable. They had shown in their convention a few weeks before
their hostility to autonomy. They had ostracised Blanco. Now they
proceeded to further extremes. They organized riotous disturbances in
Havana, and made violent demonstrations against Blanco and, which was in
some respects more serious, against the American government and the
American citizens in Cuba. So ominous did these disturbances become at
the middle of January that the Consul-General, Fitzhugh Lee, was driven
to request the sending of a war ship to Havana harbor for the protection
of American citizens. In consequence, on January 24 the cruiser _Maine_
was sent to Havana. This action was taken after consultation with the
Spanish government, in which that government expressed great pleasure at
the prospect of thus having a friendly visit of the American vessel to
Cuban waters, and arranged to have its own cruiser the _Vizcaya_ make a
return visit to New York.

This was not satisfactory, however, to the Spanish Minister at
Washington, Senor Dupuy de Lome, who having failed to bring President
McKinley to his own point of view of Cuban affairs, showed plainly his
animosity against that gentleman, and wrote a letter to a personal
friend characterizing the President as a vacillating and time-serving
politician. This letter through some clandestine means was placed in the
hands of the United States Secretary of State, who at once sent for the
Minister and asked him plumply if he had written it. The latter of
course acknowledged that he had. Thereupon the Secretary cabled to the
American Minister at Madrid to request the Spanish government to recall
the offending envoy. This the Spanish government would doubtless have
done, but for the fact that De Lome forestalled such action by cabling
his resignation an hour before the dispatch of the Secretary of State
reached Madrid. The Spanish government then sent Senor Polo y Bernabe to
be its Minister at Washington.

[Illustration: THE BAY AND HARBOR OF HAVANA

The capital of Cuba is seated upon the shore of a spacious and beautiful
bay, the entrance to which is between the two bold headlines crowned
respectively by the Morro Castle and La Punta fortress, while the domes
and spires of the great city have for a background the central mountain
range of the island. The harbor of Havana is one of the most secure and
commodious in the world, and in commercial importance, measured by
tonnage of shipping, ranks among the foremost in the Western
Hemisphere.]

There next occurred the greatest and most mysterious tragedy of the
entire revolutionary period. On the evening of February 15, at twenty
minutes before ten o'clock, a violent explosion occurred under or in the
forward portion of the _Maine_ as she lay in Havana harbor, sufficient
to lift the hull some distance above its normal level. A few seconds
later another and more violent explosion followed, which so completely
destroyed the forward part of the ship that most of it could never
be found. The remainder of the vessel almost immediately sank, in about
six fathoms of water. Of the complement of 360, two officers and 264 men
were killed, and of the remainder 60 were wounded. Captain Sigsbee,
commander of the _Maine_, telegraphed to Washington that all judgment
upon the matter should be suspended until after full investigation.
Blanco telegraphed to Madrid that the catastrophe was doubtless due to
an accident within the ship, and the Madrid government promptly
expressed regret and sympathy.

In the United States there was a great outburst of grief and rage. Even
the most restrained and conservative could not help a degree of
suspicion of foul play, though of course not on the part of the Spanish
government. A semi-criminal faction, in the "yellow" press, clamored
furiously for war, charging Spaniards, even the Spanish government, with
direct and malicious responsibility for the tragedy, and even publishing
the grossest of falsehoods for the sake of inflaming popular sentiment.
Too large a proportion of the nation was swayed by these latter sordid
and sinister influences. But at least the government kept its head, and
acted with admirable discretion; though for so doing the President
incurred the virulent animosity of the chief clamorer for war, an
animosity which was persistently maintained until it culminated in the
incitement of a criminal Anarchist to assassinate the President.

When the explosion occurred, and Blanco learned what it was, it is said
that he shed tears and exclaimed, "This is the beginning of the end!"
Despite his message to his government, he probably feared that there had
been foul play, and he realized what effect, in any case, the incident
would have upon Spanish-American relations. As for the Cuban
revolutionists, both in Cuba and in the United States, they were almost
stunned by two emotions. The hideous atrocity of the thing was
overwhelming, and they grieved at the loss of the American sailors as
though they themselves had been Americans. At the same time they could
not be blind nor insensible to the almost certain sequel. They felt
that, as Blanco said, it was the beginning of the end, and that now
American intervention was practically assured.

The Spanish government proposed a joint investigation into the disaster,
but the United States government declined and conducted a thorough
investigation of its own, through a board of eminent official experts.
The report was that the loss of the ship was not due to any accident or
to any negligence on the part of the officers and crew. The first
explosion was external to the hull, as if caused by a torpedo or mine,
and it caused the second explosion, which was that of the ship's
magazines. The Spanish government then conducted an investigation of its
own, resulting in a report that both explosions were within the ship and
were presumably purely accidental. It may be added that a final
examination in after years, when a cofferdam was built about the hulk
and it was floated and then taken out to sea and sunk in deep water,
fully confirmed the report of the American investigating board.

It is to be recalled that Ramon O. Williams, who had only a little while
before retired from the office of American Consul-General at Havana, and
was particularly well informed and judicious, earnestly warned the
United States government against sending a ship to Havana, because the
harbor was very elaborately mined, and there was a bitter and truculent
feeling among the Spaniards against the United States; wherefore the
danger of some untoward occurrence was too great to be incurred without
a more pressing necessity than was then apparent. But despite his
warning the _Maine_ was sent. She was conducted by a Spanish official
pilot to her anchorage at a buoy between Regla and the old custom house.
Whether a mine was attached to that buoy or not is unknown, though Mr.
Williams was confident that one was. His theory was that some malignant
Spanish officer, who had access to the keyboard of the mines, perhaps
through connivance with some other fanatic, watched to see the tide
swing the ship directly over the mine and then touched the key and
caused the explosion. That would account for the enormous hole which was
blown in the side of the ship, and which could not have been caused by
any little mine or torpedo which might have been floated to the side of
the ship, but must have been produced by a very large mine planted deep
beneath the hull.

The findings of the American board of investigation were reported
officially to the Spanish government, and the President in a message to
Congress expressed confidence that Spain would act in the matter
according to the dictates of justice, honor and friendship. The Spanish
government replied that it would certainly do so, and it presently
proposed to submit the whole subject to investigation by impartial
experts, and to determination by arbitration. But this proposal was not
made until April 10, when so much else had occurred to strain relations
between the two countries that it could not be entertained by the United
States.

Meantime the Autonomist government in Cuba, with a devotion that was
pathetic to behold, persisted in its efforts to justify its existence.
An electoral census was taken, though of course it could not cover more
than a small fraction of the island, and on March 27 an "election" of
Cuban Deputies to the Cortes was held. In fact there was no popular
voting at all. A list was prepared of eligible candidates, twenty of
them being Autonomists and Reformists, or supporters of the government,
and ten representing the Constitutionalist opposition. The list was
submitted to the Governor-General and approved by him, and the
candidates were declared to have been duly elected. Jose Maria Galvez,
the president of the Autonomist cabinet, reported to the President of
the United States that the new government was satisfactorily performing
its functions, and entreated him to give no encouragement to the
revolutionists which would militate against its success. In April there
was another "election" for members of the two houses of the Insular
Legislature. On May 4 that Legislature met, chose Fernando del Casco as
President of the Assembly, and confirmed the Autonomist cabinet in its
place; and it continued patiently and valiantly to hold sessions, make
laws, and act as though it were a real government, exercising real
authority over the island, all through the period of the American war
with Spain and the practical siege of the island by the American navy.
When the Spanish forces yielded and a protocol for peace was signed, on
August 12, the Legislature held its last meeting, and was declared
dissolved by Blanco in October. The Autonomist Cabinet continued to
exercise its functions, at least nominally, until the end of Spanish
sovereignty in Cuba.




CHAPTER VII


There could be no greater mistake than that which has been too often and
too persistently made, in regarding the destruction of the _Maine_ as
the cause of American, intervention in Cuba. The declarations of policy
which we have already quoted from the messages of President Cleveland
and President McKinley, the former fourteen months and the latter two
months before that vessel went to Havana, are ample indications of the
purpose of the American government to intervene unless there were a
satisfactory amelioration of Cuban affairs. But there was no such
amelioration, and therefore war was declared. It unquestionably would
have been declared just the same, perhaps at a later and perhaps at an
earlier date, if there had been no _Maine_ at all.

Beginning before the destruction of the _Maine_, and accelerated after
that event, both sides were preparing for war. Nevertheless diplomatic
negotiations continued, chiefly conducted by the American Minister,
Stewart L. Woodford, at Madrid. In order to facilitate such
negotiations, President McKinley withheld the report on the _Maine_ from
Congress for a time. Spain asked that the pacification of Cuba, which
the United States was urging, be left to the Autonomist Legislature,
which was to meet on May 4. The United States, declaring that it did not
want Cuba but did want peace in Cuba, proposed an armistice to begin at
once and to last until October 1, itself meantime to act as mediator
between the Cubans and Spain. Spain replied that an armistice would be
granted, to last at the pleasure of the Spanish commander, if the Cubans
would ask for it themselves; and that already General Blanco had
abandoned the "concentration" system. This was of course regarded as
entirely unsatisfactory to the United States, but the peace-loving
President McKinley hesitated to report to Congress his dissatisfaction
with it.

Meantime the Pope semi-officially expressed to both governments his
earnest desire for the maintenance of peace; but to no effect. The
German government, strongly sympathizing with Spain and seeking to
foment ill-feeling between the United States and Great Britain, had its
Ambassador at Washington, Dr. Von Holleben, form a cabal of the chief
members of the Diplomatic Corps, to call on the President with what
amounted to a suggestion of mediation, maliciously persuading the
British Ambassador to act as spokesman of the delegation, in order that
any resentment or odium should fall upon him and his country; but the
President with admirable temper and resolution declined with thanks all
foreign meddling in a controversy which concerned only the United States
and Spain. The Spanish government proclaimed on April 10 a suspension of
hostilities, in deference to the wishes of the Pope and of the great
European powers. It was reported officially to the United States
government that this armistice was granted without conditions, though
General Blanco's proclamation declared that it was to continue only at
the pleasure of the Spanish commanders. The Cuban government, through
Maximo Gomez, replied that it had not sought the armistice and would not
accept it unless Spain agreed to evacuate Cuba.

The President of the United States at last, on April 11, laid the whole
matter before Congress in a message which for calm moderation in the
presence of unspeakable provocation, for convincing logic, for lofty and
unselfish benevolence, for keen and just perception of existing
conditions, and for valorous resolution to deal with them in the only
satisfactory way, must take high rank among the great historic state
documents of the world. After reviewing the story of the Cuban
revolution and the condition into which it had plunged the island, he
said: "The war in Cuba is of such a nature that, short of subjugation or
extermination, a military victory for either side seems impracticable."
Then, recounting the efforts of the United States to effect a just
settlement by negotiation, he added: "The only hope of relief and repose
from a condition which can no longer be endured is the enforced
pacification of Cuba. In the name of humanity, in the name of
civilization, in behalf of endangered American interests which give us
the right and duty to speak and to act, the war in Cuba must stop. In
view of these facts and these considerations I ask the Congress to
authorize and empower the President to take measures to secure a full
and final termination of hostilities between the government of Spain and
the people of Cuba, and to secure in the island the establishment of a
stable government capable of maintaining order and observing its
international obligations, insuring peace and tranquillity and the
security of its citizens as well as our own, and to use the military and
naval forces of the United States as may be necessary for these
purposes."

It is to be observed that the President spoke of the war "between the
government of Spain and the Cuban people"--the Cuban people, not the
Cuban government. There had as yet been no official recognition of the
Cuban government, either as independent or as belligerent, and the
President could therefore not properly refer to it. At the same time he
spoke of "the Cuban people" and not of merely a part of them,
recognizing by inference that fact that the Cuban people were
substantially a unit in revolting against Spain and in demanding
independence.

Spain made it dear that she bitterly resented what she regarded as the
unwarrantable meddling of the United States in Cuban affairs, and that
she would prefer war to yielding to that meddling. France and Austria,
at German suggestion, made one more effort at mediation by the great
powers, but abandoned it when Great Britain refused to have anything to
do with it and indicated clearly her sympathy with the United States.

Finally, on April 20 President McKinley signed the act of Congress which
was made in response to his message of April 11. That memorable act, the
Magna Charta of the Cuban Republic, declared that the people of Cuba
were and of right ought to be free and independent; that it was the duty
of the United States to demand, and it accordingly did demand, that
Spain should immediately relinquish her authority and government in Cuba
and withdraw her military and naval forces from that island and its
waters; that the President be authorized to employ the army and navy of
the United States as might be necessary to carry these resolutions into
effect; and that the United States disclaimed any disposition or
intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction or control over Cuba,
except for the pacification thereof, and asserted its determination,
when that was accomplished, to leave the government and control of the
island to its people.

Before signing this act the President cabled its substance to General
Woodford at Madrid, in an ultimatum to the Spanish government, giving
Spain three days in which to comply with the demands. Before the three
days expired the Spanish Minister at Washington asked for his passports
and departed, and the Spanish government notified General Woodford that
diplomatic relations between the two countries were at an end. He
thereupon took his passports and departed. It should be added that on
April 21 the Autonomist government of Cuba issued a proclamation to the
people of the island, urging them to unite in support of the Spanish
government in its resistance to the war of conquest which the United
States was about to wage for the seizure and annexation of the island.
The success of the United States, it added, would mean that Cuba would
be subjugated, dominated and absorbed by an alien race, opposed to
Cubans in temperament, traditions, language, religion and customs.

Thus the War of Independence entered a new and final phase, with the
armed might of the United States assisting that Cuban cause the success
of which had already become practically certain. The Cuban army rapidly
grew in numbers and improved in morale, and was of course abundantly
supplied with arms and ammunition, while the sending of reenforcements
and supplies to the Spaniards was interfered with by the United States
navy. As soon as the state of war began three United States agents were
sent to Cuba, to investigate the condition and strength of the
revolutionary army, and to arrange for its reenforcement and for
cooperation between it and the American troops. Lieutenant Henry Whitney
was thus sent to visit Maximo Gomez in the centre of the island;
Lieutenant A. S. Rowan was sent to Oriente, and Lieutenant-Colonel J. H.
Dorst was sent to Pinar del Rio.

Lieutenant Whitney reached the camp of Gomez in Santa Clara Province on
April 28, found affairs in a most promising state, and arranged for the
prompt forwarding of supplies and of a considerable company of Cubans
who had been enlisted in the United States for the revolutionary army.
Gomez had an effective force of 3,000 men, and reenforcements of 750
under General Lacret, with supplies of food and munitions, were promised
him. But the expeditions, in two steamers, failed to reach him, and
after waiting for them on the coast for two weeks, until his supplies of
food were exhausted, he was compelled to disband his army. Domingo
Mendez Capote, Vice-President of the Cuban Republic, hastened to
Washington, to explain to the government the urgent need of sending
supplies, and as a result renewed efforts were made to land expeditions,
but with little success.

The mission of Lieutenant-Colonel Dorst to Pinar del Rio was similarly
unsuccessful. A few United States troops were landed under protection of
the fire of gunboats, on May 12, but an attempt to deliver a great cargo
of rifles and cartridges to the Cubans was defeated by the Spaniards,
and the American troops were compelled to return to their ship and
depart.

In Oriente Lieutenant Rowan was more successful, owing to the fact that
few Spanish forces remained in that province. He found the Spanish,
indeed, in possession of only the three towns of Santiago, Bayamo and
Manzanillo, and the forts along the railroad; and on April 29 they
evacuated Manzanillo, which was thereupon occupied by Calixto Garcia.
Lieutenant Rowan reported to Washington that Garcia was able to put
8,000 efficient troops in the field, and presently considerable supplies
were sent to him with little difficulty.

Perhaps the most significant information obtained by these American
envoys, and particularly by Lieutenant Whitney in his visit to the Cuban
Commander in Chief, was that the Cubans, while exulting in American
intervention, did not welcome but rather deprecated American invasion
of the island. Maximo Gomez said frankly that he would prefer that not a
single American soldier should set foot on the island, unless it were a
force of artillery, which was an arm in which the Cubans were sorely
lacking. All he asked was that the United States should supply the
Cubans with arms and ammunition, and prevent supplies from reaching the
Spaniards. If that were done, the Cubans would do the rest, and would
expel the Spanish from the island without the loss of a single drop of
American blood.

The reasons for this reluctance to have American troops invade the
island were chiefly two. One was a certain praiseworthy pride in Cuban
achievements and a desire to retain for Cubans the credit of winning
their own independence. Gomez and his comrades had been fighting to that
end for years, and they wanted the satisfaction of completing the job
and of gaining for Cuba herself the glory of victory. The other reason
was the very natural fear that American invasion and occupation of the
island would mean American annexation, or at least perpetual American
domination of Cuban affairs. It seemed contrary to human nature,
contrary to all the experience and examples of the past, that it should
not be so. Of course, there was the promise in the act of intervention,
that the United States would leave the government of the island to its
own people. But it is probable that only a very small percentage of
Cubans ever so much as heard of it, while it would be surprising if more
than a small minority of those who did know of it had any real
confidence that it would be fulfilled. It will be recalled that a very
considerable proportion of the people of the United States regarded that
pledge as mere "buncombe" and declared unhesitatingly that it would not
be permitted for one moment to stand in the way of the annexation of
Cuba. Truly, it would have been miraculous if Cubans had esteemed the
integrity of an American promise more highly than Americans themselves.

[Illustration: ADMIRAL CERVERA]

[Illustration: ADMIRAL SCHLEY]

The first weeks of the war were confined chiefly to naval operations. A
blockade of Cuban ports was established and pretty well maintained,
beginning along the central and western part of the north coast on April
22. A number of small Spanish vessels were captured, and there were some
bombardments of shore towns and exchanges of shots with Spanish
gunboats. Despite the vigilance of the American scouts and blockading
squadrons, Admiral Cervera with several powerful Spanish warships,
sailing from Cadiz on April 8 and touching at Martinique on May 11,
succeeded in entering the harbor of Santiago on May 19. There he was
soon besieged by a more powerful American fleet under the command of
Commodore, afterward Admiral, Schley; who on June 1 was joined by
Admiral Sampson, who thereafter took command. Lieutenant Victor Blue was
sent ashore on June 11, to make a long detour to the hills back of the
city, from which he was able to see and identify the Spanish ships.
Meantime Lieutenant Richmond P. Hobson with seven picked men in the
early morning of June 3 took the big coal hulk _Merrimac_ in to the
narrowest part of the harbor entrance and there sunk it with a torpedo,
hoping thus to block the passage and prevent Cervera's ships from coming
out. The exploit was not entirely successful, the vessel not being sunk
at quite the right point, though it did make exit much more difficult.
Hobson and his comrades were taken prisoners by the Spaniards, but were
treated with distinguished courtesy and consideration in recognition of
their daring exploit. Thereafter the blockading fleet kept close watch
day and night upon the harbor mouth, brilliantly illuminating it with
searchlights all night, to prevent the escape of the Spanish fleet.

Meanwhile General Nelson A. Miles, commander of the United States army,
was preparing for an invasion of the island. The Fifth Army Corps was
organized at Tampa, Florida, under the command of Major-General William
R. Shafter, and on June 14 was embarked on a fleet of 37 transports.
This fleet sailed around Cape Maysi to the southern coast of Cuba, and
on June 21 was off Santiago. General Shafter and Admiral Sampson went
ashore to confer with General Calixto Garcia at his camp at Acerradero,
and found the situation by no means as encouraging as they had hoped.
Garcia had only about 3,500 Cubans in his force, and they were not all
well armed, and there were 1,000 more at Guantanamo. General Shafter's
army numbered fewer than 16,000 men. Against these the Spaniards under
General Linares numbered about 40,000.

Averse as the Cubans had been to the landing of American troops, General
Garcia accepted the inevitable, and promptly offered to place all his
men under General Shafter's command. General Shafter accepted the offer,
though he reminded General Garcia that he could exercise no control
over the troops beyond what he, Garcia, authorized. He of course saw to
it that they were abundantly supplied with arms and ammunition, Garcia's
troops were then employed very effectively in protecting the landing of
the American troops, at Daiquiri; 6,000 of them being put ashore on June
22 and the remainder in the next two days. General Henry W. Lawton
promptly led the advance to Siboney, from which the Spaniards were
driven, being pursued after their evacuation by the Cubans under General
Castillo.

[Illustration: OLD FORT AT EL CANEY, WRECKED BY FIGHTING OF JULY, 1898]

The next attack was made upon the Spaniards at Las Guasimas, an action
in which material aid was rendered by Cubans, and which resulted in the
Spaniards being driven back a mile or more. By June 25 the Americans
were on the Ridge of Sevilla, looking down upon Santiago, only six miles
away, and two days later their outposts were within three miles of the
city. There followed on July 1 a desperate contest at the fortified
village of El Caney, resulting in the capture of that place by storm,
with great slaughter of the Spanish, who held their ground with stubborn
valor. Simultaneously an attack was made by another part of the American
forces upon Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill, where heavy losses were
sustained on both sides. The climax of this engagement was a charge of
Wheeler's division, the Tenth Cavalry, against the Spanish entrenched
lines. The van of this division was occupied by the "Rough Riders"
regiment, an organization recruited chiefly among western plainsmen and
"cowboys" by Theodore Roosevelt, who had resigned the Assistant
Secretaryship of the Navy thus to engage in active service. The charge
was led by Colonel Roosevelt in person, though he was in fact second in
command of the regiment, the chief command of which he had declined in
favor of his friend Leonard Wood, who was destined to play one of the
greatest parts in the establishment of Cuban independence. In this hot
engagement the Americans were also completely victorious.

[Illustration: THEODORE ROOSEVELT]

General Pando was now rushing 8,000 Spanish troops from the west to
reinforce General Linares at Santiago, and Calixto Garcia with his Cuban
forces undertook to hold him in check, though he was greatly outnumbered
by the Spanish. On July 2 fighting was resumed, the Spanish assuming the
aggressive, and before the day was done the Americans, greatly
outnumbered and exhausted by the incessant fighting and the heat of the
weather, began seriously considering withdrawal from positions which
they feared they would not be able to hold. General Shafter urged
Admiral Sampson to aid him by making an attack upon the city with his
fleet, but the latter demurred on account of the danger of entering a
mined harbor. It was arranged that the two commanders should meet again
for another council of war on the morning of July 3, and Admiral Sampson
actually started up the coast toward Siboney for that purpose, when a
dramatic event in a twinkling transformed the whole situation.

[Illustration: MONUMENTS ON SAN JUAN HILL, NEAR SANTIAGO]

This was the unexpected emergence of the Spanish fleet from the Santiago
harbor, on the morning of July 3, in a desperate attempt to break
through the American blockade and fight their way around to Havana. In
Admiral Sampson's temporary absence the command devolved upon Admiral
Schley, and orders instantly were given to close in and engage the
Spanish ships. The latter were four in number, the _Maria Teresa_, the
_Vizcaya_, the _Colon_ and the _Oquendo_, with two torpedo boats,
_Pluton_ and _Terror_. Admiral Sampson quickly retraced his course but
did not arrive until the close of the fight, which raged for hours,
along the coast for fifty miles westward from Santiago. The result was
the destruction of every one of the Spanish ships and the killing of
one-third of their crews. Admiral Cervera with 1,200 men surrendered. On
the American side only one man was killed and three were wounded, and
not one of the ships was seriously damaged.

[Illustration: ADMIRAL SAMPSON]

The Spaniards now knew that Santiago was doomed, though they continued
to hold out with stubborn valor. On the night of July 4 they sank a
vessel in the harbor mouth, in emulation of Hobson's deed, to shut the
American fleet out, but failed to get it in the right place.
Preparations were made for a joint attack by army and fleet on July 9, a
truce being arranged until that date, and thereafter more or less
continuous fighting prevailed, without important results, for three
days. On July 12 General Toral, who had taken the Spanish command in
place of General Linares, who was wounded at San Juan Hill, entered into
negotiations with General Miles and General Wheeler, and on July 17
terms of surrender were adopted. All the Spanish troops in Oriente save
10,000 at Holguin, were surrendered, about 22,000 in all. Some minor
naval operations followed at Manzanillo and Nipe, but there was no more
serious fighting. For all practical purposes the war was ended.

[Illustration: PEACE TREE NEAR SANTIAGO, UNDER WHICH SPANISH COMMANDER
OF SANTIAGO CAPITULATED JULY 16, 1898]

The next step was taken in behalf of Spain by the French Ambassador at
Washington, Spain having committed to the French government the care of
her diplomatic interests in America. M. Cambon on July 26 inquired of
President McKinley if he would consider negotiations for peace. The
President replied on July 30 that he was willing to discuss peace on the
basis of certain conditions, the first of which was that Spain should
relinquish all claim of sovereignty over or title to the island of Cuba,
and should immediately evacuate that island. That was significant. It
indicated that the United States purposed to fulfil its pledge
concerning the independence of Cuba. The next condition was that Spain
should cede to the United States the island of Porto Rico. But there was
no hint at her cession of Cuba to the United States. She was merely to
renounce her own sovereignty. These conditions were accepted by the
Spanish government through M. Cambon on August 12; the naval and
military commanders on both sides were ordered to cease hostilities, the
blockade of Cuba was discontinued; and the War of Independence was at a
triumphant end.




CHAPTER VIII


Following the protocol and the cessation of hostilities, two major tasks
were to be performed. One was to remove the Spanish forces from the
island and to establish permanent terms of peace, and the other was to
organize and establish a permanent Cuban government.

The former of these was promptly undertaken, by the governments of the
United States and Spain. A joint commission arranged the details of
evacuation, which was a formidable undertaking because of the number of
persons to be transported and the paucity of shipping facilities at the
command of the Peninsular government. The city of Havana was not
evacuated until January 1, 1899, and the last Spanish troops were not
removed from the island until the middle of February following. There
were about 130,000 officers and soldiers transported, together with some
15,000 military and civilian employes and their families.

Simultaneously the task of treaty-making proceeded. President McKinley
on August 26 appointed five Commissioners to conduct the negotiations.
They were William R. Day, Secretary of State, Chairman; Cushman K.
Davis, Senator; William P. Frye, Senator; Whitelaw Reid, Ambassador; and
Edward D. White, Justice of the Supreme Court. Mr. White found himself
unable to serve, and on September 9 George Gray, Senator, was appointed
in his place. The Spanish government named as Commissioners five of
Spain's foremost statesmen: Eugenio Montero Rios, Buenaventura
d'Abarzuza, Jose de Garnica, Wenceslao Ramirez de Villa Urrutia, and
Rafael Cerero. The Commissioners began their deliberations in Paris on
October 1.

The first question discussed was the disposition of Cuba, and over it
strong disagreement arose on two major points. The Spanish Commissioners
declined to recognize the existence of any Cuban government, and argued
that as there was no such government, and as Spain in relinquishing
sovereignty over the island could not let that sovereignty lapse but
must transfer it to some other responsible and competent power, the
United States should accept cession of Cuba to it; which Spain was
willing to grant. The American Commissioners replied that the United
States was pledged not to annex the island, and as a matter of fact did
not intend to do so and therefore could not and would not accept cession
of the island to itself. Spain in the protocol had agreed to renounce
her sovereignty without any stipulations further, and by that
arrangement she must abide. The United States would, however, make
itself responsible for the due observance of international law in Cuba
so long as its occupation of the island lasted. The Spaniards were
reluctant to yield, as a matter of pride and sentiment preferring to
give Cuba to the United States rather than to surrender it to the
insurgent Cubans. But the American Commissioners were resolute, and on
October 27 the first article of the treaty was adopted; to wit:

"Spain relinquishes all claim of sovereignty over and title to Cuba.

"And as the island is, on its evacuation by Spain, to be occupied by the
United States, the United States will, so long as such occupation shall
last, assume and discharge the obligations that may under international
law result from the fact of its occupation for the protection of life
and property."

This was clear and unmistakable notice to the world that the American
government intended to fulfil its pledge, not to annex Cuba but to
render that island to the control and government of its own people.
True, not yet were all convinced that this would be done. The Spaniards
were courteously skeptical. A considerable faction in the United States,
half "Jingo" and half sordid, insisted that the island must be annexed.
The majority of Cubans, inclined to judge all governments by their
bitter experiences with that of Spain, were frankly incredulous, not
understanding how any government could be thus altruistic and
self-denying.

The second point of dispute was that of the Cuban debt. The Spanish
government for years had been charging against Cuba the cost of
maintaining an army for its subjugation and the costs of suppressing the
various insurrections that had occurred, and the Commissioners proposed
that all that enormous debt should be saddled upon the island and made a
first charge upon its customs revenues. To this the American
Commissioners demurred. Cuba had for centuries been "the milch cow of
Spain," and had given to Spain far more than she had ever received in
return. It would be monstrous injustice to burden a people with the cost
of subjugating them and keeping them in slavery. In the end the Spanish
Commissioners yielded, and no mention was made in the treaty of any debt
resting upon Cuba.

It was further agreed that both parties should release and repatriate
all prisoners of war, and that the United States would undertake to
obtain such release of all Spanish prisoners held by the Cubans. Each
party relinquished all claims for indemnity of any and every kind which
had arisen since the beginning of the Cuban war. Spain relinquished in
Cuba all immovable property belonging to the public domain and to the
crown of Spain; such relinquishment not impairing lawful property rights
of municipalities, corporations or individuals. Spanish subjects were to
be free to remain in Cuba or to remove therefrom, in either event
retaining full property rights; and in the former case being free to
become Cuban citizens or to retain their allegiance to Spain; and they
were to be secured in the free exercise of their religion. There were
various other stipulations, such as are customary in treaties, intended
to assure Spain and Spaniards of equitable treatment and relationships
in Cuba. It was added that the obligations of the United States in Cuba
were to be limited to the period of its occupation of that island; but
upon the termination of that occupation the United States promised to
advise the succeeding Cuban government to assume the same obligations.
The treaty was finally agreed to and signed on December 10, 1898, and it
was ratified by the United States Senate on February 6, 1899.

General Ramon Blanco meanwhile, on November 26, 1898, resigned the
Governor-Generalship of Cuba and returned to Spain. To General Jiminez
Castellanos was left the unwelcome duty of holding nominal sway for a
few weeks and then surrendering the sovereignty of four centuries to an
alien power. Already American troops were in actual occupation and
control of nearly all the island. In the latter part of December, 1898,
the Seventh Army Corps, commanded by Major-General Fitzhugh Lee, was
brought into the outskirts of Havana in readiness for the final function
which was to be performed on the first day of the new year.

The end came. It was on January 1, 1899. Four hundred and six years, two
months and three days before, the first Spaniard had landed upon Cuban
soil and had planted there the quartered flag of Leon and Castile in
token of sovereignty. Now, after all that lapse of time, largely, it
must be confessed, ill spent and ill-improved, the Spanish flag was
finally to be lowered and withdrawn, in token of the passing away of
Spanish sovereignty forever from the soil of Cuba.

[Illustration: PART OF OLD CITY WALL OF HAVANA, STILL STANDING]

The ceremonies were brief and simple; far more brief and simple, we may
well believe, than were those with which the imaginative and exuberant
Admiral proclaimed possession of the island centuries before. The
official representatives of Spain and the United States met at noon in
the Hall of State in the Governor's Palace, the scene of so many proud
and imperious events in Spanish colonial history. On the one side the
chief was General Jiminez Castellanos, the last successor of Velasquez.
On the other, Major-General John R. Brooke. The one was the last of a
long, long line of Spanish Governors-General; the other was the first
of a brief succession of American Military Governors who were soon to
give way to an unending line of native Cuban Republican Presidents and
Congresses. With a sad heart, with tear-suffused eyes, and with a hand
that trembled to hold a pen far more than ever it had to wield a sword,
General Jiminez Castellanos signed the document which abdicated and
relinquished Spanish sovereignty in that Pearl of the Antilles which was
nevermore to be known as the "Ever Faithful Isle." The crimson and gold
barred banner of Spain descended. The Stars and Stripes rose in its
place. The deed was done. The final settlement was made with Spain.

For three hundred and eighty-seven years Spain had been the sovereign of
Cuba, exercising her power through one hundred and thirty-six
administrations, of which the first was one of the longest and the last
was one of the shortest. It will be worth our while to recall the roll,
which bears some of the noblest and some of the vilest names in Spanish
history:

   _No._      _Date_

    1          1512    Diego Velasquez, Lieutenant-Governor

    2          1524    Manuel de Rojas, Lieutenant-Governor, provisional

    3          1525    Juan de Altamirano, Lieutenant-Governor

    4          1526    Gonzalo de Guzman, Lieutenant-General

    5          1532    Manuel de Rojas, Lieutenant-Governor, provisional

    6          1535    Gonzalo de Guzman, Lieutenant-Governor

    7          1538    Hernando de Soto, Governor-General

    8          1544    Juan de Avila, Governor-General

    9          1546    Antonio Chavez, Governor-General

    10         1550    Gonzalo Perez de Angulo, Governor-General

    11         1556    Diego de Mazariegos, Governor-General

    12         1565    Francisco Garcia Osorio, Governor-General

    13         1568    Pedro Menendez de Avilas, Governor-General

    14         1573    Gabriel Montalvo, Governor-General

    15         1577    Francisco Carreno, Governor-General

    16         1579    Gaspar de Torres, Governor-General, provisional

    17         1581    Gabriel de Lujan, Captain-General

    18         1589    Juan de Tejada, Captain-General

    19         1594    Juan Maldonado Balnuevo, Captain-General

    20         1602    Pedro Valdes Balnuevo, Captain-General

    21         1608    Gaspar Ruiz de Pereda, Captain-General

    22         1616    Sancho de Alguizaz, Captain-General

    23         1620    Geronimo de Quero, Captain-General, provisional

    24         1620    Diego Vallejo, Captain-General

    25   Aug. 14, 1620 Francisco de Venegas, Captain-General

    26                 Juan Esquivil, Captain-General, provisional

    27                 Juan Riva Martin, Captain-General, provisional

    28         1624    Garcia Giron de Loaysa, Captain-General, provisional

    29         1624    Cristobal de Aranda, Captain-General, provisional

    30         1625    Lorenzo de Cabrera, Captain-General

    31         1630    Juan Bitrian de Viamontes, Captain-General

    32         1634    Francisco Riano de Gamboa, Captain-General

    33         1639    Alvaro de Luna, Captain-General

    34         1647    Diego de Villalba, Captain-General

    35         1653    Francisco Xeldes, Captain-General

    36         1655    Juan Montano, Captain-General

    37         1658    Juan de Salamanca, Captain-General

    38         1663    Rodrigo de Flores, Captain-General

    39         1664    Francisco Dairle, Captain-General

    40         1670    Francisco de Ledesma, Captain-General

    41         1680    Jose Fernandez de Cordoba, Captain-General

    42         1685    Andres Munibe, Captain-General, provisional

    43                 Manuel Murguia, Captain-General, provisional

    44         1687    Diego de Viana, Captain-General

    45         1689    Severino de Manraneda, Captain-General

    46         1695    Diego de Cordoba, Captain-General

    47         1702    Pedro Benites de Lugo, Captain-General

    48         1705    Nicolas Chirino, Captain-General, provisional

    49         ....    Luis Chacon, Captain-General, provisional

    50         1706    Pedro Alvares Villarin, Captain-General

    51         1708    Laureano de Torres, Captain-General

    52         1711    Luis Chacon, Captain-General

    53         1713    Laureano de Torres, Captain-General

    54         1716    Vicente Baja, Captain-General

    55         1717    Gomez de Alvarez, Captain-General

    56         1717    Gregorio Guazo, Captain-General

    57         1724    Dionisio Martinez, Captain-General

    58         1734    Juan F. Guemes, Captain-General

    59         1745    Juan A. Tineo, Captain-General

    60         1745    Diego Pinalosa, Captain-General

    61         1747    Francisco Cagigal, Captain-General

    62         1760    Pedro Alonso, Captain-General

    63         1761    Juan de Prado Portocarrero, Captain-General

    64   July 1, 1762   Ambrosio Villapando, Count of Riela,
                           Captain-General

    65    June, 1765    Diego Manrique, Captain-General

    66    July, 1765    Pasual Jimenez de Cisners, Captain-General,
                           provisional

    67  March 19, 1766  Antonio M. Bucarely, Captain-General

    68         1771     Marques de la Torre, Captain-General

    69   June, 1777     Diego J. Navarro, Captain-General

    70    May, 1781     Juan M. Cagigal, Captain-General

    71         1782     Luis de Unzaga, Captain-General, provisional

    72         1785     Bernardo Troncoso, Captain-General, provisional

    73         ....     Jose Espeleta, Captain-General, provisional

    74         ....     Domingo Cabello, Captain-General, provisional

    75   Dec. 28, 1785  Jose Espeleta, Captain-General

    76   Apr. 20, 1789  Domingo Cabello, Captain-General, provisional

    77   July 8, 1790   Luis de las Casas, Captain-General

    78   Dec. 6, 1796   Juan Bassecourt, Captain-General

    79   May 13, 1799   Salvador de Muro, Captain-General

    80   Apr. 14, 1812  Juan Ruiz de Apodaca, Captain-General

    81   July 2, 1816   Jose Cienfuegos, Captain-General

    82   Apr. 20, 1819  Juan M. Cagigal, Captain-General

    83   Mar. 3, 1821   Nicolas de Mahy, Captain-General

    84   July 2, 1823   Sebastian Kindelan, Captain-General, provisional

    85   May 2, 1823    Dionisio Vives. Given absolute authority
                                     by royal decree, 1821

    86   May 2, 1832    Mariano Rocafort. Given
                                     absolute authority by
                                     royal decree, 1825

    87   June 1, 1834   Miguel Tacon. Given absolute
                                     authority by royal
                                     decree of 1825

    88     From June 1, 1834,    Lt.-Gen. Miguel Tacon y
             to Apr. 16, 1838       Rosique, Captain-General

    89     From Apr. 16, 1838,   Lieut. Gen. Joaquin Espeleta
             to Feb., 1840          y Enrille

    90     Feb., 1840, to May    Lieut. Gen. Pedro Tellez
             10, 1841               de Gironm, Prince of
                                    Anglona

    91     From May 10, 1841,    Lieut. Gen. Geronimo Valdes
             to Sept. 15, 1843      y Sierra

    92     From Sept. 15, to     Lieut. Gen. of the Royal
             Oct. 26, 1843          Navy, Francis Xavier de
                                    Ulloa, provisional

    93     From Oct. 26, 1843,   Lieut. Gen. Leopoldo
             to Mar. 20, 1848       O'Donnell y Joris, Count
                                    of Lucena.

    94     From Mar. 20, 1848,   Lieut. Gen. Federico Roncali,
             to Nov. 13, 1850       Count of Alcoy

    95     From Nov. 13, 1850,   Lieut. Gen. Jose Gutierrez
             to Apr. 22, 1852       de la Concha

    96     From Apr. 22, 1852,   Lieut. Gen. Valentin Canedo
             to Dec. 3, 1853        Miranda

    97     From Dec. 3, 1853,    Lieut. Gen. Juan de la
             to Sept. 21, 1854      Pezuela, Marquis of de
                                    la Pezuela

    98     From Sept. 14, 1854,  Lieut. Gen. Jose Gutierrez
             to Nov. 24, 1859       de la Concha, Marquis
                                    of Habana, second time

    99     From Nov. 14, 1859,   Lieut. Gen. Francisco Serrano,
             to Dec. 10, 1862       Duke de la Torre

    100    From Dec. 10, 1862,   Lieut. Gen. Domingo Dulce
              to May 30, 1866       y Garay

    101    From May 20, 1866,    Lieut. Gen. Francisco Lersundi
              to Nov. 3, 1866

    102    From Nov. 3, 1866,    Lieut. Gen. Joaquin del
              to Sept. 24, 1867     Manzano y Manzano
              on which date he
              died

    103    From Sept. 24, 1867,  Lieut. Gen. Blas Villate,
              to Dec. 12, 1867      Count of Valmaseda

    104    From Dec. 13, 1867,   Lieut. Gen. Francisco Lersundi
              to Jan. 4, 1869

    105    From Jan. 4, 1869,    Lieut. Gen. Domingo Dulce
              to June 2, 1869       y Garay, second time

    106    From June 2, 1869,    Lieut. Gen. Felipe Ginoves
              to June 28, 1869      del Espinar, provisional
    107    From June 28, 1869,   Lieut. Gen. Antonio Fernandez
              to Dec. 15, 1870      y Caballero de Rodas

    108    From Dec. 15, 1870,   Lieut. Gen. Blas Villate,
              to July 11, 1872      Count of Valmaseda

    109    From July 11, 1872,   Lieut. Gen. Francisco Ceballos
              to Apr. 18, 1873      y Vargas

    110    From Apr. 18, 1873,   Lieut. Gen. Candido Pieltain
              to Nov. 4, 1873       y Jove-Huelgo

    111    From Nov. 4, 1873,    Lieut. Gen. Joaquin Jovellar
              to Apr. 7, 1874       y Soler

    112    From Apr. 7, 1874,    Lieut. Gen. José Gutierrez
              to May 8, 1875        de la Concha, Marquis of
                                    Habana

    113    From May 8, 1875,     Lieut. Gen. Buenaventura
             to June 8, 1875        Carbo, provisional

    114    From June 8, 1875,    Lieut. Gen. Blas Villate,
             to Jan. 18, 1876       Count of Valmaseda,
                                    third time

    115    From Jan. 18, 1876,   Lieut. Gen. Joaquin Jovellar
             to June 18, 1878       y Soler. He was
                                    under Martinez Campos,
                                    who was the general in
                                    chief

    116    From Oct. 8, 1876,    Lieut. Gen. Arsenio Martinez
             to Feb. 5, 1879        Campos

    117    From Feb. 5, 1879,    Lieut. Gen. Cayetano Figueroa
             to Apr. 17, 1879       y Garaondo, provisional

    118    From Apr. 17, 1879,   Lieut. Gen. Ramon Blanco
             to Nov. 28, 1881       y Erenas

    119    From Nov. 28, 1881,   Lieut. Gen. Luis Prendergast
             to Aug. 5, 1883        y Gordon, Marquis
                                    of Victoria de las Tunas

    120    From. Aug. 5, 1883,   Lieut. Gen. of Division
             to Sept. 28, 1883      Tomas de Reyan y
                                    Reyna, provisional

    121    From Sept. 28, 1883,  Lieut. Gen. Ignacio Maria
             to Nov. 8, 1884        del Castillo

    122    From Nov. 8, 1884,    Lieut. Gen. Ramon Fajardo
             to Mar. 25, 1886       e Izquierdo

    123    From Mar. 25, 1886,   Lieut. Gen. Emilio Calleja
             to July 15, 1887       e Isasi

    124    From July 15, 1887,   Lieut. Gen. Saba Marin y
             to Mar. 13, 1889       Gonzalez

    125    From Mar. 13, 1889,   Lieut. Gen. Manuel Salamanca
             died Feb. 6, 1890      y Begrete

    126    From Mar. 13, 1889,   General of Division Jose
             to Apr. 4, 1890        Sanchez Gomez, provisional

    127    From Apr. 4, 1890,    Lieut. Gen. Jose Chinchilla
             to Aug. 20, 1890       y Diez de Onate

    128    From Aug. 20, 1890,   Lieut. Gen. Camilo Polavieja
             to June 20, 1892       y del Castillo

    129    From June 20, 1892;   Lieut. Gen. Alejandro Rodriguez
             died July 15, 1893     Arias

    130    From July 15, 1893,   General of Division Jose
             to Sept. 5, 1893       Arderius y Garcia, provisional

    131    From Sept. 5, 1893,   Lieut. Gen. Emilio Calleja
             to Apr. 16, 1895       e Isasi

    132    From Apr. 16, 1895,   Captain Gen. Arsenio Martinez
             to Jan. 20, 1896       Campos

    133    From Jan. 20, 1896,   Lieut. Gen. Savas Marin y
             to Feb. 11, 1896       Gonzalez

    134    From Feb. 11, 1896,   Lieut. Gen. Valeriano Weyler
             to Oct. 31, 1897       y Nicolau

    135    From Oct. 31, 1897,   Capt. Gen. Ramon Blanco
             to Nov. 30, 1898       y Erenas

    136    From Nov. 30, 1898,   Lieut. Gen. Adolfo Jimines
             to Jan. 1, 1899,       Castellanos
              at 12 noon.

There must be added an unwelcome note. The Spaniards--not their high
officials--left most ungraciously. It is not to be wondered at that they
were sad, that they were sullen, that they were resentful; that they
were fearful lest the Cubans should rise against them at the last moment
and inflict upon them vengeance for the treasured wrongs of many years.
But there was of course no such uprising. The Cubans wished to make the
day an occasion of great public celebration, but the authorities--Cuban
and American as well as Spanish--would not permit it. It was not
courteous to exult over a beaten foe. Besides, any such celebration
would have caused great danger of trouble. What was inexcusable,
however, was the condition in which the Spanish left all public
buildings. They looted and gutted them of everything that could be
removed. They destroyed the plumbing and lighting fixtures. They broke
or choked up the drains. They left every place in an indescribably
filthy condition. There was nothing in all their record in Cuba more
unbecoming than their manner of leaving it. Such was the last detail of
the settlement with Spain.

The settlement with Cuba came next. Indeed, it was concurrently
undertaken. And it was by far the more formidable task of the two. It
was necessary to arrange for the transfer of the temporary trust of the
United States to a permanent Cuban authority, and to do so in
circumstances and conditions which would afford the largest possible
degree of assurance of success. It is said that when the American flag
was raised at Havana in token of temporary sovereignty, on January 1,
1899, an American Senator among the spectators exclaimed, "That flag
will never come down!" There were also, doubtless, those among the Cuban
spectators who thought and said that it should never have been raised,
but that sovereignty should have been transferred directly from Spain to
Cuba.

Both were wrong; as both in time came to realize. It was necessary for
the sake of good faith and justice that the American flag should in time
come down and give place to the flag of Cuba. It was equally necessary
for the sake of the welfare of Cuba and of its future prosperity and
tranquillity that there should be a period of American stewardship
preparatory to full independence.

There was, as we have already indicated, some friction between Cubans
and Americans at the time of intervention in the Spring of 1898. The
Cubans thought that the American army should not enter Cuba at all, save
with an artillery force to serve as an adjunct to the Cuban army. On the
other hand, Americans were too much inclined to disregard the Cuban army
and Provisional Government, to forget what the Cubans had already
achieved, and to act as though the war were solely between the United
States and Spain. When the actual landing of Shafter's army was made,
however, the Cubans accepted the fact loyally and gracefully, and gave
the fullest possible measure of helpful cooperation.

The Provisional Government of the Cuban Republic, as soon as hostilities
were ended and negotiations for peace had begun, decided to summon
another National Assembly to determine what should be done during the
interval which should elapse before the United States placed the
destinies of Cuba in the hands of Cubans. This decision was made at a
meeting at Santa Cruz on September 1, at which were present the
President, Bartolome Maso; the Vice-President, Mendez Capote; and the
three Secretaries, Aleman, Fonts-Sterling and Moreno de la Torre. It was
felt, and not without reason, that the Insular government and its forces
had not received the recognition which was their due. Calixto Garcia and
Francisco Estrada had given valuable participation in the siege and
capture of Santiago, yet they were not permitted by General Shafter to
participate in the ceremony of the surrender of the Spanish forces, or
even to be present on that exultant occasion. When the Americans thus
took possession of Santiago and Oriente, the Cuban government, military
and civil, was ignored, and General Leonard Wood was made Military
Governor just as though there was no Cuban government in existence.

[Illustration: OLD AND NEW IN HAVANA

The architecture of Havana ranges from the sixteenth century to the
twentieth, and specimens of all five centuries may in some places be
found grouped within a single scene; with electric lights and telephones
in buildings which were standing when Francis Drake threatened the city
with conquest.]

During the months of the American blockade of the island, moreover, the
Cubans had suffered perhaps even more than the Spanish from lack of
supplies. It was felt that while it was well thus to deprive the Spanish
army of supplies, the Cuban people ought not to have been left to
suffer. After the armistice affairs remained in a distressing condition.
The Cuban army was without food and without pay with which to purchase
food; and the Provisional Government was powerless to help it or to help
the starving civilian population. It had no funds, and of course could
not now raise any either by taxation or by loans. Late in November some
relief was afforded by the sending of food from the United States, but
on the whole the conditions were unsatisfactory, and did not conduce to
cordial confidence between the Cubans and the Americans.

The National Assembly which had been called on September 1 met at Santa
Cruz on November 7, and resolved upon the disbandment of the Provisional
Government, and the appointment of a special Commission to look after
Cuban interests during the period of American occupation. This
Commission consisted of Domingo Mendez Capote, President; Ferdinand
Freyre de Andrade, Vice-President; and Manuel M. Coronado and Dr.
Porfirio Caliente, Secretaries. The army organization was to be
retained, for the present, with General Maximo Gomez as
Commander-in-Chief.

The real crux of the situation, at the moment, was the demobilization of
the Cuban army. This could not be done--Gomez would not consider
it--until the men could be paid, and there was no money with which to
pay them. Among the 36,000 men on the rosters, there were said to be
20,000 who had served two years or more, and who were entitled to pay.
Gomez issued an appeal to the army and to the Cuban people generally to
accept loyally the temporary American occupation and to cooperate with
the Americans in the reestablishment of order and the development of
governmental institutions, in order that at the earliest possible moment
Cuba might be able to assume the whole task of self government. At the
same time he urgently requested the United States government to advance
money with which to pay off the soldiers, in order that the army might
be disbanded and the men might return to their homes and their work, and
thus restore the industrial prosperity of the island. For this purpose
he suggested the sum of $60,000,000, not only for actual pay but also
for compensation for the losses which the officers and men had suffered
during the war. He was inclined to keep his men under arms until the
United States should relinquish control of Cuba to the Cubans, or should
fix a date for so doing; and toward the end of January, 1899, he
mustered all his forces in the Province of Havana, and made his staff
headquarters in the former palace of the Captain-General. Meantime the
Commission of the Cuban National Assembly recommended that the men be
granted furloughs, to enable them to go to work in response to the great
demand for labor that was arising throughout the island. This course was
pursued to a considerable extent.

Ultimately the United States government granted the sum of $3,000,000
for the purpose of paying off the soldiers. This was not a loan, to be
repaid, but was an outright gift, being the remainder of the sum of
$50,000,000 which had been voted to the President at the beginning of
the war to use at his discretion. It was given on the conditions that
every recipient should prove his service in the army and should
surrender a rifle. To this latter requirement, which meant the disarming
of the Cubans, General Gomez strongly objected, but in the end he
acquiesced and agreed to carry out the plan as soon as the money was at
hand. Thereupon some other Cuban officers disputed his right to commit
the Cuban army to any such arrangement. They were dissatisfied with the
small amount, and they insisted that only the Cuban Assembly had power
to act upon the American offer. They added that they would refuse to
obey the orders of General Gomez, and would look to the Assembly for
justice. It should be added that these officers were not those who had
been most active and efficient in the field.

General Gomez ignored this mutinous demonstration, and proceeded with
arrangements to receive and distribute the $3,000,000; whereupon the
Assembly came together and on March 12 impeached General Gomez and
removed him from office as Commander-in-Chief, the charge being that he
had failed in his military duties and had disobeyed the orders of the
Assembly. This scandalous performance was ignored by Gomez, and was
condemned by the great majority of the Cuban people. It was also ignored
by the American authorities. General Brooke continued his negotiations
with Gomez, and finally reached an agreement. The terms were as follows:
Every Cuban soldier who had been in service since before July 17, 1898,
and who was not in receipt of salary from any public office, upon
delivery of his arms and equipments was to receive $75 in United States
gold. The arms and equipments were to be surrendered to municipal
authorities, and to be placed and kept in armories, under the charge of
armorers appointed by General Gomez, as memorials of the War of
Independence. The Cuban Commissioners protested against and resisted
this settlement, but finally yielded when they saw all the soldiers
accepting it. They continued for some time, however, to manifest
disaffection and distrust toward the United States, and to propagate
doubt whether that country would ever fulfill its promise to make Cuba
independent. Some agitators went so far as to try to provoke
insurrections against the American administration. But all such things
met with no encouragement from General Gomez or from any of the real
leaders of the Cuban people, who expressed the fullest confidence in the
good faith of the United States and did their utmost to lead the nation
to take advantage of the unparalleled opportunity which had been placed
before it. Day by day the magnitude of that opportunity became more
apparent, as did the practical beneficence of the American
administration.




CHAPTER IX


American occupation of Cuba, formal and complete, did not begin, as we
have seen, until January 1, 1899, when the ceremonial transfer of
sovereignty was effected at Havana. But nearly six months before that
epochal date actual occupation and administration was begun on an
extensive scale and in a most auspicious manner. With singular
appropriateness this was effected at that city which nearly four
centuries before had been the first capital and metropolis of the
island, and in that Province which had been the scene of the first
Spanish settlements in Cuba and which had been more perhaps than all the
rest of the island the scene and the base of operations of the
revolution for independence.

The surrender of Santiago by General Toral on July 17, 1898, made the
American army master of that city and practically of the Province of
Oriente. Having the power and authority of government, the Americans had
necessarily to assume the full responsibility of it; and this was
promptly done. Even in advance of the date named, on July 13, the day
after negotiations for the capitulation began, in anticipation of what
was to occur President McKinley decreed that, pending further orders,
existing Spanish laws should be maintained in the occupied territory. As
soon as the protocol was signed on August 12, General Henry W. Lawton
was appointed Military Governor of the Province of Oriente and commander
in chief of the American forces. This was an honor due to that gallant
officer, because of his leadership in the act of invasion and conquest.
But Lawton was a soldier rather than an administrator, and his services
were indispensable in the field. Accordingly, after brief but most
honorable occupancy of the governorship, he was succeeded on September
24 by a man who combined the qualities of soldier and administrator in a
uniquely successful and triumphant degree, and whose advent in Cuba was
auspicious of inestimable advantage to that country and to its relations
with the United States and with the world. Indeed, though the fact was
unrecognized at the time, it is not too much to say that Leonard Wood
bore in his hand and mind and heart the destinies of Cuba. There might,
it is true, have been found some other man who as a soldier would have
pacified the island and would have held it firmly in the grasp of peace.
There might have been found a sanitarian and physician who would free
the island of pestilence. There were financiers who might have placed
its fiscal interests upon a sound basis. There were jurists who could
have revised its laws. There were statesmen who could have supervised
and directed its general governmental affairs, both domestic and
foreign. But there was need that all these qualities should be combined
in and all these activities should be performed by one man.

Leonard Wood was at this time still a young man, scarcely thirty-eight
years of age. Born at Winchester, New Hampshire, the son of an eminent
physician and a descendant of a Mayflower Pilgrim, he had in boyhood
engaged in seafaring pursuits, and then had been thoroughly trained for
the medical profession at Harvard University. Obeying the promptings of
patriotism, perhaps with some unrecognized pre-intimation of the vast
services which he was destined to render to his country and to the
world, he turned away from prospects of professional preferment and
profit to undertake the arduous and often thankless tasks of an army
surgeon. He was appointed to that duty from the state of Massachusetts
on January 5, 1886, as an Assistant Surgeon, and five years later was
promoted to the rank of Captain. The nominal rank is, however, a slight
indication of the merit of his services, for in the very first year of
his army life he was credited with "distinguished conduct in campaign
against Apache Indians while serving as medical and line officer of
Captain Lawton's expedition"; for which he was later awarded the
Congressional Medal of Honor.

At the beginning of American intervention in the Cuban War of
Independence, Theodore Roosevelt resigned the office of Assistant
Secretary of the Navy, which he had filled with distinction and to the
great profit of the country, in order to organize from among the cowboys
and frontiersmen of the West his famous regiment of "Rough Riders." But
he would not himself accept the supreme command of it. His unerring
judgment of men led him to select Leonard Wood for the Colonelcy, under
whom he was himself glad to serve as Lieutenant-Colonel. So it was that
Wood first went to Cuba, as Colonel of the First Regiment of United
States Cavalry Volunteers. There soon followed the achievements at
Guasimas and at San Juan Hill, to which reference has already been made,
in recognition of his services in which on July 8, 1898, he was promoted
to be Brigadier General, and on December 7 following to be Major General
of Volunteers. It may be added that he was promoted to these same ranks
in the regular army respectively on February 4, 1901 and August 8, 1903.

With these antecedents, on September 24 he entered upon the task of
governing Santiago and the Province of Oriente. It was a position of
unique responsibility and power. The President's order made it
incumbent upon him to administer the existing municipal laws so far as
in his own judgment they were properly applicable to the new state of
affairs. That was all. Otherwise he was thrown absolutely upon his own
resources, with no treaty obligations or government promises to bind
him. He was simply a "benevolent despot," intent upon tranquillizing and
rehabilitating that vast eastern province of Cuba by methods of his own
devising. It was a region at once the most unruly and the most
impoverished in Cuba, and it had for its capital a plague-smitten city.
For six months he labored there, and in that short period he so far
advanced the work of reconstruction that thereafter Oriente served as an
example and a model for all the other provinces of Cuba. Sympathetic,
alert, untiring, frank, without vanity or ostentation, resolute,
diplomatic, and always supremely just, General Wood's personality stood
to the people of Cuba for qualities seldom if ever before associated
with the occupant of the governor's palace, while his energy in fighting
disease, relieving distress, reviving industry and maintaining order
revealed to them as the Spanish régime never had done the beneficence of
enlightened government. It would be impossible to estimate too highly
the value of his services during those few months at Santiago, in
commending to Cubans the benevolent purposes and attitude of the
Americans toward them and in disclosing to them the vast material and
moral benefits which would accrue to them through self-government wisely
administered.

He began his work at Santiago in gruesome circumstances. An epidemic of
smallpox and yellow fever was raging, and clouds of smoke hung over the
city from the funeral pyres where were being burned many of the bodies
for which burial was impossible. The city was reeking with filth. Half
the people were threatened with starvation. Lawlessness and complaints
of grievances were rife. He had to be at once sanitarian, steward and
judge. He labored heroically at all three tasks, and performed them so
well that in a few weeks Santiago seemed like a new city. Of course
there was much to do in other places in the province. In Holguin there
were three thousand cases of smallpox, of which he treated 1,200 in
hospitals. He sent thither as nurses 600 thoroughly vaccinated immunes,
not one of whom contracted the disease. Hundreds of infected buildings,
of flimsy construction, were burned, while all others were thoroughly
disinfected, and the epidemic was conquered.

Early the next year General Wood sought a well earned rest in a brief
visit to his former home in Boston, leaving, as he thought, affairs in
Santiago in a securely satisfactory condition. But he was compelled to
hasten back in July, 1899, to deal with another outbreak of disease. On
his arrival he found both the city and his own army camp in the grip of
malignant yellow fever. It was a time for heroic action, and that was
what he performed. In a day he removed his troops to healthful places on
the adjacent hills, and then subjected the city to such a cleansing and
scientific sanitation as neither it nor any other Cuban city had ever
known. The island and the world looked on with interest, to see if thus
he could cope with and suppress the epidemic.

He succeeded. Not yet had the theory of Dr. Carlos J. Finlay, that
mosquitoes were the sole propagators of the disease, been practically
tested and applied, though it had been propounded by that eminent Cuban
physician many years before. That immortal achievement was postponed for
Messrs. Reed, Carroll, Agramonte and Lazear to effect, under General
Wood's subsequent administration at Havana. But even without it, by
means of strenuous sanitation, the epidemic of July, 1899, was
conquered, and Santiago was made clean and sound.

Another achievement of General Wood's at Santiago in the latter part of
1898 proved highly successful and was soon afterward extended to the
other provinces of the island. This was the organization of the Rural
Guards, a force which became invaluable for the policing of the rural
portions of the island; just as Pennsylvania and some others of the
United States are cared for by State Police. General Wood selected for
this service officers and soldiers of the Cuban Army in the War of
Independence who were recommended for their good character and
efficiency. By the end of the year 1898 he had about 300 of these
troopers patrolling the roads of Oriente, in the districts where such
guardianship was most needed, with admirable results. The value of this
service was observed and appreciated by the officers of the other
provinces, and at the beginning of 1899 the system was introduced into
all the provinces excepting Matanzas, where the same purpose was served
by a mounted police force maintained by the larger municipalities. In
the city of Havana the Military Governor, General Ludlow, held a
conference with General Mario G. Menocal, of the Cuban Army, who had
been invited to become Chief of Police in that city under the American
administration, and with him worked out the details of the organization
of Rural Guards in the suburbs of the capital and the rural portions of
Havana Province. They formed a force of 350 men for service there, and
thus quickly made all that region, even in the more or less disturbed
period immediately following the war, noteworthy for its security and
orderliness. When at the end of the American occupation the Rural Guards
were transferred to the Cuban Government, they comprised 15 bodies,
numbering 1,605 officers and men, stationed at 247 different posts.

Meantime American occupation and administration were established
throughout the island. Immediately upon the transfer of sovereignty on
January 1, 1899, John R. Brooke, Major General commanding the Division
of Cuba, and Military Governor, issued a proclamation to the people of
the island. He told them that he came as the representative of the
President, to give protection to the people and security to persons and
property, to restore confidence, to build up waste plantations, to
resume commercial traffic, and to afford full protection in the exercise
of all civil and religious rights. To the attainment of those ends, all
the efforts of the United States would be directed, in the interest and
for the benefit of all the people of Cuba. The legal codes of the
Spanish sovereignty were to be retained in force, with such changes and
modifications as might from time to time be found necessary in the
interest of good government. The people of Cuba, without regard to
previous affiliations, were invited and urged to cooperate in these
objects by the exercise of moderation, conciliation and good-will toward
one another.

The island was divided for administrative purposes into seven
departments, corresponding with the provinces and with the city of
Havana forming the seventh. The commanders of these departments, under
General Brooke, were: Havana City, Gen. William Ludlow; Havana Province,
Gen. Fitzhugh Lee; Pinar del Rio, Gen. George W. Davis; Matanzas, Gen.
James H. Wilson; Santa Clara, Gen. John C. Bates; Camaguey, Gen. L. H.
Carpenter; Oriente, Gen. Leonard Wood. A civil government was organized
on January 12, by the appointment of the following Cubans as Ministers
of State: Secretary of the Department of State and Government, Domingo
Mendez Capote; Secretary of Finance, Pablo Desvernine; Secretary of
Justice and Public Instruction, Jose Antonio Gonzalez Lanuza; Secretary
of Agriculture, Commerce, Industries and Public Works, Adolfo Saenz
Yanez. Later in the spring of that year the provinces of Havana and
Pinar del Rio were united in one department, as were Matanzas and Santa
Clara, and Camaguey and Oriente.

[Illustration: GONZALEZ LANUZA

A distinguished jurist, penologist, and man of letters, Gonzalez Lanuza,
was born in Havana on July 17, 1865. He rose to eminence at the bar and
on the bench, became professor of penal law in the University of Havana,
and was the author of several important works on jurisprudence. He was
an agent of the revolution in Havana in 1895, and Secretary of the Cuban
Delegation in New York. During General Brooke's Governorship he was
Secretary of Justice and Public Instruction, and during President
Menocal's first term was Speaker of the House of Representatives. He was
a delegate to the Pan-American Congress at Rio de Janeiro in 1906.]

The problems which confronted the American military administrators and
their Cuban colleagues of the civil government were manifold and grave.
There was the work of sanitation, which was undertaken on lines similar
to those which General Wood had pursued in Santiago. The city of Havana
had the advantage of the services of General Ludlow, an expert engineer
and sanitarian. Then there was the work of feeding a starving
population. So vast had been the ravages of war, so great had been the
destruction of resources, that one of the most fertile and productive
countries in the world was unable for a time to provide food for its own
inhabitants, although their numbers had been diminished by one-fourth
by the horrors of war. In these circumstances the American government
was compelled to establish a system of food distribution, on very
liberal lines. In Havana alone more than 20,000 persons were dependent
upon it to save them from actual starvation. So well was the system
administered, however, and so vigorously did the Cubans themselves apply
themselves to self-help that within five months it was found possible to
abolish the general system of food supply, and to restrict such work to
such cases of special need as are liable to occur in any community.

In thus redeeming the island from threatened if not actual famine, the
American government undoubtedly did much, but the Cuban people
themselves did far more. Self-help and mutual aid were the order of the
day. All who could do so hastened to secure employment, either upon
their own property or on the land or in the establishments of others.
Planters whose fields had been ravaged and whose buildings had been
destroyed borrowed money wherever they could, when necessary, for
rehabilitation. If they could not raise money to pay their employes,
they pledged them an interest in the proceeds of the coming harvest. The
small farmers, who had lost all their implements and had no money to buy
others to replace them, worked almost without tools, or borrowed and
loaned among themselves so that a single plow would serve for half a
dozen, and even hoes and spades were similarly passed from garden to
garden. In the absence of horses and mules, plows were actually drawn by
teams of four or six men, in such cases doing, perhaps, little more than
to scratch the surface of the soil, though even this was sufficient to
enable the planting of seed.

Reference has been made to the borrowing of money by the planters for
the rehabilitation of their estates. This was no easy task, because of
the extent to which they were already overburdened with debts. Nearly
all the land in Cuba was mortgaged, for a large percentage of its value.
The census which was taken by the American authorities in 1899 showed a
total real estate valuation in the entire island of only $323,641,895.
These amazingly low figures were due, of course, to the depreciation of
values through the ravages of war. But upon that valuation there was an
aggregate mortgage indebtedness of no less than $247,915,494; or more
than 76 per cent. Obviously, the borrowing capacity of Cuban real estate
had been exhausted. During the war, with the impairment of industry
which then prevailed, it was impossible for farmers to pay off their
mortgages, and accordingly the Spanish government, in May, 1896, decreed
that all mortgages then maturing should be extended for a year, during
which time all legal steps for collection of them should be halted. In
Oriente and Camaguey, however, the grace thus granted was for only a
month. Successive extensions of the grace carried it to April, 1899,
when the American administration was in control. A final extension was
then granted, to April, 1901.

Still another problem, and one which proved peculiarly embarrassing, was
that of local or municipal government. The island was divided into six
provinces, thirty-one judicial districts, and one hundred and thirty-two
municipalities, and these last named were each divided into
sub-districts and these again into wards. These all had their local
officials and local systems of finance, and these latter were found by
the Americans to be in serious confusion. It was necessary to reform
them, but in the doing of this almost endless friction arose. Such
matters so closely touched the Cuban people that they were naturally
jealous and resentful of alien interference and dictation. At the same
time the Americans considered it necessary to supervise the
reorganization of local government as a basis for satisfactory general
government. Each side became more or less irritated against the other,
with unfortunate results.

An interesting personal factor at this time, whose influence was on the
whole helpful to the American government, was found in General Maximo
Gomez. There is no question that he felt himself somewhat ill-treated by
the Americans, as Calixto Garcia had felt at the surrender of Santiago.
During the first month of the American rule at the capital he held
aloof, remaining at his home at Remedios. But in February he came to
Havana and had such a reception as probably no other man in Cuban
history had ever enjoyed. From Remedios to Havana he proceeded through
an almost unbroken series of popular demonstrations of the most
enthusiastic kind, and at the capital he was greeted as a conquering
hero and as the unrivalled idol of the people whose independence he had
won. The only discordant note came from a small body of politicians
identified with that Assembly which both Gomez and the American
government had declined to recognize, and which Gomez had strongly
antagonized in the matter of paying off and demobilizing the Cuban army.
But that opposition to him did not lessen the affection and reverence
with which the great mass of the Cuban people regarded the grim and grey
old champion of their wars. It is to be recorded, too, that while he was
thus being received by the people, his own attitude toward them was no
less significant. At every place through which he passed on his journey
to Havana, and at every gathering at which he was entertained in that
city, he spoke to the people, tersely and vigorously, as became a
soldier; exhorting them to forget the differences of the past, even
their righteous wrath against the Spaniards, and to unite and work
together harmoniously and efficiently to complete in peace the great
task for Cuba's welfare which had so far been advanced in war.

The result, at least for a time, was marvellous. Cuban and Spaniard,
Revolutionist, Autonomist and Constitutionalist, for a time joined
hands. At one of the chief public receptions given to Gomez in Havana,
the flags of Cuba, of the United States, and of Spain were equally
displayed, and were all three greeted with applause. That spirit did
not, it is true, always thereafter prevail. But it was of incalculable
profit to Cuba to have it so strongly aroused and manifested at that
crucial period in her history.

During the administration of General Brooke the police force of Havana
was completely reorganized, with the assistance of John B. McCullagh,
formerly Superintendent of Police in New York. This was done as promptly
as possible after the installation of American rule, and by the
beginning of March, 1899, the peace and security of the Cuban capital
were safeguarded by an admirable uniformed force of about a thousand
men. Under the command of General Mario G. Menocal as Chief this body of
men rendered Havana as efficient service, probably, as that in any
American city of similar size. Police work in Havana, it should be
understood, differs considerably from that in cities of the United
States, for the reason that drunkenness and its attendant disorder and
petty brawls are substantially unknown in the Cuban metropolis, and
therefore one of the most prolific causes of arrests in American cities
is there non-existent.

When the American administration took charge of Cuban affairs it found
the insular treasury quite empty. The departing Spaniards had seen to
that. But a careful, honest and thrifty management of finances soon
provided the island with a good working income. By the first of
September, 1899, fully $10,000,000 had been received in revenue from
different sources. Major E. F. Ladd of the United States army was made
Treasurer and Disbursing Officer of the customs service, and a little
later he was appointed Auditor and then Treasurer of the island. In
those capacities he showed admirable efficiency and greatly ingratiated
himself with the people; ranking as one of the most successful members
of the American governing staff. His administration was the more
appreciated by Cubans because of the welcome reform of the taxation
system which was at that time effected. The old Spanish tax system had
been abominable, and that of the short-lived Autonomist regime of
1897-1898 changed it chiefly with the result of adding to the confusion.
Early in 1899, therefore, radical reforms were undertaken. An order was
issued on February 10 remitting all taxes due under the old Spanish law
which had remained unpaid on January 1, with the exception of taxes on
passengers and freight which had according to custom been collected and
were held by the railroad companies. All taxes on the principal articles
of food and fuel were abolished, as were also all municipal taxes on
imports and exports. These taxes had formerly been very burden-some and
were a source of much grievance and irritation, and their abolition was
very gratifying to the Cuban people, who began to appreciate what it
meant to have a government whose prime object was to serve them and not
to plunder them.

One tax was greatly increased, namely, the excise tax upon all alcoholic
liquors, and this was made a part of the revenue of the municipalities
instead of the state, thus compensating the municipalities for the loss
of the tax on merchandise. Despite the temperate habits of the Cuban
people, the very general consumption of some form of alcoholic drink
made this impost amount to a considerable sum.

A matter which urgently needed reform, but which unfortunately was
reformed with more zeal than diplomacy, caused much dissension in that
first year of American administration. That was the marriage law. Under
Spanish government marriage was held to be exclusively a function,
indeed, a sacrament, of the Roman Catholic church, and could not legally
be performed by any other authority; though in later years there had
been made a provision for the civil marriage of non-Catholics. But since
to resort to the latter meant to incur a certain social reproach, few
couples ever availed themselves of it. Of course loyal members of the
church could not do so, the religious ceremony being imperative for
them.

With the departure of the Spanish government from the island a complete
separation of church and state occurred, and it was held imperative to
provide a new law of marriage. The old system had become odious, it may
be explained, because of the large fees which many ecclesiastics charged
for performance of the ceremony, and because, on account of those fees,
many couples among the poorer elements of the population, decided to
dispense with the marriage ceremony altogether; a practice not conducive
to social order, and frequently causing serious embarrassment and
litigation over the inheritance of property. Unfortunately in trying to
reform the system the new government went too far toward the opposite
extreme. The author of the new law was Senor Jose Antonio Gonzalez
Lanuza, the Secretary of Justice, and it made civil marriage
compulsory, though it permitted a supplementary religious ceremony at
the pleasure of the parties. "Hereafter," it said, "only civil marriages
shall be legally valid." It fixed the legal fee for marriages at one
dollar.

The intention of the law was doubtless good, and it might be argued that
it should not have caused offence, since it did not interfere with
religious marriage ceremonies. There is no doubt that it was very
strongly favored by a large part of the Cuban nation. When it was
proposed to repeal or to modify it materially the vast majority of
municipal governments in the island, all of the judges of the Supreme
Court, a majority of the judges of first instance, and half of the
Provincial Governors, urged its retention unchanged. The clergy of the
Roman Catholic church, however, opposed it vigorously and persistently,
and it was finally deemed desirable to modify it so as to make either
civil or religious marriage valid. The objection to it had been, of
course, that by invalidating religious marriages it cast a certain slur
upon the church. It is interesting to recall, however, that the law in
its objectionable form was the work of a Cuban jurist, while in its
amended and acceptable form it was the work of an American and conformed
with the law in the United States, where civil and religious marriage
ceremonies are equally legal and valid.

In order to protect the island against undue exploitation by American
speculators and "promoters," a law of the American Congress in February,
1899, forbade the granting of franchises or concessions of any kind
during the period of American occupation and control. It was not
pretended that there was no need of any such grants, but it was
prudently contended that they should wait until the Cubans themselves
had full control of the insular government. The wisdom of this was
apparent, and the law was generally approved, even by those who most
clearly saw the desirability of developing the resources and industries
of the island by the building of railroads, tramways, telegraph lines,
etc. It was better for these to wait for a year or two than to incur the
suspicion that an American administration had granted Cuban franchises
to American promoters on terms which a Cuban government would not have
approved.

A most important enterprise during the Brooke administration was the
taking of a thorough census of the island. This was ordered by President
McKinley on August 17, 1899, and was taken early in the ensuing fall.
The island was divided into 1,607 enumeration districts, and the work of
canvassing was given chiefly to Cubans. Among the canvassers were 142
women; the first women ever employed in government work in Cuba. The
census was not a mere enumeration, but comprised a multiplicity of
details concerning the age, nativity, citizenship, conjugal condition,
literacy, etc., of the people, and also concerning agriculture and the
other occupations in which they were engaged. The populations of the
provinces were as follows, compared with the figures of the census of
1887:

    Provinces                          1899     1887

    Pinar del Rio                    173,082    225,891
    Havana                           424,811    451,928
    Matanzas                         202,462    259,578
    Santa Clara                      356,537    354,122
    Camaguey                          88,237     67,789
    Oriente                          327,716    272,379
                                    --------    -------
    Totals                          1,572,845  1,631,687

These figures are significant. There should, of course, have been a
considerable increase in population in those twelve years. Instead,
there was a considerable decrease. The entire number of normal
increase, plus the 58,842 actual decrease, may be taken as representing
the loss through the war. It will also be observed that the loss of
population was in the three western provinces, where the Spanish most
held sway during the war, and that there was no loss but a considerable
increase in the three eastern provinces, which were largely controlled
by the Cubans. The population by sexes and race was as follows:

    Male                   815,205
    Female                 757,592

    Native white           910,299
    Foreign white          142,098

    Negro                  234,738
    Mixed                  270,805

    Chinese                 14,857

The report of citizenship was:

    Cuban                1,296,367
    Spanish                 20,478
    In suspense            175,811
    Other aliens            79,525
    Unknown                    616

The total number of illegitimate children, of all ages, was 185,030; a
discreditably high number, attributed largely to the former expensive
marriage system. The statistics of education were distressing. The
number of children under ten years of age who were attending or had
attended school was only 40,559, and the number who had not attended was
316,428. The number of persons ten years old and over who could read and
write was only 443,670; those who could neither read nor write were
690,565--an appalling proportion of illiteracy, reflecting most
discreditably upon the Spanish government of the island. The number of
persons of "superior education" in the whole island was only 19,158.

Nor were the statistics of industry much more satisfactory. The
following were the totals for the island:

    Agriculture, fisheries and mining     299,197
    Trade and transportation               79,427
    Manufactures and mechanics             93,074
    Professional                            8,736
    Domestic and personal                 141,936
    No gainful occupation                 950,467

Another supremely important measure which was adopted during the closing
weeks of General Brooke's administration, though its complete working
out was reserved for his successor, was suggested by some of the census
figures which we have just quoted. It was realized that the need of
education was of all Cuban popular needs the most urgent. Accordingly on
November 2, 1899, General Brooke ordered the organization of a new
bureau in the Department of Justice and Public Instruction, at the head
of which should be a Superintendent of Schools. The first incumbent of
that office was Alexis E. Frye, who drafted another order, promulgated
by General Brooke on December 6 and practically constituting a new
school law for Cuba. It provided for the formation of Boards of
Education and the opening of primary and grammar schools in all
communities by December 11, 1899, or as soon thereafter as possible.
That was the beginning of the popular education of the Cuban people.

After these things, General Brooke was on December 20 relieved of his
command in Cuba. He issued a brief farewell proclamation to the people,
calling attention to the progress which had been made in good
government, and toward complete self-government and independence; every
word of which was amply justified by facts. He was a soldier rather than
an administrator, and he was nearing the age of retirement from active
service. His administration had been beset with difficulties; it had
made some mistakes, and it had done much good work. He was charged by
some with having entrusted the powers of government too largely to his
Cuban Secretaries; while others commended him for that very
circumstance. His inclination was toward a bureaucracy, but it was a
Cuban and not an alien bureaucracy. It cannot be denied that he laid
much of the foundation of subsequent achievements and of successful
Cuban government. It was under his governorship that General Ludlow
cleansed the city of Havana, that the Customs service and the treasury
were reorganized, and that provision was made for a comprehensive system
of public schools.




CHAPTER X


General Brooke was succeeded by General Leonard Wood. He had also in a
measure been preceded by him. General Wood had at Santiago been the real
pioneer in American administration in Cuba. He laid the first
foundations there. General Brooke at Havana enlarged upon those
foundations. Then came General Wood to Havana to complete the structure.
It was with the fame and prestige of his great victory over pestilence
at Santiago, and of all his other achievements in Oriente, that he came
to Havana on December 20, 1899, to be Military Governor of all Cuba. He
was received not alone with the fullest measure of formal ceremony and
official salutation, from both Cubans and Americans, but also with such
an outpouring of popular welcome as few men have received anywhere and
as nobody save perhaps Maximo Gomez had ever received at Havana. The
attitude and sentiment of the people toward him were well expressed by
an editorial writer in the Havana journal _La Lucha_, who said:

"General Wood has shown great capacity for government and management
while in command of the eastern end of the island. In that mountainous
and rugged district, where passions and impulsive characters
predominate, in that country where a strong rebellious spirit has been
agitated for a long time, General Wood knew how to calm that spirit, how
to establish moral peace and to cheer the hearts of all. He has been
seen to practise a policy of harmony and ample liberty. We saw him,
first of all, promulgate the habeas corpus in the province he
commanded, and he decreed that constitutional measure when the embers of
the fire of domestic and international war were still smoking. In
material things, General Wood cleansed the eastern cities and
embellished them.... His government will prepare us for a broader life
and give us the blessings of peace and liberty. As a man of clear mind
and solid education, he will know how to study and to solve skilfully
the economic and political problems that circumstances may introduce
into the country. As he is a man of energy, he will be able to withstand
every unhealthy influence. His policy will be eminently liberal, but at
the same time it will be a guarantee for all who labor and produce. He
will not associate himself with agitators but with statesmen."

[Illustration: LEONARD WOOD

Soldier, scientist, statesman, administrator, it has been the fortune of
Leonard Wood to render invaluable services to two nations. Born at
Winchester, New Hampshire, on October 9, 1860, and educated in medicine
at Harvard University, he became first a surgeon and then an officer of
the United States army. After a brilliant career in Indian fighting in
the Southwest he went to Cuba in 1898 as colonel of the cavalry regiment
of "Rough Riders" and did notable work in the battles around Santiago.
He was Military Governor of Santiago and Oriente, and later Military
Governor of Cuba, in which places he transformed the sanitary, economic
and political conditions of the island, and ushered it into its career
of independent self-government. Since then he has served the United
States with great distinction in the Philippines, and as the foremost
officer of the army at home; not the least of his benefactions to the
nation being his great campaign of education and awakening in
preparation for what he saw to be America's inevitable participation in
the World War.]

Such was the just estimate which Cuba placed upon her new Governor. Of
his actual reception the same journal that we have quoted said:
"Although promising nothing, he speaks volumes by his quiet democratic
manner of taking charge of affairs. He has captivated everyone."

The new Governor was welcomed on his arrival at Havana by an
extraordinary and quite unprecedented gathering of representative men
from all parts of the island; such a gathering as Havana had never seen
before. He promptly entered into the fullest possible conference with
them, to learn their views and to impart his own to them, and as a
result of his intercourse with them he was able, on January 1, 1900, to
gather about himself a noteworthy Cabinet, commanding in an exceptional
measure the confidence of the Cuban people. It was thus composed:

    Secretary of State and Government, Diego Tamayo.
    Secretary of the Treasury, Jose Enrique Varona.
    Secretary of Justice, Louis Estevez.
    Secretary of Public Works, Jose Ramon Villalon.
    Secretary of Education, Juan Bautista Barreiro.
    Secretary of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, Ruiz Rivera.

The selection of these men commanded the cordial approval of the Cuban
people. Said _La Lucha_: "The new Cabinet contains men whose honest
names are guarantees that the moral and material interests of the
country are to be conserved." To this _La Patria_ added: "General Wood
is obviously imbued with the best intentions. Although the council of
Cubans convened by him is not an elected body, it does represent the
wishes of the Cuban people."

It will of course be observed that not one of General Brooke's cabinet
was retained by General Wood. All were new men. Moreover, he increased
their number by two, making a separate department of Education instead
of lumping it with Justice, and making another of Public Works, instead
of leaving it grouped with Agriculture, Industry and Commerce. This
latter change was significant of two things. One was the increasing
amount of actual governmental work that was devolving upon the
administration. The other was the increased importance which, in General
Wood's mind, attached to Education and Public Works. He rightly
conceived them to be the two prime needs of Cuba. The cabinet did not
remain as thus organized, however, very long. On May 1 Ruiz Rivera
resigned the Secretaryship of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, and
was succeeded by Perfecto Lacoste; and Louis Estevez resigned the
portfolio of Justice and was succeeded by Juan Bautista Barreiro, who in
turn was succeeded in the Department of Education by Jose Enrique
Varona, while the last named was succeeded as Secretary of the Treasury
by Leopoldo Cancio. Finally on August 11 Senor Barreiro retired
altogether and was succeeded in the Department of Justice by Miguel
Gener y Rincon.

We have said that General Brooke was charged with letting his
administration be controlled by his Secretaries. There was an
inclination in some quarters to charge General Wood with exactly the
reverse. He was not autocratic nor domineering. But he was Governor. He
was the actual as well as the nominal head of the government. Realizing
that he would be held personally responsible for everything that was
done,--as he was,--he rightly determined to exercise his authority in
everything that was done. Then, if he was blamed, he would not be blamed
for the fault of somebody else.

The significance which we have attributed to his Cabinet enlargement was
promptly demonstrated. Of the three subjects to which he most devoted
his attention, public education came first. He had deemed it worthy of a
Cabinet Department all for itself. He at once set about organizing that
department _de novo_. Mr. Frye had done good work as Superintendent of
Schools; but he had also done much of dubious merit. He had organized
too many schools too rapidly, and with too little system. Perhaps that
was partly the fault of the law, which bade him on December 6 to get
them all going by December 11, if possible. But then, he was responsible
for the law. He opened hundreds of schools. But most of them were pretty
poor affairs, with no proper text-books, no desks, no equipment and
supplies; they were not graded nor classified, and they were conducted
without proper system or order.

Such schools General Wood regarded as of little value, and he took
prompt measures, though at the cost of a somewhat acrimonious
controversy with Mr. Frye, to improve the system under which they were
being created. On January 24 he issued an order creating a Board of
Superintendents of Schools, instead of leaving the work to one man, and
he appointed as its members Mr. Frye, Esteban Borrero Echeverria, and
Lincoln de Zayas. The Board continued to act under the law of December
6, but applied it in a somewhat different way, with impressive results.
It opened a great many more schools than Mr. Frye had done, and saw to
it that they were better equipped than his had been. Within six months
the number of schools was increased from 635 to 3,313. Indeed, on March
3 it was found necessary to put on brakes, by issuing an order that no
more new schools should be opened for the present. That year more than
$4,000,000, or nearly a fourth of the total revenue of Cuba, was spent
on public schools.

[Illustration: EVELIO RODRIGUEZ LENDIAN

One of the foremost educators of Cuba, Dr. Evelio Rodriguez Lendian, was
born at Guanabacoa in 1860, and was educated at the University of
Havana, where he is Professor of History and Dean of the Faculty of
Science and Letters. He is also President of the Academy of History, and
Director of the Athenaeum. He has written a number of books and has
great repute as a public speaker.]

In addition to primary and grammar schools, which were made universal,
trade schools of various kinds were established. In the principal
cities, especially in Havana, there were free schools of stenography and
type-writing. These latter were designed partly to supply a competent
and up-to-date clerical force to the various government offices, and
partly to promote modern business methods in private concerns. Of course
they provided profitable occupation to a large number of persons who
otherwise might have been out of employment. The creation of the public
schools also provided employment for several thousand persons, as
teachers. These were almost entirely Cubans and, as in the United
States, were very largely young women. Considering the paucity of
numbers of those reported by the census as possessing "superior
education" it was extraordinary that a sufficient staff of teachers
could be obtained. Normal schools for the training of teachers in modern
methods of education were established, and were largely attended by
young Cubans eager to participate in the work of advancing the
intellectual interests and indeed also the social and industrial
interests of their country.

An admirable impetus, of inestimable value, was given to the work of
Cuban education in 1900 when Harvard University, General Wood's alma
mater, invited Cuban teachers to the number of a thousand to spend the
summer at that institution, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where a great
summer school in pedagogy and other sciences was conducted. Recognizing
the immense value of such a visit from many points of view, the American
administration in Cuba agreed to pay each teacher one month's salary for
the purpose of the excursion, and to provide transportation from their
homes to Havana or other convenient ports, whence their further travel
was provided for by the Quartermaster's Department of the United States.
On arriving at Cambridge they were received and entertained during their
stay by a committee specially appointed by Harvard. They were thus
enabled to have without cost an extended and singularly interesting and
enjoyable excursion, such as many of them had never had before, to
receive stimulus, suggestion and instruction in the most approved
methods of education and school management, and--perhaps most important
of all--to come into direct touch with the people and institutions of
the great northern republic with which their own country had and was
destined always to have the closest of relations.

The school system of the island was strictly removed from politics, both
local and general, and was taken from the control of the municipalities
and placed directly and solely under that of the national government.
Thus was assured a fine degree of uniformity in the quality and methods
of teaching. Thus also the poorer districts, which could with difficulty
have maintained any kind of schools at all, were enabled to have as good
service as the richest communities. The salaries paid to teachers were
good, comparing favorably with those paid in the United States.

[Illustration: THE UNIVERSITY OF HAVANA

Cuba is enviably distinguished for providing not only elementary but
higher education, even of the best university grade, practically without
cost to the children of her citizens. The University of Havana, which is
the crown of the whole educational system of the country, was founded in
1728, and formerly was housed in the old convent of Santo Domingo. But
in 1900 under the American administration of General Leonard Wood, it
was removed to the fine site of the former Pirotecnica Militar, near El
Principe.]

There was, it must be confessed, some criticism of this elaborate and
expensive educational establishment. It was urged by some that
approximately one-fourth was entirely too large a proportion of the
national revenue to devote to this purpose, and that it would be to the
greater benefit of the island to spend less money on schools and more on
public works of various kinds. It was also pointed out that the average
cost of educating each pupil in the Cuban schools was more than $26,
while the average cost in the whole United States was less than $23, and
in the Southern States, with which it was assumed that Cuba was properly
to be compared, it was less than $9. Of course there was involved in
these criticisms a triple fallacy. One was the notion that public works
were neglected or sacrificed for the schools. That, as we shall see, was
not so; a comparably great system of such works proceeding _pari passu_
with the development of the school system. Another was, that the cost
was too high. Naturally the cost was much higher in the first year
than it would be after the system was well established. It was in fact
much lower than in those parts of the United States where the schools
were efficient and the educational system was creditable. The third
fallacy was in thinking that Cuba was to be compared with the Southern
States, the backward condition of whose school systems had long been
regarded as a reproach and a disgrace. In endowing Cuba with a school
system it would have been indecent for the United States to take for the
standard its own poorest and most discreditable systems. It was
necessary that it should take rather the best that it had as an example
to be emulated. It may be added that these criticisms were made chiefly
by General Wood's American critics, and by those who ignorantly and
arrogantly regarded Cuba as an inferior country for which an inferior
system was good enough. The Cubans themselves with practical unanimity
gave to the work their hearty and grateful approval.

[Illustration: ANTONIO SANCHEZ DE BUSTAMENTE

One of the most eminent jurists and orators of Cuba, Dr. Antonio Sanchez
de Bustamente, was born on April 13, 1865, and was educated at the
University of Havana. He is a Senator, President of the Cuban Society of
International Law; President of the National Academy of Arts and
Letters; Dean of the Havana College of Lawyers, and Professor of
International, Public and Private Law in the University of Havana.]

There was other work to do for the children of Cuba beside that of the
ordinary schools. The war had been disastrous to domesticity. Thousands
of homes had been entirely destroyed, the parents slain, the houses
burned, the children left to wander as waifs. In that genial clime,
amid that profusion of the fruits of nature, these orphans did not
necessarily starve or perish. Many of them lived practically as wild
creatures of the woods. Many of them also were cared for in some fashion
by the families whose homes had not been destroyed, for it was not in
the Cuban heart, even the most poverty-stricken, to turn a suppliant
from the door. But it was not fitting that these children should be left
as waifs and charges upon the people. Under General Brooke's
administration an excellent Department of Charities was organized, which
gathered up and cared for thousands of them, and this work was continued
during General Wood's administration. The children were partly placed in
families which were willing to receive them, or in asylums and schools.
Seeing that there was among them a certain proportion of defectives and
delinquents, and that many were in need of useful training, correctional
and industrial schools for both boys and girls were opened, and did
admirable work.

The second object of General Wood's special interest was that of public
works. Concerning that, two salient facts must be borne in mind. One is,
that the prohibition of franchises and concessions during the American
occupation materially militated against the making of many improvements;
although it was on the whole a desirable restriction. The other is that
many of the most urgent public works during the first year or two were
those connected with sanitation and the renovation of public buildings,
prisons, etc. During the first year of the intervention, under General
Brooke, heroic work was done by General Ludlow in removing from the
streets of Havana the accumulated filth of years. But that was only a
beginning. In the next two years the work had to be continued and
extended to every city and town on the island. Water supplies had to be
provided, and sewer systems. Above all, there had to be an extensive,
persistent and, in the very nature of the case expensive campaign
against yellow fever and malaria, the two traditional scourges of Cuba.
To these works General Wood addressed himself with efficient energy, and
to them he devoted an appropriate proportion of the public funds.

[Illustration: ALMENDARES RIVER, HAVANA]

We have seen that the total cost of the schools in 1900 was more than
$4,000,000. But as a considerable part of this was non-recurring expense
for buildings, etc., the actual cost of maintenance was much less. The
following figures show the apportionment of expenditures:

    For Education, non-recurring          $   337,460
    For Education, maintenance              3,672,000
                                           ----------
         Total for school system           $4,009,460

    For Public Works construction          $1,786,700
    For Sanitation                          3,029,500
                                           ----------
    Total for Public Works                 $4,816,200

Despite the complaints of American critics that too much money was spent
on schools in proportion to other things, therefore, it appears that
much less was spent on them than on public works. Perhaps such
complaints would have been less numerous and less bitter if General Wood
had been willing or able to give profitable contracts and franchises to
American speculators.

Much attention was paid to port improvements, naturally, in order to
facilitate and promote the commerce which was essential to the
prosperity of the island. The lighthouse service was placed under the
most competent charge of General Mario G. Menocal, who conducted it with
approved efficiency until the needs of his personal affairs compelled
him to retire from public office. A thoroughly organized postal service
was established throughout the island and was so well managed that by
the end of the period of intervention it was within ten per cent. of
being self supporting, or as near to self supporting as that of the
United States had generally been. This was certainly a remarkable
achievement in view of the fact that so large a proportion of Cubans
were illiterate and therefore unable to make use of postal facilities.

For general purposes of public works the island was divided into six
districts. At the head of each district was a Chief Superintendent of
Public Works, with a staff of assistants. The principal undertakings,
apart from sanitation, were the construction of roads and the building
of bridges and culverts, and these were judiciously planned so as to
unite the various districts of the island with improved highways, and to
open up rich agricultural regions with transportation facilities.

[Illustration: OLD TIME WATER MILL, HAVANA PROVINCE]

These undertakings involved General Wood in the disposition of an
unpleasant controversy which had been left over from General Brooke's
administration, which in turn had received it from the old Spanish
government. In 1894 the Spanish authorities of Havana decided to have
that city largely repaved and re-sewered, and asked an American firm
somewhat noted for its political influence, that of Michael J. Dady &
Co., of Brooklyn, New York, to submit plans. A year later it accepted
some of this firm's proposals, payment for the work to be made in bonds
of the City of Havana. But the oncoming of the war caused postponement
of the project, and it was not until December, 1898, just before the
Spanish evacuation, that the corporation of Havana finally accepted the
proposals and authorized the issue of bonds. The American authorities,
however, who were about to take over the control of the city, protested
against being thus saddled with a scheme of Spanish making, and
accordingly the last Spanish Governor, General Castellanos, very
properly declined to approve and sign the ordinance; declaring that it
and all similar projects, which would have to be executed under American
control, should await American approval.

A few days later the transfer of sovereignty occurred, and General
Ludlow, as Governor of Havana, decided to set aside the Dady proposals
altogether and to proceed with the work himself. This was doubtless an
economical and logical course to pursue. But under the old Spanish law,
which was still in force, Dady & Co. claimed to have certain rights in
the matter. The matter remained in suspense for the whole of General
Brooke's administration, with a succession of engineers from the United
States making and remaking plans for the work and with Dady & Co.'s
interests undecided. Apparently the United States government--for the
whole matter was controlled by the Engineering Bureau of the War
Department at Washington--was reluctant to challenge Dady & Co. to a
trial of their claims in court, and was unwilling to seek a compromise
with them, but was seeking by interminable postponements, changes of
plan and delays to tire them out and induce them voluntarily to
withdraw. But that was something which that astute and resolute
corporation showed no inclination to do. Meanwhile very important
public works were at a stand-still.

This was an intolerable state of affairs, and General Wood in the spring
of 1901 determined to end it after the manner of Alexander's disposition
of the Gordian knot. He paid Dady & Co. $250,000 in satisfaction of
their claims, which was possibly less than the courts would have awarded
them if the case had been carried before them, and then ordered bids to
be solicited for the doing of the work. The only bid received was from
Dady & Co., and the Washington authorities refused to sanction
acceptance of it on the ground that it was too high. The plans were
altered and new bids solicited, and the Havana Ayuntamiento voted to
award the contract to the lowest bidders, McGivney & Rokeby. But before
the contract was closed Dady & Co. on a plea of having misunderstood the
plans offered a reduction of their bid below that of their competitors;
whereupon the Ayuntamiento reconsidered its vote and ordered the
contract to be made with Dady & Co. But the Washington authorities
refused to sanction this change, apparently being averse to letting Dady
& Co. have the job at any figure, and the result was that the whole
matter remained at a deadlock until after the end of the American
occupation.

From some points of view the greatest achievement of General Wood's
administration was that of the conquest of disease, and it was one in
which he as a physician and man of science took peculiar interest. When
he fought and temporarily overcame yellow fever at Santiago, there was
no application of the immortal theory of Dr. Finlay, but it was supposed
that the pestilence spontaneously arose from filth. The same was true of
General Ludlow's subsequent cleansing of Havana; he supposing that by
the removal of filth the sources of infection would be removed. But when
he observed that the dreaded disease occurred where there was no filth,
General Wood concluded that it must have another source, and decided to
give Dr. Finlay's theory a practical test. In 1900 therefore a medical
commission was formed, composed of Drs. Walter Reed, U. S. A., James
Carroll, Aristides Agramonte, and Jesse W. Lazear, who, with the heroic
cooperation of soldiers of the United States army, who were willing to
risk their lives in experiments for the welfare of humanity, undertook
an elaborate series of demonstrations which were epochal in the history
not alone of Cuba but also of the whole world.

Reed took the initiative. He applied to General Wood for permission to
undertake the work, including the conducting of experiments on persons
who were not immune against the fever, which of course was a most
perilous venture. He also asked for a considerable sum of money with
which to reward volunteers who would thus submit themselves to deadly
peril. General Wood did not hesitate for a moment. He granted the
permission, appropriated the money, and entered into the momentous
enterprise with helpful sympathy and untiring zeal.

[Illustration: CARLOS J. FINLAY

Born at Camaguey on December 3, 1833, of English parents, and dying on
August 20, 1915, Dr. Carlos J. Finlay left a name which greatly adorns
the science of Cuba and which occupied a conspicuous place on the roster
of the benefactors of humanity. He was educated in France and at the
Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, and rose to eminence in his
profession. He first of all men propounded the theory that _Stegomiya
fasciata_ mosquito was the active and sole agent in the communication of
yellow fever, and personally, under the Governorship of Leonard Wood,
demonstrated the correctness of that theory and thus freed Cuba from its
most dreaded pestilence and blazed the way for a like achievement in all
other lands. For this epochal service to the world many foreign
governments bestowed distinctions and decorations upon him. Though
technically retaining the British citizenship with which his father
endowed him, he devoted his life to Cuba and filled with high efficiency
the place of chief of the Bureau of Sanitation.]

The scene of the drama--for it was one of the most dramatic and heroic
performances in human history--was Camp Lazear, fittingly named for the
brave man who was a martyr to the cause of health, a few miles from
Quemados, in the outskirts of Havana. Before the work at the camp was
begun, however, two experiments were made by members of the commission,
who thus demonstrated their personal readiness to incur any peril which
might confront the volunteers for whom they were calling. Dr. Carroll
was first. He deliberately caused himself to be bitten by a mosquito
which twelve days before had gorged itself with the blood of a
yellow fever patient. Note that he did this with the expectation, indeed
with the hope, that he would thus be infected with one of the deadliest
of diseases. He sought to prove not that there was no danger in a
mosquito bite, but on the contrary that there was the greatest possible
danger. And his anticipations were fully realized. In due time after the
bite he was stricken with yellow fever in a particularly severe form;
from which, however, he happily recovered.

Dr. Lazear came next. At about the same time with Carroll he made a
similar experiment upon himself. Apparently the insect by which he
caused himself to be bitten had not itself been infected. At any rate
Lazear did not develop the disease. At this he was disappointed, and he
determined to expose himself again. Accordingly he was thoroughly bitten
by another mosquito, in the yellow fever ward of the hospital. He noted
the fact and all its results most carefully, as though he had been
experimenting upon some inanimate object. In due time the disease
manifested itself in its most malignant form. Everything possible was of
course done for him, but in vain. He died of the disease which he had
voluntarily contracted for the sake of saving others from it; one of the
world's great martyrs to the cause not merely of science but of
humanity.

So Camp Lazear was founded and was named after this hero. There were
erected two large frame buildings, one for infected mosquitoes and one
for infected clothing. The mosquito building was divided into two parts
by a permanent wirecloth partition, impervious to even the smallest
mosquito, but of course permitting free circulation of air. All the
windows and doors were securely screened in like manner, so that it was
impossible for mosquitoes to pass in or out. This building was
ventilated in the most thorough manner. Three men entered it and lived
there for a fortnight. One of them entered the compartment which was
infested with fever-infected mosquitoes, and was bitten by them. The
others remained in the other compartment which was free from mosquitoes
but through which the same air circulated and in which all other
conditions were identical with those in the insect room. The result was
that the man who was bitten developed the fever, while the others,
though fully as susceptible to it as he, showed no signs of it. Such was
the convincing demonstration of the mosquito house.

The clothing building was kept free from mosquitoes, but was well
stocked with the clothing and bedding of yellow fever patients. There
were the beds in which men had died of the fever, soiled with their
vomit and other excreta. The room was purposely deprived of ventilation,
so that its air should constantly be heavy with the reek of disease and
death. Into that indescribably loathsome place brave men entered, and
there they lived for weeks, wearing the soiled clothing and sleeping in
the soiled beds of those who had died of the pestilence. But not one of
them contracted the fever. Not one sickened. All emerged from the
noisome place at the end of the experiment in perfect health. Such was
the convincing demonstration of the infected clothing house.

One thing more remained. There was one remote possibility that the men
who had remained free from the fever, in the noninfected room of the
mosquito house and in the infected clothing house, were in some
unsuspected way immune against the disease. To determine this, one of
each of the companies permitted himself to be bitten by an infected
mosquito, with the result that he promptly developed the disease. That
was the final, complete and crowning demonstration which made Camp
Lazear forever famous in the annals of humanity. At a single stroke the
pestilence which had been the haunting horror of the tropics was
potentially conquered. Dr. Reed proclaimed to the world that the
specific agent in the causation of yellow fever was a germ or toxin in
the blood of a patient during only the first three days of the attack,
which must be transmitted by the bite of a mosquito inflicted upon its
victim at least twelve days after taking it from the blood of the first
patient. In no other way was it possible to convey the infection. The
notion that it was conveyed through the air, in the breath of patients,
in their soiled clothing or the discharges of their bodies, was
baseless.

That historic achievement was alone sufficient to make that first year
of General Wood's administration in Cuba forever gratefully famous. Of
course the lesson thus learned was at once put into effect with all
possible thoroughness. War was declared upon the death-dealing mosquito.
In February, 1901, the campaign was begun by Major William C. Gorgas, U.
S. A., the chief sanitary officer of Havana. Every case of yellow fever
was immediately reported, and the patient was rigidly isolated during
the three days in which his blood was infective. All the rooms of his
house and the adjacent houses were closed to prevent the escape of
possible infected mosquitoes, and were then thoroughly fumigated so as
to destroy every insect within them. In this way the spread of the
disease was prevented. At the same time measures were taken to
exterminate the mosquitoes altogether, by depriving them of breeding
places. It was ascertained that the insect required for propagation a
certain amount of stagnant water, in which its eggs might be deposited
and hatched. Steps were therefore taken to drain or otherwise get rid of
all pools, or to apply to them a film of oil which would prevent the
insects from using them, and to screen carefully all vessels and other
receptacles in which water was necessarily kept. These were the same
methods which Major--since Major General--Gorgas a few years later
applied with distinguished success for the elimination of yellow fever
from the Isthmus of Panama and thus rendered possible the construction
of the interoceanic canal.

[Illustration: STREET IN VEDADO, SUBURB OF HAVANA]

Begun in February, 1901, this work in Havana was so vigorously and
skilfully prosecuted that before summer every case of yellow fever had
disappeared from that city and its environs. During the summer a few
cases occurred, but the last of them was disposed of early in September.
That was the last case of yellow fever to originate in a city which for
a century and a half had annually been scourged by that disease. Since
that date the only cases that have been known there have been a few
which were imported from less sanitary ports--at one time Havana had to
establish a fever quarantine against United States ports! Thus the
island which had long suffered reproach as the especial home of one of
the deadliest of diseases, as a veritable plague-spot, which American
life insurance companies forbade their policy holders to visit, became
noted for its freedom from that scourge and for its general salubrity.

A similar campaign was also conducted against another variety of
mosquito which, by a like series of experiments, had been proved to be
the propagating medium of so-called malarial fevers; with highly
gratifying results.

Among the important reforms effected by General Wood was that of the
entire system of law and justice. It began with the penal institutions.
When the Americans assumed control, they found the old Spanish prison
system still in existence. Most of the prisons were antiquated,
unsanitary and inhuman structures, to enter which was ominous for the
body, the mind and the soul. There was no segregation of prisoners
according to age or degree of criminality. Mere boys, sentenced for some
slight misdemeanor, were herded in with adult felons of the most
hardened and incorrigible type. Many had been confined for months, even
years, awaiting trial. They had been arrested, locked up in default of
bail, and then practically forgotten. Of these many were innocent of
any wrong-doing; while some of those who were probably guilty were kept
in confinement awaiting trial for a much longer term than they could
have been sentenced for under the law if they had been tried and found
guilty.

This shocking state of affairs was vigorously attacked during the first
year of the American occupation, and it was thoroughly reformed before
that occupation ended. There was a prompt disposal of all untried cases.
Where it was possible, the prisoners were at once brought to trial. But
in many cases there was nobody to appear against them; perhaps through
lapse of time all the witnesses were dead; and it was impossible to make
even a show of prosecuting them. Such persons simply had to be set at
liberty. The system of jurisprudence was so modified as to assure prompt
trials thereafter. The management of the prisons was made to aim at the
reformation of the prisoners and not simply at their vindictive
punishment. In some prisons schools were opened, to give the inmates
instruction which would conduce to their right living after their
release. Of course the buildings were renovated as far as possible, so
as to make them sanitary and as comfortable as prisoners have a right to
expect their prisons to be.

This led, under General Wood's administration, to a general revision of
the system of courts, court procedure and jurisprudence. In the first
year of intervention, indeed, General Ludlow established a Police Court
in Havana. This was not authorized by Governor Brooke, and was regarded
as of doubtful legality. Nevertheless it remained in operation and
undoubtedly served a good purpose in disposing promptly of most of the
petty cases of arrest for misdemeanor. So valuable was it that General
Wood, on becoming Governor, determined to place its legal status on the
surest foundation possible, by issuing an official order for its
creation and recognition. In this he did not himself escape criticism,
not from Cubans but from Americans. The same people, or the same kind of
people, who had blamed him for paying so much attention to Cuban
education now declared that he had no business to meddle in any way with
the judicial system of Cuba. That was not what America had intervened
for. To such objections little attention was paid. General Wood rightly
regarded it to be his business to do anything in any department of
government that would promote the ends of justice and good government
and the welfare of the Cuban nation.

Police courts were therefore established not only in Havana but also in
the other cities. The Department of Justice was moved to examine into
the conduct of all the courts. When judges were found to be unjust,
corrupt, incompetent, or otherwise unfit to serve, they were removed.
Competent clerks were appointed, and they and all other court employes
were put on fair salaries, the fee system which formerly prevailed and
which was so susceptible of abuse, being abolished. Competent and
trustworthy lawyers were employed at state expense to serve as counsel
for those who were too poor to hire them.

It was under General Wood, in his first year of administration and the
second year of American intervention, that Cuban civil government was
elaborated, that an election system was devised and put into effect, and
that political parties had their rise. The Civil Governors of the
Provinces were now all Cubans: Of Pinar del Rio, Dr. J. M. Quilez; of
Havana, General Emilio Nunez; of Matanzas, General Pedro Betancourt; of
Santa Clara, General Jose Miguel Gomez; of Camaguey, General R. Lopez
Recio; of Oriente, General Demetrio Castillo. It was General Wood's wise
and just policy to fill Cuban offices with Cubans to the fullest
possible extent.

Therefore it was determined in the spring of 1900 to hold an election
for municipal officers throughout the island. An order was issued on
April 18, appointing the election for June 16, for officers to be
installed on July 1 for a term of one year. The officers to be chosen
were Mayors, or Alcaldes; members of City Councils or Ayuntamientos;
municipal treasurers and judges, and judges of the police courts.

The preparations for the election were made and a new electoral law was
drafted by a commission of fifteen members, appointed by General Wood.
Of the fifteen, thirteen were Cubans and two were Americans. The Cubans
were representative of the various political parties into which the
people of the island were beginning to divide themselves. It cannot be
said that the meetings and deliberations of the commission were
particularly harmonious. In the end two reports were submitted to the
Governor, of which he selected for adoption that presented by the
minority. It comprised the new elections law, which he promulgated on
April 18 in the proclamation calling for the election. This law provided
that a voter must be a male Cuban, native of Cuba or born of Cuban
parents while they were temporarily visiting abroad, or a Spaniard
included within the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1898, who had not
elected to retain his Spanish allegiance; he must be twenty-one years
old, and must have lived in his municipality for at least thirty days
immediately preceding registration; and he must be able to read and
write; or own property worth $250 in American gold; or have served in
the Cuban army prior to July 18, 1898, and have been honorably
discharged therefrom. The ten consecutive days from May 6 to May 16 were
appointed as days of registration.

The total number of voters registered was 150,648, which was a little
more than fifty per cent, of the total number of men of voting age,
which had been shown by the census of 1899 to be 297,765. However, there
were some thousands of adult males in the island who had elected to
retain their allegiance to Spain, and therefore could not vote, so that
the number registered was considerably more than one half of the
possible voters. At the election on June 16 the total vote cast was
110,816. There were some protests and complaints of fraud and illegal
voting, and it is not improbable that there were some such abuses; as
there have been known to be in other lands, even in the United States of
America. On the whole the elections were probably reasonably fair and
honest; they were peacefully and quietly conducted; and they gave much
encouragement to the expectation that the people of Cuba would prove
themselves worthy of the opportunity of self-government which was being
placed before them.

At this election there were three parties. The Union Democratic was
composed of the more conservative element, including many of the old
Autonomist party, and it was largely inclined toward annexation to the
United States, or toward a permanent and efficient protectorate by that
country. Its numbers were few, and it took little part in the election.
The Nationals and the Republicans ranged from liberal to radical, and
between the two in principle there was no perceptible difference. These
parties did not long survive, but were transformed and merged into the
Conservative and Liberal parties of later years.

Political parties in Cuba had their origin about the time of American
intervention in the war. That was an assurance that Cuba was to have her
independence and become self-governing, and that made it seem worth
while to form into parties. The full development did not come, however,
until it was seen that the United States intended to keep its word by
leaving the government and control of Cuba to the people of the island,
and that conviction did not come to the general Cuban mind until some
time after the United States entered the war. It first began to arise in
considerable strength when the United States government forbade the
granting of any franchises or concessions during the American
occupation. That certainly looked as though the Americans expected to
get out of the island at an early date. As the administration of General
Wood went on, constantly increasing the participation of Cubans in the
government, the confidence in American good faith increased, and of
course the organization of parties became more complete.

There were then, however, as there are now, no such differences between
the parties on matters of political economy or administrative and
legislative policy, as exist in other lands. They are simply the "Ins"
and the "Outs." One party is in office and wants to stay in. The other
is out and wants to get in. In their methods, however, the two differ
widely. The Conservatives have been consistently in favor of
constitutional and lawful measures, the maintenance of peace and the
safeguarding of life and property. They have always been willing to
accept and abide by the result of an election, even though it were
against them. The Liberals, on the other hand, as we shall more
convincingly see in the course of this narrative, have been in favor of
practically any means which would enable them to gain control of
affairs. They have on several occasions not hesitated to involve the
island in revolution, provided that they would be able to profit from it
by gaining office.

In this first election for municipal officers there was little partisan
rivalry, and indeed that did not rise to any great pitch until the end
of the first intervention and the establishment of a purely Cuban
government. The chief partisanship was really personal. Each important
military or political leader had his own following. Such rivalries were
not yet, however, acrimonious or sufficient to have any material effect
upon the progress of public affairs.

Reference has been made to the reform of the taxation system which
included the abolition of a number of annoying and oppressive imposts.
There followed a revision of the tariff on imports, for the dual
purposes of promoting commerce and industry and of providing a revenue
for the insular government. In December, 1898, the United States had
ordered maintenance of the old Spanish tariff, with certain
modifications, chiefly dictated by the change of relations between Cuba
and the United States. Subsequently other modifications were made from
time to time as the need or desirability of them became apparent through
experience. But on June 15, 1900, an entirely new tariff law went into
effect, framed chiefly by American experts and following pretty closely
the general lines of the American tariff system. Naturally it was
calculated to encourage commerce between Cuba and the United States,
particularly by the admission of products of the latter country into
Cuban markets at a minimum of cost. In view of the scarcity of food in
Cuba and the devastated condition of much of the agricultural lands,
American food products, both meats and breadstuffs, thus gained easy
access to the Cuban market. This seemed anomalous, since Cuba was an
agricultural country capable of producing a large surplus of food for
export instead of needing imports of food. It was obvious, however, that
this feature of the tariff would be merely temporary, and in fact it was
materially modified by the increase of rates on such imports very soon
after the establishment of the Cuban government.

Despite the fact that during the year about three million dollars' worth
of food was imported, the total of Cuban imports was less than in the
preceding year; a circumstance due to the change in tariff rates. At the
same time there was a very considerable increase in exports. It was an
interesting circumstance, also, that there was a decrease in trade with
the United States; a pretty effective reply to the complaint which some
made that the new tariff had been improperly framed so as to give the
United States a monopoly of Cuban trade. It did give the United States
some advantages which that country had not enjoyed before, but on the
whole it was probably as fair and impartial as it could well have been
made. Commercial reports showed that Cuban imports from the United
States were $26,513,613 in 1900 and $25,964,801 in 1901; and that Cuban
exports to the United States were $31,371,704 in 1900 and $43,428,088 in
1901. Thus Cuban purchases from the United States were decreasing
slightly, while Cuban sales to the United States were greatly
increasing, and the balance of trade was growing more and more largely
in Cuba's favor.




CHAPTER XI


The supreme work of the Government of Intervention, from the political
point of view, was to prepare Cuba for complete self-government and then
to relinquish the control of the island to its own people. It was with
that end in view that General Wood filled all possible offices with
Cubans. It was also to the same end that the municipal election was held
in June, 1900, under a new election law. Soon after that election there
came a call for another, of vastly greater importance. On July 25, 1900,
the President of the United States authorized General Wood as Military
Governor of Cuba to issue a call for the election of a Cuban
Constitutional Convention, which should be representative of the Cuban
people and which should prepare the fundamental law of the independent
insular government which was about to be erected.

General Wood issued the call, fixing September 15 as the date of the
election. This call repeated and reaffirmed the Congressional
declaration of April 20, 1898, concerning the purpose of the United
States not to annex Cuba but to "leave the government and control of the
island to its people." It also called upon the people of Cuba, through
their Constitutional Convention, not only to frame and adopt a
Constitution, but also, "as a part thereof, to provide for and agree
with the Government of the United States upon the relations to exist
between that government and the Government of Cuba." That was a most
significant thing. It made it quite clear that the United States
expected and intended that some special relations should exist between
the two countries, apart from those ordinarily provided in treaties.

Comment, criticism and protest were provoked; some temperate, some
intemperate. Most of the unfavorable comments, and by far the most
severe, came from the United States and were obviously animated by
political hostility to the President. In Cuba the chief objection was
based upon the ground that the island was thus required to do something
through a Constitutional Convention which that body was not intended to
do but which should be done by the diplomatic department of the
government; and also to put into the Constitution something which did
not belong there but which should be determined in a treaty. In this
there was obviously much logical and moral force, and that fact was
appreciated by General Wood, and by the government at Washington, with
the result that assurances were presently given that the order would be
satisfactorily modified. On the strength of this assurance, which was
given in undoubted good faith, Cubans generally prepared for the coming
election and for the great work which lay beyond it. They had been so
disturbed by the original form of the order that many had declared that
they would not participate in the election or serve as delegates to the
Convention. The promise of modification mollified them, and thereafter
all went smoothly and auspiciously.

The call for the election was issued on August 11. The qualifications
for suffrage which were prescribed were the same as those in the
preceding municipal election, and were generally accepted as fair and
just. The election was held on September 15, and it passed off in very
much the same fashion as its predecessor. Only a moderate degree of
popular interest was manifested in it, and the vote cast was not a
large one. The candidates were divided among the three parties already
mentioned, but all save one were elected from the two radical
organizations, the Nationals and the Republicans. Just one, Senor Eliseo
Giberga, of Matanzas province, was returned by the Conservative Union
Democrats. There were a few charges of fraud, but they were vague and
general in terms and were not formulated nor pressed, and in the main
the result of the polling was accepted in good part. The number of
delegates from each province had been prescribed in the call for the
election. The roll of the convention comprised the names of many of the
foremost members of the Cuban nation, distinguished in war, in
statecraft and in science, and was well representative of all parts and
parties of the island.

The convention met for the first time on November 5, 1900, at two
o'clock in the afternoon. All the delegates were present, and a great
multitude of the people gathered in and about the palace to witness the
spectacle and to pay honor to the occasion. They were not alone from the
capital, but from all parts of Cuba. Every province and almost every
important municipality was represented. Expectant optimism prevailed.
There was only one note of uncertainty. That was concerning the promised
modification of the order concerning relations with the United States.
The modification had not yet been announced. There were a few who began
to doubt whether it would ever be; but most put faith in the Military
Governor and were sure that he would keep his word.

He did. At the appointed moment, when all were assembled, General Wood
called the Convention to order and addressed it briefly.

"It will," he said, "be your duty, first, to frame and adopt a
Constitution for Cuba, and when that has been done, to formulate what,
in your opinion, ought to be the relations between Cuba and the United
States. The Constitution must be adequate to secure a stable, orderly
and free government. When you have formulated the relations which, in
your opinion, ought to exist between Cuba and the United States, the
Government of the United States will doubtless take such action on its
part as shall lead to a final and authoritative agreement between the
people of the two countries to the promotion of their common good." He
also reminded the Convention that it had no authority to take any part
in the existing government of the island, or to do anything more than
was prescribed in the order for its assembling. In thus speaking he was
in fact reading to the Convention official instructions from Washington;
in which the order concerning Cuban and American relations was
materially modified. There was nothing in the revised version about
making the agreement a part of the Constitution. The Convention was
merely to express its opinion on the subject, to serve as a basis for
further negotiations. General Wood emphasized this point distinctly, and
it was received with entire satisfaction by the Convention and by the
public.

Having thus delivered to the Convention its instructions and having
expressed his personal good will and wishes for its success, General
Wood retired and the Convention was left to its own counsels and
devices. Thereupon Pedro Llorente, the oldest of the delegates, took the
chair by common consent as temporary president, and Enrique Villuendas,
the youngest delegate, similarly occupied the desk of the secretary. A
fitting oath of office was administered to all by the Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court of the island; containing a formal renunciation of
all other citizenship and allegiance than Cuban, because several
delegates had become naturalized citizens of the United States and it
was necessary for them thus to resume their status as Cubans. On the
principle that "What was good enough for us when we were struggling in
the field is good enough for us here," the rules of the Cuban
Revolutionary Congress were adopted to govern the Convention. Finally
Domingo Mendez Capote was elected permanent President of the Convention,
and Alfredo Zayas and Enrique Villuendas permanent Secretaries.

There followed the usual experience of such bodies: Divided counsels,
cross purposes, and what not; all gradually working together toward a
common end. A few public sessions were held, at which there was more
speechmaking than work, but after a few weeks private sessions and a
great deal of committee work became the rule. There was no division on
party lines, and there was a lack of dominant leadership; both favorable
circumstances. Much attention was given to studying and analyzing the
constitutions of all other republics in the world, in order to learn
their good features and to avoid their errors and weaknesses. The
constitution of the United States was of course among those studied, but
rather less regard was paid to it than to others, for two reasons. One
was, a desire to avoid even the appearance of making Cuba a mere
appanage to or imitation of its northern neighbor, and the other was the
very practical thought that the constitutions of Latin republics might
be better suited to the Latin republic of Cuba than that of an
Anglo-Saxon republic.

By January 21 the Constitution was drafted in form sufficiently complete
to permit it to be read to the whole convention in a public session,
and thereafter there were daily discussions of its various provisions.
Differences of opinion ranged from mere verbal form to the substance of
the most momentous principles. There was a characteristic passage of
verbal arms over a phrase in the preamble. That paragraph after stating
the purpose of the Convention and of the Constitution, closed by
"invoking the favor of God." When this was read the venerable Salvador
Cisneros, formerly President of the Republic, moved that the phrase be
stricken out. Manuel Sanguilly made a long and dramatic speech, arguing
with much passion that it really did not matter whether the phrase were
included or not, but that it would best be left in, because that might
please some and could hurt nobody. Then the dean of the convention,
Pedro Llorente, made an impassioned appeal for the retention of the
words, to prove to the world that the Cubans were not a nation of
infidels and atheists. In the end the phrase was retained.

Another animated debate arose over the question of religious freedom and
the relations of church and state, which was ended by the adoption of an
article guaranteeing freedom and equality for all forms of religion that
were in accord with "Christian morality and public order," and decreeing
separation of church and state and forbidding the subsidizing of any
church. The question of suffrage was intensely controversial. There were
those who dreaded the result of giving the ballot to tens of thousands
of ignorant and illiterate men. Yet to disfranchise them would mean thus
to debar thousands who had fought for Cuban independence in the late
war, and it was not unreasonably feared that it would also cause
dissatisfaction and resentment which would culminate in disorder and
insurrection. In the end universal equal suffrage was adopted.

The most bitter debate of all, however, was over the qualifications of
the President of the Republic. A strong and persistent effort was made
to imitate the Constitution of the United States by requiring him to be
a native citizen. But that would have debarred Maximo Gomez, who was
born in Santo Domingo. For that reason the proposed restriction was
passionately opposed by all the friends of Gomez, and also by many who
were not his friends and who would have opposed his candidacy for the
Presidency but who felt that it would be disgraceful to put such a
slight upon the gallant old hero of the two wars. On the other hand, the
restriction was urged chiefly for that very reason, that it would debar
Gomez; for, idolized as he was by the great mass of the Cuban people, he
had a number of unrelenting enemies, especially among these politicians
whom he had opposed and overruled in the matter of the Cuban Assembly
and the payment of soldiers at the end of the war. After several days of
acrimonious discussion the friends of Gomez won by a narrow margin, and
the offensive proposal was rejected.

There were many other controversial points, less personal and more
worthy of debate in such a gathering on bases not of personality but of
principle. The governmental powers of the Provinces gave rise to debates
resembling those over state rights in America. The recognition of Cuban
debts was a momentous matter. The method of electing Senators was also
much discussed, as was the principle which the Military Administration
had adopted of having the state and not the provinces or municipalities
control public education. The right of the government to expel
objectionable aliens was the theme of a long and spirited discussion.
With all the animation, sentiment and rhetoric in which Latin debaters
and orators more freely indulge than do the more phlegmatic
Anglo-Saxons, all of these questions were very seriously considered
according to their merits, and were disposed of on that same basis.
There was no haste, and there was no undue delay; while everything was
done "decently and in order." It took the Federal Convention of the
United States four months of secret sessions to frame its Constitution,
and its career was marked with many violent scenes, including the
withdrawal of the representatives of one of the chief states from the
Convention. The Cuban Convention had no incidents so unpleasant as that,
and it completed its work in three months and a half.

[Illustration: AURELIA CASTILLO DE GONZALEZ

Aurelia Castillo de Gonzalez, poet and essayist, was born in Camaguey in
1842, spent much time in European travel, and then settled in Havana.
She first attracted literary attention by her elegy on "El Lugareno" in
1866, and since that time has been an incessant contributor to Cuban
literature in verse and prose. She is the author of a fine study of the
Life and Works of Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, of a volume of fables,
and a number of satires. Her complete works (to date) were published in
five volumes in 1913.]

February 21, 1901 was the crowning day. Ten days before the draft of the
Constitution, as yet unsigned, had been published in pamphlet form. On
the date named the Convention was to give it validity by signing it. The
public was admitted to view the scene, the consuls of foreign powers
were in attendance as specially invited guests, and a fine military band
discoursed patriotic and classical music. The Constitution, finally
engrossed, was read aloud, and then one by one the delegates marched up
to the President's desk and affixed their signatures. When the last name
was written, all stood while the band played the national anthem of
Cuba. The President of the Convention, Mendez Capote, made a graceful
address of congratulation and good wishes; and the Convention adjourned,
its work well ended.

We have said that at the opening session, immediately after his
introductory address, the American Military Governor left the hall. He
did not revisit it, and neither he nor any American officer was ever
present at any meeting of the Convention; nor was any American
representative present at the closing function of the signing of the
Constitution. The purpose of that abstention was obvious. It was to
avoid so much as the appearance or the suspicion of American meddling or
dictation in the work of the Convention. General Wood had told the
Convention that it had nothing to do with his government of the island.
Conversely he wished to show that he and his government had nothing to
do with the work of the Convention.

The Constitution thus auspiciously brought into existence declares Cuba
to be a sovereign republic. The powers of government are much more
centralized than those in the United States. The six Provinces have no
such rights as have the states of America, though they have a liberal
measure of local governmental power. They are not states or provinces,
however, but mere departments--fractions of the whole instead of
integral units. Each has a Governor and an elected Assembly. So each
city and town has a mayor and a council. Municipalities have the power
to levy taxes for local needs. The control of railroads and telegraphs
is a national function, and the judicial system is also national. There
is freedom of speech, of press and of worship. No prisoner may be held
longer than twenty-four hours without judicial process. Congress
consists of a Senate and a House of Representatives. There are six
Senators from each department, elected by the municipalities for six
years, one third retiring every two years. Representatives are elected
from districts by the people for four years, there being one member to
every 25,000 inhabitants. Senators and Representatives must be
twenty-five years old, and if not native citizens must have been
naturalized eight years. The President and Vice-President are elected
for four years by the people through electoral colleges, with a
provision for minority representation, each citizen voting for only
two-thirds of the number of electors to which his district is entitled.
Justices of the Supreme Court are appointed for life by the President
with the ratification of the Senate. The civil law and constitutional
guarantees can be suspended in case of emergency only by Congress when
it is in session, but by the President when Congress is not in session.
The House of Representatives may impeach the President, when the Senate
may suspend him from office, try him, and upon conviction remove him
permanently. Amendments of the Constitution must be voted by two-thirds
of both Houses and ratified by a popular convention specially called for
the purpose.

There can be no question that this was a highly creditable production,
and one which amply merited the qualified approval which was given to it
by Elihu Root, Secretary of War of the United States, when he said: "I
do not fully agree with the wisdom of some of the provisions of this
Constitution. But it provides for a republican form of government; it
was adopted after long and patient consideration and discussion; it
represents the views of the delegates elected by the people of Cuba;
and it contains no features which would justify the assertion that a
government organized under it will not be one to which the United States
may properly transfer the obligations for the protection of life and
property under international law, assumed in the Treaty of Paris."

The first part of the Convention's work was thus done. There remained
the second part, the expression of Cuban opinion as to what ought to be
the relations between that island and the United States. Over this a
most unfortunate controversy arose, chiefly provoked and fomented,
however, not by Cubans but by the partisan enemies of the President of
the United States and of his policy, who did not scruple to intrigue
against him in the affairs of foreign lands. It will be recalled that
this hatred of him, provoked largely because of his insistence on
fulfilling the pledge of Cuban freedom instead of seeking to serve
certain sordid interests by forcibly annexing the island, culminated in
the assassination of President McKinley at the incitement of his
political foes. The opposition to him and to his policy in Cuba was
continued unabated against his successor, President Roosevelt; and it
was most unfortunate for both countries that the establishment of Cuban
self-government and the determination of her relations to her northern
neighbor, had to be effected in such circumstances.

The United States government had to deal on the one hand with those who
insisted that it should have no more special relations with Cuba than
any other country had; and on the other with those who demanded the
repudiation of the Congressional pledge and the forcible annexation of
the island. In those circumstances it was not strange that many Cubans
were disinclined to make any such arrangement as had been required in
the call for the Convention. They recalled that the United States had
declared that "Cuba is of right and ought to be free and independent,"
and they were not disposed to look beyond that declaration.

Three considerations were too much overlooked on both sides, save by the
thoughtful American and Cuban statesmen who finally solved the problem.
One was that the United States had for nearly a century exercised a
certain degree of protection or supervision over Cuba. It had repeatedly
forbidden European powers to meddle with the island, and had for many
years guaranteed and protected Spain in her possession of it. It was
held to be only reasonable that a similar degree of interest should be
maintained in the island in its independent status. The second point was
that in the Treaty of Paris in 1898 the United States had incurred a
certain moral if not a legal responsibility for the future of Cuba. The
third was the much less specific yet by no means negligible
consideration that the United States had intervened in Cuba to put an
end to conditions which had become intolerably offensive to it, and it
was therefore equitably entitled to take all proper precautions against
a recurrence of such conditions.

In pursuance of the requirements of the call for the Convention, then,
immediately after the signing of the Constitution, a committee was
appointed to draft a project concerning relations with the United
States. It consisted of Diego Tamayo, Gonzalo de Quesada, Juan Gualberto
Gomez, Enrique Villuendas, and Manuel Ramon Silva. These gentlemen
conferred with General Wood, to learn the wishes of President McKinley,
and then drafted a scheme which they presented to the Convention and
which that body adopted on February 27. Unfortunately between the
President's wishes and the committee's project there were radical
differences. The President, through his Secretary of War, Elihu Root,
had on February 9 expressed with much circumstance and detail and a
wealth of argument the relationship which the United States government
regarded as essential. It amounted to this: That the Cuban government
should never make any treaty or engagement which would impair its
independence, nor make any special agreement with any foreign power
without the consent of the United States; that it should contract no
public debt in excess of the capacity of the ordinary revenues of the
island; that the United States should have the right of intervention for
the preservation of Cuban independence and the maintenance of a stable
government; that all the acts of the American Military Administration
should be validated; and that the United States should be permitted to
acquire and to hold naval stations in Cuba at certain points.

The Committee of the Convention reported that in its judgment some of
these conditions were unacceptable, inasmuch as they impaired the
independence of Cuba. So it proposed and the Convention adopted
proposals to this effect: That Cuba should never impair her independence
by any agreement with any power, not excepting the United States; that
she should never permit her territory to be used as a base or war
against the United States; that she accepted the obligations expressed
and implied in the Treaty of Paris; that she should validate the acts of
the Military Government "for the good government of Cuba"; and that the
United States and Cuba should regulate their commercial relations by
means of a reciprocity treaty.

Obviously, there was a wide divergence between the two schemes. It was
unfortunate that the American Congress was about to adjourn, on March
4, and was reluctant to reassemble in special session, and also that the
political passions to which we have referred were raging at so high a
pitch. In more favorable circumstances the matter would have been
settled diplomatically without friction or ill-feeling. There was,
indeed, a very considerable conservative party in Cuba, probably
comprising a majority of the substantial, well informed and orderly
inhabitants, who favored some such scheme of American supervision and
control as that which had been proposed, and if there had been a little
more time for calm deliberation they would probably have won the
Convention and the whole island to their point of view. Unhappily the
government at Washington determined to finish the matter up before
Congress adjourned on March 4, and in the short time which intervened
the passionate voice of faction was much more in evidence man the
thoughtful and measured voice of patriotic counsel.

Senator Orville H. Platt, of Connecticut, one of the ablest and
fairest-minded men in that body, was the Chairman of the Committee on
Relations with Cuba. It was probably he who suggested the modification
which was made in the instructions to the Convention. He now declared
that--which was perfectly true--the United States Congress had no power
to approve, reject, or in any way amend or modify the Cuban
Constitution. Cuba was entitled to establish her own government without
let or hindrance. But he also held that by virtue of the grounds of its
intervention in Cuban affairs the United States possessed certain rights
and privileges in that island above those of other powers, and that it
was in duty bound, for the sake of both Cuba and itself, to provide in
some assured way for the permanent safe-guarding of those special
interests. These views were approved by the best thought of both
countries, and ultimately prevailed.

In accordance with the views thus expressed, Senator Platt prepared as
an addendum to the Army Appropriation bill, on February 25, the historic
measure known as the Platt Amendment. This, consisting of eight brief
paragraphs, embodied the very points which the President had already
made on February 9, with the addition of three more. One of these was,
that the Cuban government should maintain the work of sanitation already
so auspiciously begun, for the protection of its own people and also the
people of the United States from epidemic pestilence; a requirement
which was probably quite superfluous, seeing that the Cubans were as
intent as the Americans upon the elimination of yellow fever and
malaria. The second was, that the Isle of Pines should be omitted from
the proposed constitutional boundaries of Cuba, the title thereto being
left for future adjustment by treaty. This extraordinary demand was a
bad blot upon the measure, and it is difficult to understand how it ever
was permitted to be inserted at the behest of some unscrupulous and
sordid scheme of exploitation. Happily, subsequent treaty agreements and
court decisions defeated its purpose and confirmed Cuba in her title to
the Isle of Pines. The third was the requirement that Cuba should make
this Platt Amendment either a part of her Constitution or an ordinance
under it and appended to it, and should also embody it in a permanent
treaty with the United States.

At this the storm broke. The great mass of the conservative and
thoughtful people of Cuba, while they regretted the need of it,
recognized the necessity of such an arrangement, and earnestly favored
the acceptance of the Platt Amendment, even with the one or two
objectionable features. But the radicals vigorously opposed it, and in
their opposition were greatly encouraged by the factional enemies of the
President in the United States, who broke all bounds of decency, and not
only raged against him there but organized a propaganda in Cuba itself,
to incite Cubans to oppose and resist the United States. In this the
foremost of such agitators were doubly false. They were not only
stirring up a foreign people against their own country, but they were
doing so with the deliberate and malignant hope of precipitating an
armed conflict between the two countries which would result in the
conquest and forcible annexation of Cuba. While pretending to sympathize
with Cuba and to resent the alleged American impairment of her
sovereignty, they were really scheming for the utter destruction of
Cuban independence.

Agitation, discussion, proposals and counter proposals, upon none of
which could the Convention agree, continued week after week. At the end
of March the question arose of sending a Commission to Washington to see
the President. This was opposed violently, chiefly at the incitement of
American emissaries, who busied themselves in Cuba in urging the
rejection of everything that promised a settlement of the controversy.
On April 1 some unscrupulous intriguer caused a message to be
telegraphed from Washington to the effect that if a Commission came it
would not be received; and this was received in Havana just as the
Convention was about to vote to send such a Commission. Naturally, the
Commission was not sent. On April 9, having learned that the message was
unofficial and mischievous, the Convention reconsidered the matter and
by an overwhelming majority voted to send a commission. Again
mysterious dispatches came from Washington, saying that the President
was resolute in refusing to recognize any Cuban envoys, and in
consequence the sending of the Commission was delayed.

Then the proposal was made that the Convention should reject the Platt
Amendment outright, and afterward send a Commission to Washington; and
this was actually carried, though by mistake, some members voting
exactly contrary to the way they intended. Then it was voted to send a
Commission, with special instructions to try to secure the inclusion of
a commercial treaty in the Platt Amendment. With this in view the
Convention on April 15 designated five members of such a Commission.
They were Mendez Capote, the President of the Convention; Diego Tamayo,
Leopoldo Berriel, Pedro Gonzales Llorente, and Rafael Portuondo; but as
Dr. Berriel could not go, General Pedro Betancourt was named in his
place. The Commission sailed for Washington on April 20. General Wood
also sailed on the same day, though on another steamer. The Cubans
reached Washington four days later, and the next day, in contradiction
to the false dispatches which had been sent, they were courteously
received by President McKinley. After a brief interview he introduced
them to the Secretary of War, to whose department Cuban affairs, under a
Military governor, belonged. He received them most cordially. Indeed, he
had strongly wished them to come to Washington for a conference. He told
them frankly that the Platt Amendment must stand, just as it was, and
that it must be accepted and adopted by Cuba before any further steps
could be taken for the establishment of a Cuban government. Then, at
their request, he gave a detailed explanation of what the United States
government conceived to be the meaning, the purpose and the effect of
each of the provisions of that instrument. He especially showed that it
was merely a logical continuation of long established American policy;
that it was intended not for the gain of the United States but for the
protection of Cuba; and that it would in no way interfere with the
domestic self-sovereignty of the Cuban people, or with the rank of Cuba
as an independent nation among the nations of the world.

The Committee returned to Havana and reported to the Convention the
results of its mission, and the Convention resumed consideration of the
American demands in the new light of Mr. Root's exposition of them.
Faction was still furious. Enemies of the President in the United States
went to Cuba or sent word thither, urging the radical element to hold
out to the bitter end against the Platt Amendment, saying that it would
need only a little longer resistance to compel the American government
to abandon it altogether. Counsels were divided in the Convention, and
numerous proposals of substitutes for the Amendment or for parts of it
were made, but upon none of them could the Convention agree. Some of the
most radical members suggested that the Convention adjourn without day.
But on the whole wiser counsels prevailed. The Commission had been much
impressed by Mr. Root's candid and cogent presentation of the case. It
had also become convinced that if the Amendment were adopted a liberal
reciprocity measure would be granted which would be of vast value to
Cuban commerce and industry. Consideration of the subject continued
until the latter part of May. On May 28 the question of adoption of the
Platt Amendment with certain qualifications was presented to the
Convention for a final vote. The Convention divided equally. There were
fourteen ayes and fourteen nays. Thereupon the President, Mendez Capote,
cast the deciding ballot. He voted aye. This caused a renewal of the
storm. Diego Tamayo and Juan Gualberto Gomez were especially outspoken
in their denunciation of all who had voted for the measure, and some of
the former's remarks were so severe that their retraction was required.
The qualified acceptance of the Amendment was not, however, satisfactory
to the Washington government, and the Convention was promptly informed
of that fact. In consequence the matter was reopened, and on June 12,
after a brief and temperate debate, a final vote was taken on
unconditional acceptance and adoption of the Platt Amendment. The result
was sixteen ayes to eleven nays.

That ended the matter. The Amendment had become a permanent addendum to
the Cuban Constitution, and the relations between the island's future
government and the United States was irrevocably determined. There was
little further criticism. The American agitators and speculators who had
been inciting the Cubans to resistance, in order thus to make them
compass their own ruin, abandoned their execrable intrigues for other
ventures elsewhere, while the Cubans who had been their dupes, relieved
of their pernicious influence, soon began to appreciate the
reasonableness of most of the provisions of the Amendment and the very
material benefits which it would bestow upon Cuba.




CHAPTER XII


The concretion of Cuban history is in the Constitution of the Cuban
Republic. In that document are realized the hopes of a patient but
resolute people. In it are embodied the ideals for which Lopez fought
and died; for which Cespedes strove; for which Marti pleaded and taught
and planned; for which Maximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo battled against
desperate odds; for which Estrada Palma gave the ripe statesmanship of a
devoted life. There were provisional constitutions before, drafted in
mountain camps in the intervals between battles, but they represented
aspirations rather than achievements. It was reserved for the time of
triumph, when the Spaniard was forever driven from the Cuban shores, and
the Pearl of the Antilles was no more made to adorn an alien diadem, for
the statesmanship of the island in calm deliberation to frame the
instrument which was to confirm and safeguard for all time that which
had been won with the blood of innumerable martyrs, and which was to
erect the Cuban people into the Cuban Nation.

[Illustration: THE CAPITOL

The Capitol, the new government building at Havana, is one of the great
public works of the administration of President Menocal. It occupies a
fine site in the heart of the city, and will architecturally rank among
the noteworthy government buildings of the world. In the contrast
between it and ancient La Fuerza, its original predecessor, is suggested
the whole span of Cuban history.]

We shall profitably pause for a space in our narrative, to note what
manner of Constitution it was that was thus adopted:

We, the delegates of the people of Cuba, in national convention
assembled for the purpose of framing and adopting the Fundamental Law
under which Cuba is to be organized as an independent and sovereign
State, and be given a government capable of fulfilling its
international obligations, preserving order, securing liberty and
justice, and promoting the general welfare, do hereby ordain, adopt, and
establish, invoking the favor of God, the following Constitution:


TITLE I

THE NATION, ITS FORM OF GOVERNMENT, AND THE
NATIONAL TERRITORY

ARTICLE 1. The people of Cuba constitute themselves into a sovereign,
independent State and adopt a republican form of government.

ART. 2. The island of Cuba and the islands and islets adjacent thereto,
which up to the date of the ratification of the treaty of Paris, of
December 10, 1898, were under the sovereignty of Spain, form the
territory of the Republic.

ART. 3. The territory of the Republic shall be divided into the six
provinces which now exist, each of which shall retain its present
boundaries. The determination of their names corresponds to the
respective provincial councils.

The provinces may by resolution of their respective provincial councils
and the approval of Congress annex themselves to other provinces, or
subdivide their territory and form new provinces.


TITLE II

CUBANS

ART. 4. Cuban nationality is acquired by birth or by naturalization.

ART. 5. Cubans by birth are:

1. All persons born of Cuban parents whether within or without the
territory of the Republic.

2. All persons born of foreign parents within the territory of the
Republic, provided that on becoming of age they apply for inscription,
as Cubans, in the proper register.

3. All persons born in foreign countries of parents natives of Cuba who
have forfeited their Cuban nationality, provided that on becoming of age
they apply for their inscription as Cubans in the register aforesaid.

ART. 6. Cubans by naturalization are:

1. Foreigners who having served in the liberating army claim Cuban
nationality within six months following the promulgation of this
constitution.

2. Foreigners domiciled in Cuba prior to January 1, 1899, who have
retained their domicile, provided that they claim Cuban nationality
within six months following the promulgation of this constitution, or if
they are minors within a like period following the date on which they
reach full age.

3. Foreigners who after five years' residence in the territory of the
Republic, and not less than two years after the declaration of their
intention to acquire Cuban nationality have obtained naturalization
papers according to law.

4. Spaniards residing in the territory of Cuba on the 11th day of April,
1899, who failed to register themselves as such in the corresponding
register within one year thereafter.

5. Africans who were slaves in Cuba, and those "emancipated" referred to
in article 13 of treaty of June 28, 1835, between Spain and England.

ART. 7. Cuban nationality is lost:

1. By the acquisition of foreign citizenship.

2. By the acceptance of employment or honors from another government
without permission of the Senate.

3. By entering the military service of a foreign nation without the said
permission.

4. In cases of naturalized Cubans, by their residence for five years
continuously in the country of origin, except when serving an office or
fulfilling a commission of the Government of the Republic.

ART. 8. Cuban nationality may be reacquired in the manner to be provided
by law.

ART. 9. Every Cuban shall be bound:

1. To bear arms in defense of his country in such cases and in such
manner as may be determined by the laws.

2. To contribute to the payment of public expenses in such manner and
proportion as the laws may prescribe.


TITLE III

FOREIGNERS

ART. 10. Foreigners residing within the territory of the Republic shall
be on the same footing as Cubans:

1. In respect to protection of their persons and property.

2. In respect to the enjoyment of the rights guaranteed by Section first
of the following title, excepting those exclusively reserved to
citizens.

3. In respect to the enjoyment of civil rights under the conditions and
limitations prescribed in the law of aliens.

4. In respect to the obligation of obeying the laws, decrees,
regulations, and all other statutes that may be in force in the
Republic, and complying with their provisions.

5. In respect to submission to the jurisdiction and decisions of the
courts of justice and all other authorities of the Republic.

6. In respect to the obligation of contributing to the public expenses
of the State, province, and municipality.


TITLE IV

RIGHTS GUARANTEED BY THIS CONSTITUTION

SECTION FIRST

INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS

ART. 11. All Cubans are equal before the law. The Republic does not
recognize any personal prerogatives.

ART. 12. No law shall have retroactive effect, except when penal and
favorable to the defendant.

ART. 13. Obligations of a civil nature arising out of contracts or other
acts or omissions shall not be nullified by either the legislative or
the executive power.

ART. 14. The penalty of death shall in no case be imposed for offenses
of political character, said offenses to be defined by law.

ART. 15. No person shall be detained except in the cases and in the
manner prescribed by law.

ART. 16. Every arrested person shall be set at liberty or placed at the
disposal of the competent judge or court within twenty-four hours
immediately following the arrest.

ART. 17. All arrests shall be terminated, or turned into formal
imprisonments, within seventy-two hours, immediately after the delivery
of the arrested person to the judge or court of competent jurisdiction.
Within the same time notice shall be served upon the interested party of
the action taken.

ART. 18. No person shall be imprisoned except by order of a competent
judge or court.

The order directing the imprisonment shall be affirmed or reversed, upon
the proper hearing of the prisoner, within seventy-two hours next
following the committal.

ART. 19. No person shall be prosecuted or sentenced except by a
competent judge or court, by virtue of laws in force, prior to the
commission of the offense, and in the manner and form prescribed by said
laws.

ART. 20. Every person arrested or imprisoned without the formalities of
law, or outside of the cases foreseen in this constitution or the laws,
shall be set at liberty at his own request or that of any citizen.

The law shall determine the form of summary proceedings to be followed
in this case.

ART. 21. No one shall be bound to testify against himself, neither shall
he be compelled to testify against his consort, nor against his
relatives within the fourth degree of consanguinity or second of
affinity.

ART. 22. The secrecy of correspondence and other private documents is
inviolable, and neither shall be seized or examined except by order of a
competent authority and with the formalities prescribed by the laws. In
all cases matters therein contained not relating to the subject under
investigation shall be kept secret.

ART. 23. Domicile is inviolable; and therefore no one shall enter at
night the house of another except by permission of its occupant, unless
it be for the purpose of giving aid and assistance to victims of crime
or accident; or in the daytime, except in the cases and in the manner
prescribed by law.

ART. 24. No person shall be compelled to change his domicile or
residence except by virtue of an order issued by a competent authority
and in the cases prescribed by law.

ART. 25. Every one may freely express his ideas either orally or in
writing, through the press, or in any other manner, without subjection
to previous censorship; but the responsibilities specified by law, when
attacks are made upon the honor of individuals, the social order, or the
public peace, shall be properly enforced.

ART. 26. The profession of all religions, as well as the practice of all
forms of worship, is free, without any other restriction than that
demanded by the respect for Christian morality and public order. The
church shall be separated from the state, which in no case shall
subsidize any religion.

ART. 27. All persons shall have the right to address petitions to the
authorities, to have them duly acted upon, and to be informed of the
action taken thereon.

ART. 28. All the inhabitants of the Republic have the right to assemble
peacefully, without arms, and to associate with others for all lawful
pursuits of life.

ART. 29. All persons shall have the right to enter or leave the
territory of the Republic, to travel within its limits, and to change
their residence, without necessity of safe conducts, passports, except
when otherwise provided by the laws governing immigration, or by the
authorities, in cases of criminal prosecution.

ART. 30. No Cuban shall be banished from the territory of the Republic
or prohibited from entering it.

ART. 31. Primary instruction shall be compulsory and gratuitous. The
teaching of arts and trades shall also be gratuitous. Both shall be
supported by the State, as long as the municipalities and Provinces,
respectively, may lack sufficient funds to defray their expenses.

Secondary and superior education shall be controlled by the State. All
persons however, may, without restriction, learn or teach any science,
art, or profession, and found and maintain establishments of education
and instruction, but it pertains to the State to determine what
professions shall require special titles, what conditions shall be
required for their practice and for the securing of diplomas, as well as
for the issuing thereof as established by law.

ART. 32. No one shall be deprived of his property, except by competent
authority, upon proof that the condemnation is required by public
utility, and previous indemnification. If the indemnification is not
previously paid, the courts shall protect the owners and, if needed,
restore to them the property.

ART. 33. In no case shall the penalty of confiscation of property be
imposed.

ART. 34. No person is bound to pay any tax or impost not legally
established and the collection of which is not carried out in the manner
prescribed by the laws.

ART. 35. Every author or inventor shall enjoy the exclusive ownership of
his work or invention for the time and in the manner determined by law.

ART. 36. The enumeration of the rights expressly guaranteed by this
Constitution does not exclude other rights based upon the principle of
the sovereignty of the people and the republican form of Government.

ART. 37. The laws regulating the exercise of the rights which this
Constitution guarantees shall be null and void if said rights are
abridged, restricted, or adulterated by them.

SECTION SECOND

RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE

ART. 38. All Cubans of the masculine sex, over twenty-one years of age,
have the right of suffrage, except the following:

1. Those who are inmates of asylums.

2. Those judicially declared to be mentally incapacitated.

3. Those judicially deprived of civil rights on account of crime.

4. Those serving in the land or naval forces of the Republic when in
active service.

ART. 39. The laws shall establish rules and methods of procedure to
guarantee the intervention of the minorities in the preparation of the
census of electors, and in all other electoral matters, and its
representation in the House of Representatives and in the provincial and
municipal councils.

SECTION THIRD

SUSPENSION OF CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTIES

ART. 40. The guaranties established in articles 15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 23,
24, and 27, section first of this title, shall not be suspended either
in the whole Republic, or in any part thereof, except temporarily and
when the safety of the state may require it, in cases of invasion of the
territory or of serious disturbances that may threaten public peace.

ART. 41. The territory in which the guaranties mentioned in the
preceding article are suspended shall be ruled during the period of
suspension according to the law of public order which may have been
previously enacted. But neither the said law, nor any other, shall order
the suspension of other guaranties not mentioned in the said article.

Nor shall any new offenses be created, or new penalties not established
by the law which was in force at the time of the suspension, be ordered
to be inflicted during the same.

The executive power is hereby forbidden to exile or expel from the
country any citizen thereof, or compel him to reside at any other place
farther than one hundred and twenty kilometers from his domicile. Nor
shall it detain any citizen for more than ten days, without delivering
him to the judicial authorities, or repeat the detention during the time
of the suspension of guaranties. The detained individuals shall be kept
in special departments in the public establishments destined for the
detention of prisoners charged with common offenses.

ART. 42. The suspension of the guaranties specified in article 40 shall
be ordered only and exclusively by means of a law, but if Congress is
not in session, it can be ordered by a decree of the President of the
Republic. But the President shall have no power to suspend the
guaranties more than once during the period intervening between two
sessions of Congress, or for an indefinite period of time, or for a
period longer than thirty days, without calling at the same time
Congress to meet. In all cases the President shall report the facts to
Congress, in order that it may act as deemed proper.

TITLE V

THE SOVEREIGNTY AND THE PUBLIC POWERS

ART. 43. The sovereignty is vested in the people of Cuba, and from the
said people all the public powers emanate.


TITLE VI

THE LEGISLATIVE POWER

SECTION FIRST

THE LEGISLATIVE BODIES

ART. 44. The legislative power is vested in two elective bodies, to be
known as the Chamber of Representatives and the Senate; the two together
constituting the Congress.


SECTION SECOND

THE SENATE, ITS MEMBERSHIP AND ITS POWERS

ART. 45. The Senate shall consist of four Senators for each Province, to
be elected in each one for a period of eight years by the provincial
councilors, and by double that number of electors forming with the
councilors an electoral college.

One-half of the electors shall consist of citizens paying the greatest
amount of taxes, and the other half shall possess the qualifications
required by law. But it is necessary for all of them to be of full age
and residents of the Province.

The election of electors shall be made by the provincial voters one
hundred days before that of the senators.

The Senate shall be renewed by halves every four years.

ART. 46. No one shall be a senator who has not the following
qualifications:

1. To be a Cuban by birth.

2. To be over thirty-five years of age.

3. To be in the full enjoyment of civil and political rights.

ART. 47. The Senate shall have the following exclusive powers:

1. To try, sitting as a tribunal of justice, the impeachment of the
President of the Republic, upon charges made against him by the Chamber
of Representatives, for crimes against the external security of the
State, against the free exercise of the legislative or judicial powers,
or for violation of the constitutional provisions.

2. To try, sitting as a tribunal of justice, the impeachment of the
secretaries of state, upon charges made against them by the Chamber of
Representatives, for crimes against the external security of the State,
the free exercise of the legislative or judicial powers, violation of
the constitutional provision, or any other crime of political character
determined by law.

3. To try, sitting as a tribunal of justice, the impeachment of the
governors of Provinces, upon charges made against them by the provincial
councils or by the President of the Republic for any of the crimes named
in the foregoing paragraph.

When the Senate sits as a tribunal of justice, it shall be presided over
by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and shall not impose any other
penalty than that of removal from office, or removal from office and
disqualification from holding any public office; but the infliction of
any other penalty upon the convicted official shall be left to the
courts declared by law to be competent for the purpose.

4. To confirm the nominations made by the President of the Republic for
the positions of Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme
Court, diplomatic representatives and consular agents of the nation, and
all other public officers whose nominations require the approval of the
Senate in accordance with the law.

5. To authorize Cuban citizens to accept employment or honors from
foreign governments or to serve in their armies.

6. To approve the treaties entered into by the President of the Republic
with other nations.

SECTION THIRD

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ITS MEMBERSHIP AND ITS POWERS

ART. 48. The House of Representatives shall consist of one
representative for each twenty-five thousand inhabitants or fraction
thereof over twelve thousand five hundred, elected for the period of
four years by the direct vote of the people and in the manner provided
by law.

The House of Representatives shall be renewed by halves every two years.

ART. 49. No one shall be a Representative who has not the following
qualifications:

1. To be a Cuban citizen by birth or by naturalization, provided in the
latter case that the candidate has resided eight years in the Republic,
to be counted from the date of his naturalization.

2. To have attained to the age of twenty-five years.

3. To be in full possession of all civil and political rights.

ART. 50. The power to impeach before the Senate the President of the
Republic and the cabinet ministers, in the cases prescribed in
paragraphs first and second of article 47 corresponds to the House of
Representatives. But the concurrence of two-thirds of the total number
of Representatives, in secret session, shall be required to exercise
this right.


SECTION FOURTH

PROVISIONS COMMON TO BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS

ART. 51. The positions of Senator and Representative are incompatible
with the holding of any other paid position of Government appointment,
except a professorship in a Government institution, obtained by
competitive examination prior to the election.

ART. 52. Senators and Representatives shall receive from the State a
pecuniary remuneration, alike for both positions, the amount of which
may be changed at any time; the change shall not take effect until after
the renewal of the legislative bodies.

ART. 53. Senators and Representatives shall be inviolable for their
votes and opinions in the discharge of their duties. Senators and
Representatives shall only be arrested or indicted upon permission of
the body to which they belong, if Congress is then in Session, except in
case of flagrante delicto. In this case, and in the case of the arrest
or indictment being made when Congress is not in session, the fact shall
be reported, as soon as practicable, to the respective House for proper
action.

ART. 54. Both Houses of Congress shall open and close their sessions on
the same day; they shall meet in the same city, and neither shall move
to any other place, or adjourn for more than three days, except by
common consent. Nor shall they begin to do business without two-thirds
of the total number of their members being present, or continue their
sessions without the attendance of an absolute majority.

ART. 55. Each House shall be the judge of the election of its respective
members and shall also pass upon their resignations. No Senator or
Representative shall be expelled from the House to which he belongs,
except upon grounds previously determined, and to the concurrence of at
least two-thirds of the total number of its members.

ART. 56. Each House shall frame its respective rules and regulations,
and elect from among its members its president, vice-presidents and
secretaries. But the president of the Senate shall not discharge his
duties as such, except in case the Vice-President of the Republic is
absent or acting as President.


SECTION FIFTH

CONGRESS AND ITS POWERS

ART. 57. Congress shall assemble, without necessity of previous call,
twice in each year, each session to last not less than forty working
days. The first session shall begin on the first Monday in April and the
second on the first Monday in November.

It shall meet in extra session in such cases and in such manner as may
be provided by its rules and regulations and when called to convene by
the President of the Republic in accordance with the provisions of this
Constitution. In both cases it shall only consider the express object or
objects for which it assembles.

ART. 58. Congress shall meet in joint session to proclaim, after
counting and verifying the electoral vote, the President and
Vice-President of the Republic.

In this case the president of the Senate, and in his absence the
president of the House of Representatives, as vice-president of the
Congress, shall preside over the joint meeting.

If upon counting the votes for President it is found that none of the
candidates has an absolute majority of votes, or if the votes are
equally divided, Congress, by the same majority, shall elect as
President one of the two candidates having obtained the greatest number
of votes.

Should more than two candidates receive the highest number of votes--no
one obtaining an absolute majority--two or more having secured the same
number, Congress shall elect from said candidates.

The method established in the preceding paragraph shall be also employed
in the election of Vice-President of the Republic.

The counting of the electoral vote shall take place prior to the
expiration of the Presidential term.

ART. 59. Congress shall have the following powers:

1. To enact the national codes and the laws of a general nature; to
determine the rules that shall be observed in the general, provincial,
and municipal elections; to issue orders for the regulation and
organization of all services pertaining to the administration of
national, provincial, and municipal government; and to pass all other
laws and resolutions which it may deem proper relating to other matters
of public interest.

2. To discuss and approve the budgets of the revenues and expenses of
the Government. The said revenues and expenses, except such as will be
mentioned hereafter, shall be included in annual budgets which shall be
available only during the year for which they shall have been approved.

The expenses of Congress, those of the administration of justice, and
those required to meet the interest and redemption of loans, shall have,
the same as the revenues with which they have to be paid, the character
of permanent and shall be included in a fixed budget which shall remain
in force until changed by special laws.

3. To contract loans, with the obligation, however, of providing
permanent revenues for the payment of the interest and redemption
thereof.

All measures relating to loans shall require the vote of two-thirds of
the total numbers of the members of each House.

4. To coin money, fixing the standard, weight, value, and denomination
thereof.

5. To regulate the system of weights and measures.

6. To make provisions for regulating and developing internal and foreign
commerce.

7. To regulate the services of communications and railroads, roads,
canals, and harbors, creating those required by public convenience.

8. To levy such taxes and imposts of national character as may be
necessary for the needs of the government.

9. To establish rules and proceedings for obtaining naturalization.

10. To grant amnesties.

11. To fix the strength of the land and naval forces and provide for
their organization.

12. To declare war and approve treaties of peace negotiated by the
President of the Republic.

13. To designate, by means of a special law, the official who shall act
as President of the Republic in case of death, resignation, removal, or
supervenient inability of the President and Vice-President.

ART. 60. Congress shall not attach to appropriation bills any provision
tending to make changes or reforms in the legislation or in the
administration of the Government; nor shall it diminish or abolish
revenues of permanent character without creating at the same time new
revenues to take their place, except in case that the decrease or
abolition depend upon the decrease or abolition of the equivalent
permanent expenses. Nor shall Congress appropriate for any service to be
provided for in the annual budget a larger sum of money than that
recommended in the estimates submitted by the Government; but Congress
may by means of special laws create new services and reform or give
greater scope to those already existing.

SECTION SIXTH

INITIATIVE, PREPARATION, APPROVAL,
AND PROMULGATION OF LAWS

ART. 61. The right to initiate legislation is vested without distinction
in both houses of Congress.

ART. 62. Every bill passed by the two houses, and every resolution of
the same which has to be executed by the President of the Republic,
shall be submitted to him for approval. If they are approved, they shall
be signed at once by the President. If they are not approved, they shall
be returned by the President, with his objections, to the house in which
they originated, which shall enter said objections upon its journal and
engage again in the discussion of the subject.

If after this new discussion two-thirds of the total number of the
members of the house vote in favor of the bill or resolution as
originally passed, the latter shall be referred with the objections of
the President, to the other house, where it shall be also discussed, and
if the measure is approved there by the same majority it shall become
law. In all these cases the vote shall be by yeas and nays.

If within ten working days immediately following the sending of the bill
or resolution to the President, the latter fails to return it, it shall
be considered approved and shall become law.

If within the last ten days of a session of Congress a bill is sent to
the President of the Republic, and he wishes to take advantage of the
whole time granted him in the foregoing paragraph for the purposes of
approval or disapproval, he shall acquaint the Congress with his desire,
so as to cause it to remain in session, if it so wishes, until the end
of the ten days. The failure by the President to do so shall cause the
bill to be considered approved and become law.

No bill totally rejected by one house shall be discussed again in the
same session.

ART. 63. Every law shall be promulgated within ten days next following
its approval by either the President or the Congress, as the case may
be, under the provisions of the preceding article.


TITLE VII

THE EXECUTIVE POWER

SECTION FIRST

THE EXERCISE OF THE EXECUTIVE POWER

ART. 64. The executive power shall be vested in the President of the
Republic.

SECTION SECOND

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC, HIS POWERS
AND DUTIES

ART. 65. To be President of the Republic the following qualifications
shall be required.

1. To be a Cuban by birth or naturalization, and in the latter case to
have served in the Cuban armies in the wars of independence for at least
ten years.

2. To be over forty years of age.

3. To be in the full enjoyment of civil and political rights.

ART. 66. The President of the Republic shall be elected by presidential
electors on the same day, in the manner provided by law.

The term of office shall be four years, and no one shall be President
for three consecutive terms.

ART. 67. The President, before entering on the discharge of the duties
of his office, shall take oath or affirmation before the supreme court
of justice to faithfully discharge his duties and comply and cause
others to comply with the constitution and the laws.

ART. 68. The President of the Republic shall have the following powers
and duties:

1. To approve and promulgate the laws, and obey and cause others to obey
their provisions. To enact, if Congress has not done so, such rules and
regulations as may be necessary for the proper execution of the laws;
and to issue all orders or decrees which may be conducive to the same
purpose or to any other purposes of government and the administration
thereof in the Republic, provided that in no case the said orders or
decrees are at variance with the provisions of the law.

2. To call Congress, or the Senate alone, to meet in extra session in
the cases set forth in the constitution, or when in his opinion the
meeting may be necessary.

3. He shall adjourn Congress when no agreement can be reached between
the two houses on the question of adjournment.

4. To transmit to Congress at the beginning of each session, and
whenever he may deem it advisable, a message relating to the acts of his
administration, showing the general condition of the affairs of the
Republic, and recommending the adoption of such laws and measures as he
may deem necessary or advisable.

5. To submit to Congress through either one of the Houses, before the
15th of November, a draft of the annual budget.

6. To furnish Congress all the information desired by it on every matter
of business which does not require secrecy.

7. To conduct all diplomatic negotiations and conclude treaties with
foreign nations, provided that these treaties be submitted for approval
of the Senate, without which requisite they shall be neither valid nor
binding upon the Republic.

8. To freely appoint and remove the Secretaries of State, giving
Congress information of his action.

9. To appoint, with the approval of the Senate, the Chief Justice and
the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, and the diplomatic and
consular agents of the Republic. If the vacancy occurs at a time in
which the Senate is not in session, he shall have power to make the
appointment of said functionaries ad interim.

10. To appoint all other public officers recognized by law, whose
appointment is not entrusted to some other authority.

11. To suspend the exercise of the rights enumerated in article 40 of
the constitution in the cases and in the manner set forth in articles 41
and 42.

12. To suspend the resolutions passed by the provincial and municipal
councils in the cases and in the manner set forth in this constitution.

13. To order the suspension of the governors of provinces in case they
exceed their powers or violate the laws; but in these cases he shall
report the fact to the Senate, in the manner and form determined by law,
for such action as may be proper.

14. To prefer charges against the governors of provinces in the cases
set forth in paragraph 3 of article 47.

15. To grant pardons according to the provisions of the law, except in
the case of public functionaries convicted for wrongs done in the
exercise of their functions.

16. To receive diplomatic representatives and admit consular agents of
other nations.

17. To dispose of the land and sea forces of the Republic as chief
commander of the same. To provide for the defense of the national
territory, reporting to Congress what he may have done on the subject.
To provide for the preservation of peace and public order in the
interior of the country. If there is danger of invasion or of any
rebellion breaking out and gravely threatening the public safety,
Congress not being in session at the time, the President shall call it
to convene without delay for such action as may be deemed proper.

ART. 69. The President shall not leave the territory of the Republic
without the permission of Congress.

ART. 70. The President shall be responsible before the Supreme Court for
the common offense he may commit during his term of office, but he shall
not be prosecuted without previous permission of the Senate.

ART. 71. The President shall receive from the State a salary which may
be changed at any time, but the change shall not go into effect until
the next following presidential term.

TITLE VIII

THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC

ART. 72. There shall be a Vice-President of the Republic, who shall be
elected in the same manner and for the same period of time as the
President, and jointly with him. To be Vice-President the same
qualifications set forth in this constitution to be President shall be
required.

ART. 73. The Vice-President of the Republic shall be the President of
the Senate, but he shall vote only in case that the votes of the
Senators are equally divided.

ART. 74. In case of temporary or permanent absence of the President of
the Republic, the Vice-President shall act in his place. If the absence
is permanent, the Acting President shall continue in office until the
end of the presidential term.

ART. 75. The Vice-President shall receive from the State a salary which
may be changed at any time, but the change shall not go into effect
until the next following presidential term.

TITLE IX

THE SECRETARIES OF STATE

ART. 76. For the transaction of the executive business the President of
the Republic shall have as many Secretaries of State as the law may
determine, and no one shall be a Secretary of State who is not a Cuban
citizen in the full enjoyment of his civil and political rights.

ART. 77. All decrees, orders and decisions of the President of the
Republic shall be counter-signed by the secretary of State to whom the
matter corresponds. Without this signature no decree, order or decision
of the President shall have binding force nor shall it be obeyed.

ART. 78. The secretaries of state shall be personally responsible for
the measures signed by them, and jointly and severally for the measures
agreed upon or authorized by them at a cabinet meeting. This
responsibility does not exclude the personal and direct responsibility
of the President of the Republic.

ART. 79. The secretaries of state shall be impeachable before the Senate
by the House of Representatives in the cases mentioned in the second
paragraph of article 47.

ART. 80. The secretaries of state shall receive from the State a salary,
which may be changed at any time, but the change shall not go into
effect until the next following presidential term.

TITLE X

THE JUDICIAL POWER

SECTION FIRST

THE EXERCISE OF THE JUDICIAL POWER

ART. 81. The judicial power is vested in a Supreme Court of Justice and
in all the other tribunals which may be established by law. The law
shall regulate the respective organization and powers of these
tribunals, the manner of exercising their powers, and the qualifications
required of the judicial functionaries.

SECTION SECOND

THE SUPREME COURT OF JUSTICE

ART. 82. To be Chief Justice or Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
the following qualifications shall be required:

1. To be a Cuban by birth.

2. To be over thirty-five years of age.

3. To be in the full enjoyment of civil and political rights and not to
have been condemned to any corporal punishment for common offenses.

4. To have in addition to the foregoing qualifications any one of the
following:

To have practiced in Cuba, during ten years at least, the profession of
lawyer; or have discharged for the same length of time judicial
functions, or have taught law for the same number of years in an
official establishment.

The following persons are also eligible for the positions of Chief
Justice or Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, even if not having
the qualifications set forth in clauses 1, 2, and 3 of this article:

(a) Those who have served in the judiciary of the time determined by law
in a position of equal or immediately inferior category.

(b) Those who, previous to the promulgation of this constitution, served
as justices of the supreme court of the island of Cuba.

The time of service in the judiciary shall be computed as time of
practice of law for the purpose of qualifying the lawyers to be
appointed justices of the supreme court.

ART. 83. The Supreme Court shall have the following powers, in addition
to those already vested or hereafter to be vested in it:

1. To take cognizance of cases on a writ of error.

2. To decide conflicts of jurisdiction between courts immediately
inferior to it, or not having a common superior.

3. To take cognizance of the cases to which the State on the one side
and the provinces or municipalities on the other, are parties.

4. To decide as to the constitutionality of the laws, decrees, and
regulations when a question of that effect is raised by any party.

SECTION THIRD

GENERAL RULES REGARDING THE ADMINISTRATION
OF JUSTICE

ART. 84. Justice shall be administered gratuitously throughout the
entire territory of the Republic.

ART. 85. The courts shall take cognizance of all cases, whether civil,
criminal, or between the Government and private parties.

ART. 86. No judicial commissions or extraordinary tribunals, no matter
under what name, shall ever be created.

ART. 87. No functionary of the judicial order shall be suspended or
removed from his office except for crime or any other grave cause, fully
proven, and always after being heard. Nor shall he be transferred
without his consent to any other place, unless it is for the manifest
benefit of the public service.

ART. 88. All judicial functionaries shall be personally responsible, in
the manner and form determined by law, for the violations of law which
they may commit.

ART. 89. The salaries of judicial functionaries shall not be changed
except at the end of periods of more than five years, and by means of a
law. The law, however, shall not give different salaries to positions
whose rank, category, and functions are equal.

ART. 90. The courts for the forces of land and sea shall be governed by
a special organic law.

TITLE XI

THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT

SECTION FIRST

GENERAL PROVISIONS

ART. 91. A province consists of the municipal districts established
within its limits.

ART. 92. Each province shall have a governor and a provincial council
elected directly by the people, in the manner and form established by
law.

The number of councilors in each province shall not be less than eight
nor more than twenty.

SECTION SECOND

THE PROVINCIAL COUNCILS AND THEIR POWERS

ART. 93. The provincial councils shall have the following powers:

1. To resolve upon matters concerning the provinces which, under the
constitution, treaties or laws, are not within the general jurisdiction
of the State or the exclusive jurisdiction of the municipal councils.

2. To frame the budget of their expenses, providing at the same time for
the necessary revenue to meet them, provided that this is done in a
manner not inconsistent with the system adopted by the State.

3. To contract loans for public works of provincial interest, provided
that at the same time sufficient revenue is raised to meet the payment
of interest and principal when due.

Such loans shall not be carried into effect unless they are approved by
two-thirds of the municipal councils of the province.

4. To impeach before the Senate the governor of their respective
province, in the case set forth in paragraph 3 of article 47, when
two-thirds of the total number of provincial councilors decide in secret
session that this should be done.

5. To appoint and remove, according to law, the provincial employes.

ART. 94. The provincial councils shall have no power to diminish or
abolish revenue of permanent character without creating at the same time
other revenue to take its place, except in case that the decrease or
suppression is due to the decrease or suppression of equivalent
permanent expenses.

ART. 95. The resolutions of the provincial councils shall be sent to the
governor of the province. If approved, they shall be signed by him; if
not, they shall be returned with his objections to the council, wherein
the subject shall be again discussed. If after the second discussion the
resolution is approved by two-thirds of the total number of councilors
it shall become a law.

If the governor does not return the resolution within ten days from the
date of reference it shall be considered approved and shall become a
law.

ART. 96. The resolutions of the provincial councils may be suspended by
the governor of the province or by the President of the Republic,
whenever, in their opinion, they are contrary to the constitution, the
laws, or any resolutions passed by the municipal councils in due
exercise of their functions; but the right to take cognizance of and
pass upon the claims which may arise out of the said suspension shall be
reserved to the courts of justice.

ART. 97. Neither the provincial councils not any section or committees,
selected from their members or from persons not members thereof, shall
intervene in matters belonging to any class of elections.

ART. 98. The provincial councilors shall be personally responsible
before the courts in the manner determined by law for whatever may be
done by them in the exercise of their functions.

SECTION THIRD

THE GOVERNORS OF PROVINCES AND THEIR POWERS

ART. 99. The governors of provinces shall have the following powers:

1. To comply and cause others to comply, as far as their provinces are
concerned, with the laws, decrees, and general rules and regulations of
the nation.

2. To publish such resolutions of the provincial councils as have force
of law, and comply and cause others to comply with them.

3. To issue orders, instructions, and rules for the proper execution of
the resolutions of the provincial council, if the latter has not done so
already.

4. To call the provincial councils to convene in extra session whenever
in his own judgment the same may be necessary. The subjects to be
discussed in this session shall be set forth in the call.

5. To suspend the resolutions of the provincial and municipal councils
in the cases set forth in this constitution.

6. To order the suspension of mayors, in case they have exceeded their
powers, violated the constitution or the laws, acted in contravention to
the resolutions of the provincial councils, or failed to do their duty.
The suspension shall be reported to the provincial council in the manner
and form established by law.

7. To appoint and remove the employes of their offices in the manner
provided by law.

ART. 100. The governors shall be responsible before the Senate in the
cases set forth in this constitution, and before the courts of justice,
according to the provisions of the law, in all other classes of
offenses.

ART. 101. The governors shall receive from the provincial treasury a
salary, which may be changed at any time, but the change shall not take
effect until after a new governor's election is held.

ART. 102. In case of temporary or permanent vacancy of the position of
governor of the province, the president of the provincial council shall
act in his place. If the vacancy is permanent, the acting governor
shall continue in the discharge of his duties as such until the end of
the term.

TITLE XII

THE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT

SECTION FIRST

GENERAL PROVISIONS

ART. 103. The municipal districts shall be governed by municipal
councils, consisting of aldermen or councilors directly elected by the
people, in the number and in the manner provided by law.

ART. 104. There shall be in each municipal district a mayor elected by
the people by direct vote in the manner and form established by law.

SECTION SECOND

THE MUNICIPAL COUNCILS AND THEIR POWERS

ART. 105. The municipal councils shall have the following powers:

1. To resolve on all matters exclusively relating to their own municipal
districts.

2. To prepare the budget of their expenses, providing at the same time,
on condition, however, that this is done in a manner consistent with the
general system of taxation of the Republic.

3. To resolve on the negotiation of loans, providing at the same time
the permanent revenue necessary to meet the interest and principal when
due.

In order that these loans may be carried into effect, they shall have to
be approved by two-thirds of the electors of the municipal district.

4. To appoint and remove the municipal employes in the manner
established by law.

ART. 106. The municipal councils shall not decrease or suppress any
revenues of permanent character without establishing at the same time
some other revenues which may take their place, except in case the
decrease or suppression is due to the decrease or suppression of the
equivalent permanent expense.

ART. 107. The resolutions of the municipal councils shall be referred to
the mayor. If approved by him, they shall be authorized with his
signature; if not, they shall be returned, with his objections, to the
municipal council, wherein they shall be again discussed. If, after a
second discussion, two-thirds of the total number of councilors vote in
favor of the resolution it shall become a law.

When the mayor does not return the resolution, within ten days after the
date of reference, it shall be considered approved and become a law.

ART. 108. The resolutions of the municipal councils may be suspended by
the mayor, the governor of the province, or the President of the
Republic, when in their opinion they are contrary to the constitution,
the treaties, the laws, or the resolutions passed by the provincial
councils within the sphere of their powers. But the right to take
cognizance and pass upon the claims which may arise out of said
suspension shall be reserved to the courts of justice.

ART. 109. The members of the municipal councils shall be personally
responsible before the courts of justice, in the manner and form
established by law, for the acts done by them in the performance of
their duties.

SECTION THIRD

THE MAYORS AND THEIR POWERS AND DUTIES

ART. 110. Mayors shall have power:

1. To publish such resolutions of the municipal councils as may have
force of law, and execute and cause the same to be executed.

2. To administer the municipal affairs, issuing orders and instructions
as well as rules for the better execution of the resolutions of the
municipal councils, whenever the latter may fail to do so.

3. To appoint and remove the employes of their respective offices in the
manner provided by law.

ART. 111. The Mayors shall be personally responsible before the courts
of justice, in the manner prescribed by law, for all acts performed by
them in the discharge of their functions.

ART. 112. Each Mayor shall receive a salary, to be paid by the municipal
treasury, which may be changed at any time; but such change shall not
take effect until after a new election for Mayor has been held.

ART. 113. In case of vacancy, either temporary or permanent, of the
office of Mayor, the president of the municipal council shall act as
Mayor.

Should the absence be permanent, the substitute shall act until the end
of the term for which the Mayor was elected.

TITLE XIII

THE NATIONAL TREASURY

ART. 114. All property existing within the territory of the Republic not
belonging to provinces, municipalities or private individuals or
corporations, shall belong to the State.

TITLE XIV

AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION

ART. 115. The Constitution shall not be amended, in whole or in part,
except by resolution passed by two-thirds of the total number of members
of each House of Congress.

Six months after the resolution to amend the Constitution has been
passed, a constitutional convention shall be called to assemble for the
exclusive and specific purpose of either approving or rejecting the
amendment. Each House shall, in the meantime, continue to perform its
duties with absolute independence of the convention.

Delegates to the said convention shall be elected by each province at
the rate of one for every fifty thousand inhabitants, in the manner that
may be provided by law.


TRANSIENT PROVISIONS

First. The Republic of Cuba does not recognize any other debts or
obligations than those legitimately contracted in favor of the
revolution by commanders of bodies of the liberating army, subsequent to
the twenty-fourth day of February, eighteen hundred and ninety-five, and
prior to the nineteenth day of September of the same year, on which date
the Jimaguayu Constitution was promulgated; and the debts and
obligations contracted afterward, by the revolutionary government,
either by itself or through its legitimate representatives in foreign
countries. Congress shall examine said debts and obligations and decide
upon the payment of those which are found legitimate.

Second. Persons born in Cuba, or children of native-born Cubans, who, at
the time of the promulgation of this Constitution, are citizens of any
foreign nation shall not enjoy the rights of Cuban nationality without
first renouncing expressly the foreign citizenship.

Third. The time of service of foreigners in the wars of independence of
Cuba shall be counted as time of naturalization and residence, for the
acquisition of the right granted to naturalized citizens in article 49.

Fourth. The basis of population established in relation to the election
of representatives in Congress, and of delegates to the constitutional
convention, in articles 48 and 115, may be changed by law whenever, in
the judgment of Congress, the change becomes necessary through the
increase in the number of inhabitants, shown by censuses to be
periodically taken.

Fifth. At the time of the first organization of the Senate, the Senators
shall be divided into two groups for the purpose of their renewal.

Those forming the first group shall cease in their duties at the
expiration of the fourth year, and those forming the second group at the
expiration of the eighth year. It shall be decided by lot which of the
two Senators from each province shall belong to either group.

The law shall provide the method to be followed in the formation of the
two groups into which the House of Representatives shall be divided for
the purpose of its partial renewal.

Sixth. Ninety days after the promulgation of the electoral law, which
shall be framed and adopted by the constitutional convention, an
election shall be held of the public functionaries provided by the
Constitution, to whom the transfer of the Government of Cuba, in
conformity with the provisions of Order No. 301 of Headquarters Division
of Cuba, dated July twenty-fifth, nineteen hundred, is to be made.

Seventh. All laws, decrees, regulations, orders and other provisions
which may be in force at the time of the promulgation of this
Constitution shall continue to be observed, in so far as they do not
conflict with the said Constitution, until legally revoked or amended.

Hall of sessions of the Constitutional Convention, Havana, February
twenty-first, nineteen hundred and one.

The Constitutional Convention, acting in conformity with the order of
the Military Governor of the island, of July 25, 1900, by which it was
called to assemble, resolves to attach, and does hereby attach to the
Constitution of the Republic of Cuba adopted on February twenty-first
ultimo, the following.


APPENDIX

ARTICLE I. The Government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or
other compact with any foreign power or powers which will impair or tend
to impair the independence of Cuba, nor in any way authorize or permit
any foreign power or powers to obtain by colonization or for military or
naval purposes, or otherwise, lodgment in or control over any portion of
said island.

ART. II. That said Government shall not assume or contract any public
debt to pay the interest upon which, and to make reasonable sinking-fund
provision for the ultimate discharge of which, the ordinary revenues of
the island, after defraying the current expenses of Government, shall be
inadequate.

ART. III. That the Government of Cuba consents that the United States
may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban
independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the
protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for
discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the Treaty
of Peace on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the
Government of Cuba.

ART. IV. That all acts of the United States in Cuba during its military
occupancy thereof are ratified and validated, and all lawful rights
acquired thereunder shall be maintained and protected.

ART. V. That the Government of Cuba will execute, and, as far as
necessary, extend the plans already devised, or other plans to be
mutually agreed upon, for the sanitation of the cities of the island, to
the end that a recurrence of epidemic and infectious diseases may be
prevented, thereby assuring protection to the people and commerce of
Cuba, as well as to the commerce of the southern ports of the United
States and the people residing therein.

ART. VI. That the Isle of Pines shall be omitted from the proposed
constitutional boundaries of Cuba, the title thereto being left to
future adjustment by treaty.

ART. VII. That to enable the United States to maintain the independence
of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own
defence, the Government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States
lands necessary for coaling or naval stations, at certain specified
points, to be agreed upon with the President of the United States.

ART. VIII. That, by way of further assurance, the Government of Cuba
will embody the foregoing provisions in a permanent treaty with the
United States.

Hall of sessions, June twelfth, nineteen hundred and one.




CHAPTER XIII


After the Constitution, the Government. On October 14, 1901, General
Wood as Military Governor of Cuba issued an order for the holding of a
general election throughout the island on December 31, that day to be a
legal holiday. At that election there were to be chosen Presidential and
Senatorial Electors, Members of the House of Representatives, Governors
of Provinces or Departments, and members of Provincial Assemblies or
Councils. At the same time it was announced that the election of
President, Vice-President and Senators, by the electoral colleges, would
take place on February 24, 1902. A provisional election law was also
promulgated at that time.

This order brought acutely to the fore the question of Presidential
candidates. There were several of them, but none of them could be
regarded as a party candidate for the reason that there were then
practically no parties. The three which had existed had gradually
dissolved, merged into each other, and left the Cuban people free to
follow purely individual leaders again.

Maximo Gomez was naturally looked to as the foremost candidate for the
Presidency, and despite the bitterness of some politicians against him
there is little doubt that if he had consented to be a candidate he
would have stood alone and been elected practically without opposition.
No man deserved the honor more than he. But it was more than an honor.
It was a tremendously serious responsibility. Now Gomez was not the man
to shirk responsibility. But he was not a man, either, to accept it
rashly. He knew his own limitations. He knew, too, the requirements of
the place. There was needed a scholar and statesman, rather than a
"rough and ready" bushwhacking soldier. So he would not even consider
the offer of the nomination. "I was never intended," he said, "to become
the President of any country. I think too much of Cuba to become her
President."

Calixto Garcia, who after the death of Antonio Maceo stood second to
Gomez as a commander, and who was General-in-Chief of the eastern half
of the island, had won a splendid reputation for efficient work in
Oriente and Camaguey, and was a man of great force and ability, and of
much popularity among the Cuban people. But he died at Washington of
pneumonia soon after the close of the war.

With these two great chieftains of Cuba's wars thus out of the running,
the choice by common consent fell upon Tomas Estrada Palma; and a better
choice could not have been made. We have already seen something of his
work as the head of the Cuban Junta in New York. He was now past the
prime of life, having been born at Bayamo in 1837, but he was in full
mastery of his ripe intellectual and physical powers. The son of a rich
and distinguished family, he was sent in his youth to Seville to study
law, and for a time practised it with much success in Cuba. But he was a
patriot, and when the Ten Years' War began he entered the Cuban ranks
and had a distinguished career in the field, as also in the councils of
the Republic in the field. Unfortunately he was captured by the enemy
and was sent to Spain, where he was a prisoner until the end of the war.
Then he went to Honduras, became Postmaster-General of that country, and
married the accomplished daughter of President Guardiola. Thence he
went to the United States and for some years was the head of an
admirable private school for boys at Central Valley, New York; most of
his pupils being from Cuba and other Latin-American countries.

At the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1895 the veteran patriot
promptly offered himself for any service that he could perform. Though
nearing the age of three score, he would gladly have taken up his rifle
again and gone into the field. But there was more important and more
profitable work for Cuba to be done than that would have been, and he
entered upon it with zeal, as the head of the Cuban Junta in New York.
Especially after the death of Marti, he was the guiding spirit of that
organization, and as such, at least in the eyes of America and of the
world at large, he was the actual head of the Cuban revolution, even
more than the President of the Provisional Government in the patriot
stronghold in the mountains of Cubitas. He was not merely the very
active head of the working organization of the Junta, which supplied the
Cuban army with the sinews of war, but he was the diplomatic
representative of Cuba, though only informally recognized, at
Washington. He was at this time still in the United States, and was
making no effort whatever to secure the Presidential nomination.
Doubtless he would have been quite content not to receive it, and would
have given his heartiest and most efficient support to any other man who
might have been chosen. But there was a spontaneous turning of all Cuban
eyes and minds and hearts toward him as the man of all best fitted to
inaugurate the independent republican sovereignty of the insular state
as its first President. He was the choice of no party--parties were yet
inchoate--but of the Cuban people.

In similar fashion General Bartolome Maso was put forward for
Vice-President. Of him we have already heard much in these pages; a
stern old warrior patriot of Oriente, who had done inestimable service
in the field in the two wars, and who had been President of the
Revolutionary Government--its last President, in the mountains of
Cubitas, at the time of the American intervention. A man of fine
education, of unblemished integrity, of sterling patriotism, he
commanded the respect and affection of all who knew him; though it must
be confessed that he was personally little known at the capital or in
the western half of the island.

For a time there seemed every prospect that these two men, so admirably
chosen, would be elected without contest. But at the end of October
there was a schism. Estrada Palma was favorably inclined toward the
Platt Amendment, while Bartolome Maso remained outspoken against it. The
sequel was that all the politicians of whatever factions who were
opposed to that instrument joined in putting Maso forward as a candidate
not for the Vice-Presidency but for the Presidency, in opposition to
Palma. On October 31 Maso issued an address announcing his candidacy,
which, he said, he had been induced to accept "in order to preserve the
nationalism and patriotism of the country"; and he added that the
American intervention had been "perverted into a military occupation
approaching a conquest." This was exaggeration, though entirely sincere;
Maso lacking the broad international vision necessary to appreciate the
relationships with the United States and the rest of the world upon
which Cuba was about to enter. But it made a strong appeal to a number
of diverse and incongruous elements, including some of the former
Autonomists, many of the Spaniards, and a number of Negroes who were
inclined to form a race party of their own.

There followed an animated but orderly and amicable campaign of mass
meetings and stump speeches, quite after the American style. At one time
the followers of Maso appeared to be numerous, and claimed that they
were sixty per cent. of the citizens of Cuba. But such claims were
illusory. Nearly all important leaders, from Maximo Gomez down, were on
the side of Estrada Palma, and before the actual trial of strength at
the polls Maso withdrew from the campaign, leaving Palma alone in the
field. The supporters of Maso explained that his candidacy was withdrawn
because there was no prospect of a fair election. They objected to some
provisions of the election law, and complained that they were not fairly
represented on the boards of registration and election. They even
alleged that frauds were being committed in the registration, and they
asked that the election be postponed in order that there might be
another registration over which they should have a larger measure of
supervision. This request was refused, whereupon they withdrew from all
participation in the election. A manifesto was issued, denouncing the
Central Board of Elections as "a coalition of partisans" and declaring
that "neither in official circles in the United States nor in Cuba does
the intention exist to see that the elections are carried out with
sufficient legality to reflect the real wishes of the Cubans." These
imputations were unwarranted, and most regrettable; and were rightly
regarded by the great majority of Cubans as a practical confession of
the weakness of the Maso faction.

The elections were duly held on the day appointed, and were conducted
with admirable quiet, order and dignity. The unfortunate feature of them
was that only a very light vote was polled. Not only did the supporters
of Maso pretty generally abstain from voting, but many of Palma's
followers, knowing that there was no real contest, did not take the
trouble to go to the polls. Commenting upon the circumstances, General
Wood reported: "I regret to state that a large portion of the
conservative element, composed of property owners, and business and
professional men, did not take such an interest in the elections as
proper regard for the welfare of their country required, and
consequently the representation of this element among the officials
elected has not been proportionately as large as the best interests of
the island demand." Despite the abstention of Maso's followers from
voting, eight members of that faction were elected in the sixty-three
members of the Electoral College. On February 24 the Electoral College
met and elected Tomas Estrada Palma to be President and Luis Estevez to
be Vice-President of the Republic of Cuba.

President Roosevelt, in a message to the Congress of the United States
on March 27, reported the progress of Cuba toward self-government, and
recommended that provision be made for sending diplomatic and consular
representatives thither, and the Secretary of War began preparations for
withdrawing the Military Governor and all American officials and forces,
and permitting the installation of the native government. It was
arranged that the last-named event should occur on May 20, 1902, four
years and a month after the American act of intervention.

The closing weeks of the American occupation were made busy with the
closing up of affairs preparatory to departure. Two new laws relating to
railroads were promulgated on February 7 and March 3; laws which the
Cubans on assuming the government of the island found so beneficent that
they retained them unchanged. Another law on January 24 rearranged the
municipalities of the island and abolished a considerable number of
them, and still another on March 5 was intended to facilitate the
determination of boundaries of estates. Still another, on April 12, was
so vigorously opposed by Cubans that it was presently revoked, to the
great loss of the island. This was practically an application of the
merit system to a part of the civil service, declaring that officials in
the judicial and public prosecution services should not be removed from
their places without proof of adequate cause. Its revocation left those
and all branches of the civil service to be the prey of the spoils
system.

In April and May there were promulgated orders for systematizing
municipal finances, a manual for military tribunals, quarantine
regulations, rules for the revenue cutter service, immigration laws,
sanitary regulations, and some modifications of the Code of Civil
Procedure. These were all practical measures, of undoubted benefit to
the island, and all dealt with matters in which American experience was
reasonably supposed to be of advantage to Cuba.

General Wood on May 5 called the elected members of the Cuban Congress
together at the Palace, in the name of the President of the United
States, to welcome them and to wish them success in their coming work,
and to have them examine and pass upon their own credentials and count
and rectify the vote of the Electoral College for President and
Vice-President. He also announced to them that the formal transfer of
government, from the United States military authorities to the Cuban
President and Congress, would take place at noon of May 20. Mendez
Capote made a graceful and appreciative reply on behalf of himself and
his colleagues, and the two Houses took possession of their respective
halls and busied themselves with their credentials and with
preparations for the serious work which lay just a little distance
before them.

[Illustration: SCENE IN VILLALON PARK, HAVANA]

Meantime Tomas Estrada Palma was closing up his affairs in the land of
which he had been a guest for many years and was preparing to return to
the land of his birth to be its chief magistrate. He did not leave the
United States until late in April. Instead of going directly to Havana
he landed at Gibara, on the northern coast of Oriente, whence he went to
Holguin, to Santiago, and then to his old home, which also was destined
to be his last, at Bayamo. After a few days' visit there he proceeded to
Havana, and arrived in that city on May 11. All the way through the
island he was greeted with unbounded enthusiasm, and at every stopping
place he was received and entertained with all possible social
attention.

Havana itself for a week preceding the installation of the government
gave itself up to one incessant fiesta. Arches spanned the principal
streets, flowers and bunting made the day brilliant with color, and
fireworks illumined the night. The night of May 19 was such as the
ancient city had never before known. From evening to morning it was one
glare of rockets and illuminations, one roar of anticipatory and
jubilant cheers and music. If one single inhabitant of the city slept,
his name is not recorded. The riot of joy continued unabated until just
before noon, when it slackened for a time, only as a mark of respect for
the epochal ceremony which was being performed in the great State Hall
of the Palace.

There, in the very place where less than four years before General
Castellanos had abdicated the power of Spain over the last of her
American colonies, were gathered the members of the American Government
of Intervention, about to retire; the members of the Cuban Government,
about to assume authority; the representatives of various foreign
powers; and a few private guests of distinction. The central figures
were Leonard Wood and Tomas Estrada Palma. The former read a brief note
from President Roosevelt, announcing the transfer which was about to be
made, and expressing to the Cuban government the sincere friendship and
good wishes of the United States, the most earnest hopes for the
stability and success of the Cuban government, for the blessings of
peace, justice and prosperity and ordered freedom among the people of
Cuba and for enduring friendship between the United States and that
Republic.

[Illustration: TOMAS ESTRADA PALMA

"The Franklin of Cuba," Tomas Estrada Palma, was born at Bayamo on July
9, 1835, was educated in Havana and at the University of Seville, Spain,
and began the practice of law at his native place. But realizing that
under Spanish rule there was little administration of real justice in
Cuba, he abandoned his profession, devoted himself to the management of
his plantation, and when the Ten Years' War was planned entered the
patriotic conspiracy with zeal. He freed his slaves, gave his fortune to
the cause, and entered the army. His mother accompanied him to the camp,
and in his absence was captured by the Spaniards, who murdered her
through starvation and ill-treatment. He became Secretary of the
Republic and in March, 1876, was elected President. Betrayed to the
enemy, he was imprisoned in Morro Castle, Havana, and afterward in
Spain. At the end of the war he went to Honduras, taught school and
served as Postmaster-General, and then went to New York State, where he
established a school for boys. At the beginning of the War of
Independence he again gave himself to the Cuban cause, succeeded Marti
as head of the Junta in New York, became first President of the
Republic, was forced to resign through a traitorous insurrection and
ill-planned intervention, and died on November 4, 1908.]

General Wood then addressed the Cuban President and Congress, declaring
that he transferred to them the government and control of the island,
and that the American military occupation was ended. He reported the
amount of public funds which he turned over to the new officials, and
called attention to various plans for sewering, paving and other
sanitary works which were in course of execution. President Palma
responded, accepting the transfer of sovereignty, and expressing his and
his countrymen's appreciation of the course which the American
government had pursued.

Thus the transcendent consummation was achieved, for which during so
many weary and tragic years so many Cuban patriots had longed and for
which so much treasure had been spent, so much blood had been shed, and
so many lives had been sacrificed. "Cuba Libre" was an accomplished fact
among the nations of the world.

Leaving that memorable scene, General Wood telegraphed to the President
of the United States:

"I have the honor to report that, in compliance with instructions
received, I have this day, at 12 o'clock sharp, transferred to the
President and Congress of the Republic of Cuba the government and
control of the island, to be held and exercised by them under the
provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba."

One other incident remained. As soon as the brief ceremony with the
palace was completed, the American flag was hauled down from that and
all other public buildings and the Cuban flag was raised in its place.
It is not known whether the American Senator who had predicted that
"That Flag will never be hauled down!" was there to see the sight.
Certain it is that the people of Cuba were almost--and most
pardonably--wild with joy to see their own beautiful emblem at last
float in token of sovereignty over their island's capital. The Cuban
flag flying over the Palace and over the Morro Castle was the supreme
consummation of their patriotic dreams and visions.

[Illustration: FLAG OF CUBA]

The red, white and blue flag of Cuba, though then first raised in
unchallenged sovereignty, was then by no means a new thing. It was
already more than half a century old, and had been the guidon of brave
men in three bloody wars. It was designed by the first great Cuban
revolutionist, Narciso Lopez, and by his comrade, Miguel Teurbe Tolon,
of Matanzas, a gifted poet and ardent patriot, and it was first
displayed by Lopez in his raid upon and capture of the city of Cardenas,
on May 19, 1850. The five bars, alternately blue and white, represented
the five provinces into which the island was at that time divided; the
red triangle represented the blood of patriots which was being shed in
the cause of liberty; and the white star was the star of Cuba's hope.
After the death of Lopez the flag disappeared. But when the Ten Years'
War began many flags of that same design were made, the workroom being
in a house on Warren Street in the City of New York, and thereafter it
remained familiar to every Cuban patriot.

[Illustration: COAT OF ARMS OF CUBA]

The coat of arms of the Republic of Cuba displays the colors of the
flag, and by their side the Royal Palm, perhaps the most notable of the
trees in Cuba. The tree springs from a grassy plain, at the back of
which is a mountain range; agriculture and mining being thus typified.
Across the top of the shield extends a landscape-seascape, representing
the ocean, with Florida at one side and Yucatan at the other, while
between them lies the Key, Cuba. From the far horizon rises the sun.
Above all is the Cap of Liberty, while around the shield are twined
branches of oak and laurel.

No more just and fitting estimate of the great work of intervention
which thus, on May 20, 1902, was consummated, has ever been made than
that which was uttered only a few weeks later by President Roosevelt, in
speaking before a distinguished audience at Harvard University. He said:

"Four years ago Leonard Wood went down to Cuba, has served there ever
since, has rendered her literally invaluable service; a man who through
these four years thought of nothing else, did nothing else, save to try
to bring up the standard of political and social life in that island, to
clean it physically and morally, to make justice even and fair in it, to
found a school system which should be akin to our own, to teach the
people after four centuries of misrule that there were such things as
government righteousness and honesty and fair play for all men on their
merits as men."

That was the work which Leonard Wood did in Cuba; that was the work
which the United States government did by and through him; the
consummation of which was denoted in that unique act of withdrawing the
American flag and raising the Cuban flag in its place. Fortunate was it,
however, that the results of that work, the teachings of the American
occupation, the meaning of the American flag, were not and could not be
withdrawn when the Stars and Stripes came down. Just as the colors and
indeed the essential pattern of the flag remained, in different
arrangement, so the essential spirit of American republicanism remained,
to be manifested not any longer by American interveners but by the Cuban
people themselves.

It was a marvellous achievement, that of those four years. It was such
as the world had not seen equalled, at any other time or in any other
place. It was creditable in the highest degree to the Cuban people
themselves. It was creditable to the United States, for its intervention
at its own great cost and for its scrupulous keeping of its faith. It
was creditable to many individual actors in the great drama, both
insular and continental, who displayed unsurpassed fidelity,
self-sacrifice and heroism in the cause of Cuban liberation. But the
simple truth and justice of history would be impaired if the chief
credit were not given, _primus inter pares_, to the great American
administrator, conquering soldier and constructive statesman, who from
first to last was the guiding genius of Cuban rehabilitation.

The works of Durham in Canada, and of Cromer in Egypt, form splendid
passages in the history of benevolent colonial administration. But there
was a more difficult work performed not for a dependent colony which
would return compensation to the Mother Country or to the suzerain power
but for an alien land and people, presently to become entirely
independent of their benefactor. He found the Pearl of the Antilles
war-ravaged and faction-rent; her fields desolated, her industries
destroyed; her women widowed and her children orphaned; her treasury
empty and her debts heavy and pressing; her government abolished and her
laws inadequate; with famine, pestilence and hopelessness stalking
throughout the land. It was his work to heal the wounds of war and to
unite the people of all classes and parties for the common good; to
assist the revival of agriculture and the rebuilding of industry; to
care for the widowed and the orphaned; to replenish the public treasury
and to discharge the debt of honor to the veterans of the War of
Independence; to organize efficient government and out of his own
constructive genius to conceive and to promulgate needed and beneficent
laws; to feed the hungry until they could feed themselves, to banish
pestilence until a lazar-house became a health resort, and to inspire
with hope and faith triumphant a people who for a generation had striven
with the demons of despair.

With such a labor successfully achieved, through the exercise of a tact,
a perseverance, a resourcefulness and an administrative genius not
surpassed in his day and generation, we may not wonder that he was
universally beloved by all the Cuban people regardless of class, of
previous condition or of political predilections; that the only cloud
resting upon the brilliance of the consummation of Cuban independence
proceeded from the fact of his departure from the island and the people
he had so greatly served; and that, not waiting for the slow tributes of
remote posterity, the Cuban people of his own day hold in their
supremest confidence, gratitude, respect and enduring affection the
name, the memory and the vital personality of Leonard Wood.

President Palma had already selected the members of his Cabinet on May
17, three days before the transfer. It contained six members, chosen
without regard to party, for the President was not a partisan. As a
matter of fact, however, it contained representatives of all three of
the old parties, which were at this time in course of dissolution and
reorganization into the two which have since divided the Cuban people
between them. Diego Tamayo was the Secretary of Government, having
charge of the postal service, the signal service, sanitation, and the
Rural Guard. Carlos Zaldo was Secretary of State and of Justice. Emilio
Terry was Secretary of Agriculture. Manual Luciano Diaz was Secretary of
Public Works; Eduardo Yero was Secretary of Public Instruction; and
Garcia Montes was Secretary of Finance.

The President presented his first message to Congress on May 28. He
spoke with gratitude of the disinterested intervention and services of
the United States, and with confidence of Cuba's ability to fulfil her
duties as a sovereign State. He recommended care in the preparation of
the budget, and the formulation of measures for the encouragement of
cattle-raising and the growing of sugar and tobacco. Just then, owing
to the great increase of European beet sugar growing the Cuban sugar
trade was in an unsatisfactory state, but he hoped to improve it by
securing a reciprocity treaty with the United States which would admit
Cuban sugar to the markets of that country free of tariff duty. He also
promised to promote the building of much-needed railroads. He urged the
cultivation of cordial relations and commercial intercourse with all
nations, but especially with the United States. As a special act of
grace, a number of Americans who had justly been sentenced to terms in
Cuban prisons under the Government of Intervention received pardons.
These included three men, Rathbone, Neely and Reeves, who had been
sentenced for ten years for frauds in the Cuban postoffice, the only
serious scandal of the American administration.

Two of the items in the Platt Amendment were soon taken up by the United
States government, and were settled in a way eminently satisfactory to
Cuba. One was the disposition of the Isle of Pines. It was decided by
the State Department at Washington that when the American government was
withdrawn from Cuba, control of the Isle of Pines was transferred to the
Cuban government, to be held and exercised by it unless and until some
other disposition should subsequently be effected. In time Cuban
ownership of the isle was definitively confirmed by the government of
the United States.

The other point was that of American naval stations. A report was made
by Rear-Admiral Bradford of the United States Navy, recommending the
establishment of naval stations at Triscornia, in Havana Harbor; and at
Guantanamo, east of Santiago; and the establishment of coaling stations
at Nipe Bay and Cienfuegos. The Cubans were not inclined to object to
any of these excepting the first-named, to which their objection was
reasonable and convincing. It would not be agreeable, they thought, to
have the flag of a foreign power flying right in front of their own
capital and at the very gate of the harbor of that capital, so that
foreign vessels would pass by it and salute it equally with the Cuban
flag. This objection was recognized and respected by the United States
government, which waived all claim to Triscornia, and on July 2, 1903,
contented itself with land for naval stations at Guantanamo, one of the
finest harbors in the world, on the south coast of Oriente, and Bahia
Honda, another superb harbor, on the north coast of Pinar del Rio. Of
these only Guantanamo has actually been utilized.

The matter of reciprocity between the United States and Cuba was taken
up, but it was long before anything was effected. General Wood had urged
that a reduction of at least 33-1/3 per cent. should be made in the
sugar duty in favor of Cuba, as absolutely essential to the prosperity
of the island, and President Roosevelt urged upon Congress in the
strongest possible manner the desirability of some such action, partly
for the sake of Cuban prosperity, and partly for the fulfilment of
America's moral duty toward that island. Indeed, such commercial
relations had been promised to Cuba, and it was bad faith to withhold
them. Of course the commercial interests of Europe, both in sugar and
all other wares, were earnestly opposed to any such arrangement, and
they had their governments exert all possible influence to prevent its
being made. There were also large beet sugar interests in the United
States which strenuously opposed any reduction of the tariff on Cuban
sugar. President Roosevelt had a long and desperate battle with
Congress over the matter, before he finally prevailed upon it grudgingly
and imperfectly to make a reciprocity agreement, from which the United
States would profit much more than Cuba. This was on March 29, 1903.
Meantime, because of the American refusal to grant reciprocity, Cuba
suffered acute economic depression approximating disaster. The insular
treasury had scarcely enough money with which to pay current expenses,
and the government was driven to the imposition of burden-some taxes
upon many articles to save itself from bankruptcy.

The reciprocity treaty was finally ratified by the American Senate on
March 29, 1903. But it did not at once go into effect. There was needed
Congressional legislation to make it effective, and this was not
supplied. After discreditable delay on the part of the lawmakers,
President Roosevelt called Congress together in special session on
November 10, 1903, for the express purpose of having it take the needed
action for putting the treaty into operation. "I deem," he said, "such
legislation demanded not only by our interest but by our honor.... When
the acceptance of the Platt Amendment was required from Cuba by the
action of the Congress of the United States, this government thereby
definitely committed itself to the policy of treating Cuba as occupying
a unique position as regards this country. It was provided that when the
island became a free and independent republic she should stand in such
close relations with us as in certain respects to come within our system
of international policy; and it necessarily followed that she must also
to a certain degree become included within the lines of our economic
policy.... We gave her liberty. We are knit to her by the memories of
the blood and courage of our soldiers who fought for her in war; by the
memory of the wisdom and integrity of our administrators who served her
in peace and who started so well on the difficult path of
self-government. We must help her onward and upward; and in helping her
we shall help ourselves.... A failure to enact such legislation would
come perilously near a repudiation of the pledged faith of the nation."

Thus at last through such gallant urging a measure of justice was
secured for Cuba. The unwillingness and delay of Congress formed the
most discreditable chapter of the history of America's dealings with
Cuba. But the real attitude, the real purpose, the real spirit of the
United States toward Cuba, were unmistakably set forth not in the
paltering and tergiversation of a sordid Congress, but in the lofty and
inspiring words of the great American President.




CHAPTER XIV


The result of the earnest and efficient work of all departments of the
Palma administration, in spite of the fact that the employes had much to
learn, and that mistakes were unavoidably made, was that Cuba began
almost immediately to establish herself as a nation worthy of
consideration, and respected among the other nations of the world. Her
commerce and industries were started for the first time on a stable
basis, and the general feeling of confidence, not only in the natural
resources of the island, but in the protection that had been promised
Cuba by her sister republic on the north, all tended to start the new
republic along the right lines. In a very short time after reciprocity
with the United States was secured funds began to accumulate in the
treasury, and by the end of the first Palma administration over
$20,000,000 had accrued to the credit of the country, and a large amount
of constructive work had been undertaken in various parts of the island.
Yet more than $4,000,000 had been spent on public works, and every
village with 25 children had a school.

It was the accumulation of this money in the treasury, and the rapid
success along commercial and other lines that seemed to attend the
republic during President Palma's administration, that served to excite
desire and envy among the more or less restless and unscrupulous
elements, who did not form a part of the Palma government. Some of these
outsiders were men of much ability, and many of them were excellent
orators. All of them were familiar with the methods in Latin American
republics of securing control of the government through revolution,
force and violence. It was then that parties began to be formed,
although these were divided into many groups, each surrounding its own
political hero, who, in these days, was necessarily a man with a
supposed military record. They eventually resolved themselves into two
groups, the Moderado, who were in many respects the parents of the
present Conservative party now in power under President Menocal, and the
Liberal, under the leadership of Dr. Alfredo Zayas, an able lawyer and a
shrewd political leader.

During the Palma administration and especially at the beginning of the
electoral campaign of 1905, another aspirant for presidential honors
suddenly appeared in the person of General José Miguel Gomez, a man with
no very brilliant record as a soldier, although he had taken part in the
Ten Years' War, but who had a strong local following as Governor, under
President Palma, of the Province of Santa Clara. General Gomez was an
astute, clever, farseeing, active politician, with a considerable degree
of originality and ability. Another man intimately connected with the
history of Cuba was Gomez's chief clerk when Governor of the Province of
Santa Clara, Orestes Ferrara, a gentleman of Italian birth, of somewhat
reckless tendencies, who emerged from the War of Independence as a Cuban
patriot, and was recognized as such by the Liberal party. Mr. Ferrara
was a lawyer, a writer, a finely educated diplomat and an excellent
speaker. All of these qualities succeeded in making him an important
factor in influencing the destinies of the republic in its early days.

During the first years of the Palma administration, the Moderado and
Liberal parties gradually shaped themselves into the present
Conservative and Liberal parties; organizations which differ in
political methods rather than in principles; if by principles we mean
fundamental doctrines of political economy or statecraft, such as form
the issues of division between parties in most other countries. They
also differ largely in personnel. Throughout the agricultural regions
the Conservatives prevail. That is because farmers, large and small,
care little for office holding but do care a great deal for that
tranquillity of the country which is essential to progress and
prosperity. They have a material stake in the country's welfare, which
is conserved by constitutional order rather than by revolution. On the
other hand, in the cities may be found the great strength of the Liberal
party; composed of men who own no real estate, and many of whom have no
business or steady occupation of any kind, who have nothing to lose from
economic and social disturbance but on the contrary may gain something
by getting into public employment through a change of government. Such
men are numerous in all cities of all countries, and they become the
facile followers of designing and unscrupulous politicians. In the
United States such men are described as "feeding at the public crib." In
Cuba the corresponding phrase, equally expressive, is "nursing at the
public bottle"--epitomised in the one word, "botella."

It is not to be inferred that all Cuban Liberals are of this class, or
that Conservatives are universally men of substance; but the dominant
elements of the two parties are such as we have described. The restless
and irresponsible Liberal masses have for leaders men of unquestioned
ability, but unfortunately too often of more personal ambition of a
sordid kind than sense of moral responsibility or sincere devotion to
their country's best interests. It will thus be seen that on more than
one occasion men who were intellectually qualified to serve the Republic
in the most efficient manner prostituted their talents to catering to
the passions of the ignorant and idle, and made tools of them for their
own selfish advancement, to the great detriment and greater menace of
the Republic. In this deplorable state of affairs have been the main
springs of most of the troubles which the young Republic has thus far
suffered in its political and governmental affairs.

The Conservative party is confined very largely to the owners of
property, men of good reputation and business standing. In other words,
it consists of men who have nothing to gain through a revolution, and
everything to lose during a period of upheaval which means destruction,
not alone of actual property, but of the assets of the country,
especially its credit and standing in the markets of the world. Small
holders of property in the country districts, farmers, merchants,
planters and stock raisers, are naturally allied with the Conservative
party, or the party of law and order, as are the owners of the big sugar
estates and the mills in which the staples are produced, since the cane
fields become an immediate prey of those elements who wish to depose the
government or bring about an intervention, through which they sometimes
gain in the confusion that follows a change of government. To this party
belong the majority of the professional men, the old Autonomistas, and
those men who have a genuine interest in the welfare of Cuba, not only
in her present, but in her future, and who realize that uprisings,
strikes and all allied movements tend naturally to discourage
investments in property, and to destroy credit and the good name of the
island.

Such, then, in general terms, was the development of political parties
in Cuba which occurred as soon as it was realized that it was worth
while to have them. As long as Cuba was under Spanish domination, there
was no use in parties. So long as there was doubt concerning the
intentions of the United States in Cuba, there was little encouragement
to their formation. But the moment the Stars and Stripes actually went
down from the Palace and from the Morro, the great fact dawned upon the
Cuban mind that what many had scarcely dared to expect or to hope for
was actually achieved. Cuba was independent. For that reason her
political controversies were thereafter to be domestic, and there was
opportunity, even perhaps desirability, of division of the population
into parties.

This indeed was well, in principle. There is nothing more stimulating to
citizenship or more conducive to good government in a republic than a
healthful and amicable division of the citizens into parties, on grounds
of principle. In a monarchy, the opposition party is one of protest and
revolt. In a republic both parties are devoted to the governmental
system, and differ only as to the principles of economics or what not on
which it should be conducted. The lamentable feature of the Cuban case
was that--chiefly, no doubt, because of antecedent conditions, because
of centuries of ruthless repression of all national or civic
aspirations--there had been no development of theories and principles of
government to serve as bases for party division. It could not be said,
for example, that this party was for a protective tariff and that one
was for free trade, that one was for state rights and the other for
national sovereignty. Such distinctions did not exist, and party
divisions without them were therefore on less creditable lines. We have
said that there were no questions of principle. But there was one
supreme question of principle, on which after all the division was made.
But that was a question to which there was only one side for a worthy
political party to take.

At the beginning of Estrada Palma's administration, as we have
indicated, he was not identified with any political party. He was
broad-minded, and conceived himself to be not the leader of a party but
the chief executive of the whole Cuban nation. He selected for his
Cabinet the men whom he thought best fitted for the places, regardless
of their political affiliations. He would probably have been glad to go
through his entire administration as a non-partisan President, occupying
in that respect a position similar to that of a constitutional
sovereign, who traditionally "has no politics." Indeed, he maintained
this independent and impartial attitude until the spring of 1905. Then
he found it impossible to get measures passed by Congress, which he
wanted and which the country needed, unless he affiliated with party
leaders. The result was that he practically associated himself with the
Moderados, or Conservatives as they are now known. This of course gave
great umbrage to the Liberals, which was greatly increased when some of
that party were removed from office because of their unsatisfactory
service and their places were filled with Conservatives. And this was
the beginning of the Liberal insurrection which led to the resignation
and death of Estrada Palma.

In the last days of President Palma's first term of office it was
discovered that José Miguel Gomez had Presidential aspirations. He not
only stated to the Moderate or Conservative party that he wanted to be
President of the Republic of Cuba, but he declared that he proposed to
succeed President Palma as such. This privilege was refused him on the
ground that the President, owing to his fair administration of the
government during the four years of his service, was entitled to a
second term. To this argument, General Gomez replied that if the
Conservative party to which he had pretended to belong would not make
him its Presidential nominee, he would go to the opposition and seek the
nomination. This he at once proceeded to do, and with the assistance of
Mr. Ferrara he persuaded the Liberals that, controlling the votes of the
Province of Santa Clara, he held the balance of power. He also prevailed
upon Dr. Alfredo Zayas to retire as a Presidential candidate, and to
acquiesce in his running for election on the Liberal ticket; promising
at the same time that, no matter what the result of the election might
be, Dr. Zayas should have the nomination and his support four years
afterward. It is interesting to observe that this promise was never
fully kept, and that the two Liberal leaders have ever since been bitter
enemies.

The Presidential nominees of the two parties, in November, 1906, on the
part of the Conservatives, were Estrada Palma, the President of Cuba,
and on the part of the Liberals, José Miguel Gomez, ex-leader of the
Moderados of the Province of Santa Clara. The Liberals, a few days
before the election, feeling apparently that it would go against them,
began the old tactics so prevalent in some South American republics, and
practised by Maso's followers in 1901, of proclaiming proposed election
frauds on the part of their opponents, then in control of the
government, and predicting all manner of illegal practices and
intimidation.

At ten o'clock on the morning of election day, telegrams, announcements,
and orders from Liberal leaders were posted at all voting places in the
various cities and country districts, directing members of that party
to keep away from the polls, on the ground that the election frauds
which had been arranged by the Conservatives could not possibly be
overcome, and that the correct thing to do was to refuse to vote, as a
protest against the government in power. These were obviously issued
with a view of discrediting in advance an election which the Liberals
could not hope to win. The Conservatives, of course, voted, and, as
might be expected under those circumstances, the Palma government
succeeded itself, with a few changes in the Cabinet, and everything
seemed to promise well for the future.

Within a year, however, threats of coming trouble, whispers of
discontent, and reports of incipient uprisings could be heard in the
cafés and public resorts throughout the island, and the agents of the
secret service warned President Palma that a serious crisis was
impending. This the President refused to credit, staging that there
could be no possible reason for a revolution. The island was prosperous,
work was plentiful for all who cared to labor; there were no conditions
present to justify a revolution or uprising, and suspicions of anything
of the kind must therefore be unjustified. In spite of President Palma's
confidence, however, the plotting went on almost openly. His confidence
in the people was known to all the Liberals, and they took advantage of
it. The first real outbreak occurred before the slightest preparation
had been made to deal with it. One night in the month of July, 1905, a
group of thirty armed men suddenly appeared at the barracks of the Rural
Guards, shot a dozen of them to death as they lay sleeping on their
cots, seized their arms, ammunition and horses, and fled into the
country, shouting the cry of "Revolution against the Palma government!"
General Alejandro Rodriguez, a tried veteran of the War of
Independence, and chief of the Rural Guards, gave an immediate order
that they should be captured, dead or alive, and before ten o'clock the
next morning nearly all of them had been taken and confined in the jails
of Havana, where afterwards they were tried and convicted. These men in
their defense claimed that the president of the Senate, Señor Moru
Delgado, a prominent Liberal leader, had promised to meet them at
daylight, on the morning of the assassination, with a body of three
hundred armed and mounted Liberals, who were to start a revolution
against President Palma; but did not fulfill his promise. The men who
had been convicted were permitted to remain in jail until, as is too
often the custom in some Latin American countries, they were freed by a
general amnesty bill which had been forced through Congress by the
Liberal party. The tendency to revolt against the Palma government
apparently subsided with the arrest of these first disturbers, but,
during the following January, 1906, reports of trouble in the extreme
western portion of the island came to the notice of the officials. The
leader was Pino Guerra, who, through his popularity as an accordion
player at country dances, had secured election to the House of
Representatives; and who with his taste for games of chance, at which he
was generally unlucky, had got into debt to the amount of $7,000. His
creditors in these debts were persistent, and this fact was given by him
in a letter to General Fernando Freyre de Andrade, President of the
House of Representatives, as an excuse for the revolution which he
started. Pino Guerra indeed intimated that if someone would extend to
him a little personal loan of $7,000 he would refrain from causing any
trouble to the government. General Freyre de Andrade, being a politician
who believed in compromise and that even a poor end would justify the
means, suggested to Guerra that he knew of $3,000 that had been
appropriated for some purpose and not used, which might possibly be
turned over, if his creditors would take it on account. "General"
Guerra, as he called himself, consulted with his creditors, and they
concluded to accept the offer, if they could get the cash. So the embryo
revolutionist was conducted to the presence of the President, where the
whole matter was explained by General Freyre de Andrade. To their
surprise, President Palma promptly refused to have any of the treasury
funds used to buy--or to pay blackmail to--a revolutionist. So "General"
Guerra retired to nurse his resentment and to plan mischief; until some
six weeks later when he started the uprising that was locally known as
"Mr. Taft's picnic," because the leaders asserted that the capturing of
the Palma government would be nothing more than a picnic, and assured
Mr. Taft on his arrival to straighten out affairs that they really had
not intended to assassinate President Palma, although three or four
distinct plots had been made for that purpose; that they only meant to
capture him, put him on the government yacht, and carry him to some
remote part of the country and give him just a "pleasant picnic."

[Illustration: THE PRESIDENT'S HOME

The new Presidential Palace, which replaces in its functions the old
home of the Spanish Governors, is of striking architecture and
impressive size, affording ample room for many other functions than the
mere housing of the President and his family; and in completeness of its
appointments and beauty of its furnishings and internal decorations must
rank among the finest official residences in the world.]

President Palma was repeatedly warned by the secret service, of which
Pepe Jerez Varona was the chief, that serious trouble was coming through
the propaganda of the Liberal party whose leaders had taken the position
that the late election had been fraudulent and that the Liberals had
been prevented from casting their votes, which they said was sufficient
excuse for the uprising that was imminent. Local bands of the so-called
"Constitutional Army" soon began to make their appearance throughout the
central districts of the island. Each of these was headed by some
prominent Liberal chieftain; among others, those at Havana by General
Loinaz Castillo, in Pinar del Rio by Pino Guerra, and in Santa Clara by
Orestes Ferrara, afterward President of the House of Representatives.
The real promoters, instigators, and chiefs of the movement were General
José Miguel Gomez, afterward President of the Republic; Carlos Garcia,
later Minister to England; and Juan Gualberto Gomez, the trusted agent
of Alfredo Zayas and leader of the negro Liberals of the island.
Convincing proofs, in the form of documents over the signatures of these
men, were found showing their treason to the republic. They did not
actually lead the insurgent bands, because they were arrested and
imprisoned just as they were setting out to do so. President Palma was
advised that they should be tried and executed, but he protested against
the courts taking such action, on the ground that he could not bring
himself to sanction the execution of men, some of whom had in former
days been his companions in arms.

In the meantime, the revolutionary force swept through various parts of
the island, seizing horses, mules, beef cattle and produce, breaking
open groceries and general stores, helping themselves to anything that
suited their fancy, occasionally giving in exchange what was known as
_vale_, or a receipt, to the owner, and if the owner happened to be an
able bodied man, they usually compelled him to join the so-called
"Constitutional Army." Congress at that time happened to have a Liberal
majority, and it refused to consider or vote upon the budget of the
coming year, thus practically compelling President Palma to use as the
basis of expenditures the budget of the preceding year. The Liberals
boasted that they had thus compelled the President technically to
violate the Constitution, and that they were therefore justified in
calling themselves the Constitutional Party and in forcing him out of
the Presidency.

The Cuban republic at this time had an armed force of about two thousand
men, scattered throughout the island. These were the Rural Guards, and
they were efficient, and as a rule loyal to the Palma government; but
they were not sufficient in number to protect the sugar estates, and
other properties. As before, President Palma refused, until the last
moment, to believe that a serious uprising or revolution against his
government was possible, on the ground that Cuba, although a young
republic, had been very prosperous, that money was plentiful, that work
was abundant for any man who cared to occupy himself, and that there was
no real reason that would justify or cause a revolution. He cited the
history and motives of previous revolutions in Cuba, and of those that
had occurred in many other countries, insisting that this uprising could
not be serious, and that the people of Cuba would not support it.
Unfortunately he was not a politician. He had lived too many years in
the safe and sane atmosphere of the United States, and did not realize
the intense desire on the part of some of the people in Latin American
countries to get into office, regardless of their qualifications or the
means employed to accomplish their sordid purposes.

All of this resulted in a sad lack of preparation. President Palma's
Secretary of Finance, Colonel Ernesto Fonts-Sterling, and General Rafael
Montalvo, Secretary of Public Works, realized the threatening dangers
and urged immediate action; and finally against the President's will,
twenty machine guns were ordered from the United States, and shipped to
Cuba, together with 1,000,000 rounds of ammunition. A call for
volunteers was then issued, and in response numerous Americans from
various parts of the island, and others from Texas, New Mexico and
Arizona, in company with patriots of Cuba, came immediately to the side
of the government. But the masses of the Cubans were very tired of war,
and manifested a peculiar reluctance to assume responsibility, and to
act in line with their consciences and best judgment, wherefore the call
was not highly successful. Fourteen hundred veterans of the War of
Independence, under the command of General Pedro Betancourt, of
Matanzas, made response, and presented themselves in Havana for orders.
A machine gun corps was formed, the gunners composed largely of
Americans who had seen service in the war on the Mexican border, and who
soon became excellent marksmen. Many of President Palma's counsellors
urged immediate action to suppress the revolution with a firm hand. But
he hesitated too long, hoping that some other way out of the difficulty
would be discovered.

In this emergency the United States Consul General, Mr. Frank Steinhart,
suggested to President Palma that he should request the assistance of
the United States, and urged that a commission of military men be sent
from Washington, backed by a certain display of naval or military force
sufficient to discourage the revolution and to convince the Liberal
leaders that further wanton destruction of property would not be
tolerated. Mr. Steinhart also assured him that he would see to it that
such a commission would come with a full understanding of the situation,
and with the power and spirit to assist him in maintaining peace and
order. President Palma made this request to which the United States
promptly responded by sending the gunboat _Bancroft_, and a company of
marines who immediately came ashore at Havana. Following the _Bancroft_
came other steamers, one of which brought the Secretary of War, William
H. Taft, Robert Bacon, Assistant Secretary of State, and Major-General
Frederick Funston, with several of his aides.

In fuller explanation of these circumstances some official
correspondence may pertinently be cited. On September 8, 1906, Consul
General Steinhart sent the following confidential telegram to the State
Department:

"Secretary of State, Cuba, has requested me, in name of President Palma,
to ask President Roosevelt to send immediately two vessels; one to
Havana and other to Cienfuegos; they must come at once. Government
forces are unable to quell revolution. The government is unable to
protect lives and property. President Palma will convene Congress next
Friday, and Congress will ask for our forcible intervention. It must be
kept secret and confidential that Palma asked for vessels. No one here
except President, Secretary of State and myself know about it. Very
anxiously awaiting reply."

The State Department at Washington replied to this on September 10th:

"Your cable received. Two ships have been sent, due to arrive Wednesday.
The President directs me to state that perhaps you had not yourself
appreciated the reluctance with which this country would intervene.
President Palma should be informed that in the public opinion here it
would have a most damaging effect for intervention to be undertaken
until the Cuban government has exhausted every effort in a serious
attempt to put down the insurrection and has made this fact evident to
the world. At present the impression certainly would be that there was
no real popular support of the Cuban government, or else that the
government was hopelessly weak. As conditions are at this moment we are
not prepared to say what shape the intervention should take. It is, of
course, a very serious matter to undertake forcible intervention, and
before going into it we should have to be absolutely certain of the
equities of the case and of the needs of the situation. Meanwhile we
assume that every effort is being made by the Government to come to a
working agreement which will secure peace with the insurrectos, provided
they are unable to hold their own with them in the field. Until such
efforts have been made, we are not prepared to consider the question of
intervention at all."

On September 10, Consul-General Steinhart cabled again:

"Your cable received and directly communicated to the President, who
asks ships remain for a considerable time to give security to foreigners
in the island of Cuba and says that he will do as much as possible with
his forces to put down the insurrection, but if unable to conquer or
compromise, Cuban Congress will indicate kind of intervention desirable.
He appreciates reluctance on our part to intervene, especially in view
of Secretary Root's recent statements. Few, however, understand Cuban
situation, and a less number are able to appreciate same. This, of
course, without any reference to superior authority. Palma applied
public funds in public work and public education, and not in purchase of
war materials. Insurrectionists for a considerable time prepared for
present condition, hence government's apparent weakness at the
commencement. Yesterday's defeat of rebels gives Government hope.
Attempts useless from start."

On September 12, Consul-General Steinhart again cabled.

"Secretary of State the Republic of Cuba at 3:40 to-day delivered to me
memorandum in his own handwriting, a translation of which follows, and
is transmitted notwithstanding the previous secret instructions on the
subject. The rebellion is increasing in Provinces of Santa Clara, Habana
and Pinar del Rio, and Cuban Government has no elements to contend with
it, to defend the towns and prevent the rebels from destroying property.
President Estrada Palma asks for American intervention and begs
President Roosevelt to send to Habana with the greatest secrecy and
rapidity 2,000 or 3,000 men to avoid any catastrophe in the capital. The
intervention asked for should not be made public until American troops
are in Habana. The situation is grave and any delay may produce massacre
of citizens in Habana."

The next day, Mr. Steinhart again cabled:

"President Palma, the Republic of Cuba, through me officially asked for
American intervention because he can not prevent rebels from entering
cities and burning property. It is doubtful whether quorum when Congress
assembles next Friday, tomorrow. President Palma has irrevocably
resolved to resign and to deliver the government of Cuba to the
representative whom the President of the United States will designate,
as soon as sufficient American troops are landed in Cuba. This act on
the part of President Palma to save his country from complete anarchy
and imperative intervention come immediately. It may be necessary to
land force of _Denver_ to protect American property. About 8,000 rebels
outside Habana. Cienfuegos also at mercy of rebels. Three sugar
plantations destroyed. Foregoing all resolved in Palace."

On September 14, Consul-General Steinhart finally cabled:

"President Palma has resolved not to continue at head of the government,
and is ready to present his resignation even though present disturbances
should cease at once. The Vice President has resolved not to accept the
office. Cabinet ministers have declared that they will previously
resign. Under these conditions it is impossible that Congress will meet
for the lack of a proper person to convoke same to designate new
President. The consequences will be the absence of legal power, and
therefore the prevailing state of anarchy will continue unless
government of the United States will adopt measures necessary to avoid
this danger."

On that day President Roosevelt wrote to Robert Bacon, the Assistant
Secretary of State, enclosing a letter to Senor Gonzalo de Quesada, the
Cuban minister to the United States for publication in the public press,
in which he begged the Cuban patriots to band together, to sink all
differences and personal ambitions, and to rescue the island from the
anarchy of civil war; closing the letter as follows:

"I am sending to Habana the Secretary of War, Mr. Taft, and the
Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Bacon, as special representatives of
this Government, who will render such aid as is possible toward these
ends. I had hoped that Mr. Root, the Secretary of State, could have
stopped in Habana on his return from South America, but the seeming
imminence of the crisis forbids further delay."

Messrs. Taft and Bacon reached Cuba on September 19, 1906. Before
leaving the ship they were informed that the Secretary of State and
Justice of President Palma's cabinet would call at their convenience.
They invited him on board at once and had a short talk with him. They
were informed that immediately on publication of the President's
message, President Palma had directed a cessation of hostilities on the
part of the government forces, and that the insurgents had done
likewise. Messrs. Taft and Bacon then called upon President Palma. They
told him that they regarded themselves as intermediaries and Peace
Commissioners, and did not wish to negotiate with rebels in arms without
his permission. He suggested that negotiations be conducted between the
two political parties, rather than between himself and the insurgents,
and suggested that the Vice-President, Mendez Capote, for the Moderate
party, and Senator Alfredo Zayas, head of the Liberal party, be the
negotiators. He added that General Menocal on behalf of the veterans of
the War of Independence had previously attempted, on September 8, to
bring about a compromise, but without avail.

[Illustration: William H. Taft]

President Palma told Mr. Taft very earnestly and somewhat pathetically
of his efforts to teach his people the knowledge of good government
gained from his twenty years of residence in the United States, and his
association with the American people, and called attention to his
successful handling of Cuban finances, to the economy of expenditures of
his government, to the fact that he had at all times encouraged the
investment of foreign capital, and to the prosperity of his four years
as President. He deplored what he regarded as a lack of patriotism on
the part of the leaders of the insurrection, and cited a number of
instances to prove that they were actuated by motives of greed and
desire for office. His demeanor was dignified and earnest, and what he
said made a deep impression.

The Americans then went to the home of the American Minister at
Marianao, a suburb of Havana, where the insurgents had outposts just
across the bridge, about 1,000 yards from the minister's house. There
they conferred, as President Palma had suggested, with Señors Capote and
Zayas, with the Secretary of Government, General Rafael Montalvo, who
had charge of mobilizing the forces of the government; with General
Rodriguez, and with the American Consul General, Mr. Steinhart, who had
been eight years in the island, understood its conditions, and spoke its
language.

It was explained to Mr. Taft that some of the leaders of the revolution
had been apprehended, and at present were incarcerated in the
penitentiary, but that they could be summoned to the home of the
American Minister, if he so desired. He did desire it, and the Liberal
leaders were brought from their prison. They included Jose Miguel Gomez,
Gualberto Gomez, Carlos Garcia, and others of the group. Senator Alfredo
Zayas remained present, and when Mr. Taft asked for a statement from the
prisoners regarding the causes of the revolution and their purposes and
demands, he acted as counsel and spokesman. Dr. Zayas stated that the
election of the President and his government had been absolutely
fraudulent; that armed soldiers had prevented the approach of the
Liberals to the polls; that they had absolute proof that the votes would
never be counted but that the whole proceeding would be a farce, and
that, as a protest against such frauds and miscarriage of justice, they
had deliberately refrained from going to the polls after ten o'clock in
the morning; that the results of the election had been absurd and
ridiculous; that the Liberals were greatly in the majority in the
island, "as every one knew," and that the government, as constituted,
was an imposition on the people, weak, inefficient and corrupt. He added
that he and his compatriots wanted nothing more than that which they
were in a position to enforce, and which they would have enforced had it
not been for the suspension of hostilities which had been acquiesced in
by the Liberals only out of deference to Mr. Taft and his commission.

In other words, Dr. Zayas stated that they wished the immediate
resignation of President Palma, his cabinet, and all members of Congress
who had secured their seats at the last election; and he intimated that
the judges of the courts who had been appointed by the Conservative
party were corrupt and incompetent, and should be replaced by better
men. In fact, they demanded the removal of the entire administration,
and the annulment of the results of the last election.

Against this Mr. Taft protested, stating that Dr. Zayas's suggestions
were decidedly radical; that so far as Estrada Palma was concerned, he
had been elected with at least the moral support of the United States
government; that Washington knew and trusted him and had every reason to
believe him a thoroughly honest man; and that he could not consent to
any move so sweeping as that which Dr. Zayas suggested. Dr. Zayas
immediately withdrew his objection to President Palma, stating that, on
second thought, his retention as President would preserve the republican
form of government, and save the island from a political change that
should be avoided if possible. Therefore, Mr. Palma was more than
welcome to remain as President of the Republic; but every other
condition expressed with reference to Congress, the cabinet and the
courts, must be enforced, and at once. That was the ultimatum given to
Mr. Taft by the leaders of the Liberals.

This ultimatum was conveyed at once to President Palma, together with
the intimation that it was a bad mess all around, and that, since a
force variously estimated at between twelve and twenty thousand men
surrounded the City of Havana, and property was in danger, and since
Orestes Ferrara had already notified the commission that if the demands
were not acquiesced in, three of the large sugar plantations in the
neighborhood of Cienfuegos would be given over to the torch at daylight
the next morning, it was probably best to yield to the demands of the
Liberals, and practically to let them have their way, in the interest of
peace, brotherhood and conservation of the rights of property.

This astounding and unworthy attitude on the part of the Commission
deeply hurt President Palma, who had with good cause expected not only
its moral aid but probably also the military support of the armed force
that came to Cuba, at least as long as the policy of his government
could be justified. This mental attitude was not however indicated by
any word that came from his lips. With unmoved dignity he bowed in
uncomplaining acquiescence, and said that he entirely understood the
situation; that Mr. Taft would receive his resignation as President, by
word of mouth and in writing, as quickly as it could be dictated to his
secretary; and that he would retire at once from the Presidency of Cuba.
Against this action Mr. Taft protested, though he himself had obviously
made it necessary, and explained that arrangements had been made, at his
suggestion, in which Dr. Zayas as leader of the Liberals had acquiesced,
to the effect that Mr. Palma should remain as President of the Republic,
although the Liberals demanded the expulsion of all other members of
the administration. President Palma thanked Mr. Taft for his expression
of faith in him personally, but absolutely refused to consider the
withdrawal of his resignation, stating with impregnable logic, which Mr.
Taft could not refute, that if his cabinet, his Congress and his courts
were fraudulent, or held their positions illegally, he himself, having
been elected at the same time, and in the same manner, was not the real
President of Cuba. Therefore, he refused to remain longer in office. He
added with punctilious courtesy that he would take the liberty of eating
his supper in the palace with his family, since it was prepared, but he
would not remain within its walls another day.

When this attitude of the President was communicated to the members of
the Cuban Congress, a meeting was at once called, at which, after a
great deal of animated discussion, a joint committee was appointed,
consisting of twenty-four men, to wait upon and expostulate with
President Palma, but after several hours of pleading, they were
unsuccessful in persuading him to change his mind.

So came the fall of the Palma government, whereupon Secretary Taft
assumed complete charge and control of the affairs of the Cuban
Republic. The insurgent leaders signed a formal agreement to surrender,
in which they promised to restore to their owners the horses and other
property which they had seized, though as a matter of fact none of them
did so; since, for good measure, perhaps, Mr. Taft through military
decree gave to the rebels an absolute deed of ownership of the horses
they had stolen from the stables and fields of their rightful owners. It
took them nearly two weeks to disarm and disperse. Then Mr. Taft issued
a proclamation granting "a full and complete amnesty and pardon to all
persons who have directly or indirectly participated in the recent
insurrection in Cuba, or who have given aid or comfort to persons
participating therein, for offenses political in their nature and
committed in the course of the insurrection and prior to disbandment."
This amnesty, he added, was to be "considered and construed as covering
offenses of rebellion, sedition or conspiracy to commit the same, and
other related offenses."

Finally, Mr. Taft announced on October 13 the turning over of the
government of the island, with the full power which he himself had
exercised, to Mr. Charles E. Magoon, and on that same date Mr. Magoon
accepted and was installed in the office, thus beginning the second
Government of Intervention. The general feeling of Cubans at that time
was divided. The pessimistic elements rather suspected that the United
States, having been called there a second time, might never leave. On
the other hand, the thinking class, and those who had experienced the
United States government and its various administrations in Cuba,
especially under General Leonard Wood, were confident that it was only a
temporary régime that circumstances had made necessary, and they hoped
that out of it much good would come.

Thus ended the most pathetic and tragic incident in the history of the
Cuban Republic, and the one which was on the whole most discreditable to
the United States. Nothing could have been more deplorable than that a
statesman of the great ability, the lofty ideals and especially the
generally judicial mind of Mr. Taft should thus weakly and illogically
have yielded to a vile conspiracy, manifested through lawless threats
and unproved clamor, against a Chief of State who in validity of title,
in purity of character, in unselfish devotion to the public good, and in
potential efficiency of enlightened administrationship, was not
unworthy to be ranked even in the same category with the great President
under whom Mr. Taft himself held his commission.

Estrada Palma, according to Mr. Taft's intimation, had erred. History
will forever record that he erred chiefly if not solely in assuming, in
his own transparent integrity, that other men were as honest as himself.
He was, his enemies asserted, weak. But intelligence and justice must
discern and declare that his only weakness was in an over-confidence in
the people to whose service he had given all the best of his life and in
whose loyalty and support he imagined that he could securely trust. He
could not, in the greatness of his own soul, bring himself to believe it
possible for men, for men calling themselves Cuban patriots, to do such
things as those which Jose Miguel Gomez and Alfredo Zayas and Orestes
Ferrara and their coparceners did. He was not moved by weakness, but by
a desire to protect Cuba from the ravages of sordid revolution and from
the unscrupulous exploitation of bushwhacking bandits, and to preserve
for the Cuban people and their Republic the good name which had been so
fairly and as he thought fully established during the years of his first
administration. His place in the annals of Cuba is secure. His rank
among the constitutional executives of the world is enviably high. There
has been in Cuba or elsewhere no more honest administration than his,
and none that more intelligently, unselfishly and untiringly strove to
fulfil its every duty to the state. Its untimely fall is not to be
charged against any subjective fault of its own, but to the unscrupulous
malice of sordid foes, the apathy of the people in whom too great
confidence had been reposed, and to the inexplicable betrayal by those
who should have supported and protected it but who instead consented to
its destruction.




CHAPTER XV


Mr. Magoon came to Cuba but little known to Cubans and unfamiliar with
what was before him. During this second American intervention there were
some radical changes in the administration, and more public works were
undertaken than President Palma had ventured upon. The consensus of
opinion among American officers, all the officers who had accompanied
Mr. Magoon, was that the Palma administration had made a mistake in
allowing so much money to accumulate in the treasury. It had become a
temptation to those who were not in power, and it would have been better
to have the money expended along lines that would tend to advance the
republic rather than to permit it to accumulate. So it was realized that
if it was not expended during Mr. Magoon's administration, it would be
spent, and probably largely wasted, if not actually misappropriated, by
the Liberals if they should secure control of the government.

The most unfortunate thing in connection with the visit of Mr. Taft, and
therefore with the administration of Mr. Magoon, was that the Liberals
had apparently gained their ends. The majority of thoughtful and
patriotic Cubans had expected the intervention of the United States to
result in the upholding of law, order and justice in the support of
President Palma and his administration. They had expected that Mr. Taft
would take time to investigate the case thoroughly, and that he would
insist at the outset, as an indispensable preliminary to his entering
into conference with them, that the Liberal insurgents should surrender
their arms and ammunition, return the property which they had stolen,
and submit themselves loyally to the constitutional government of the
island; and that after that, but only after it, he would see to it that
justice was done to them as to all parties and all people. That course
was unfortunately not taken. Mr. Taft entered into conference with
unrepentant and defiant rebels whose followers were at the moment in
arms, threatening and preparing to make further criminal assaults upon
property and life. He regarded or at least treated them as no less
worthy of a hearing and of being taken into conference than the
President himself; and despite his protests he concluded the sorry
performance by practically ousting President Palma and his cabinet at
the behest of these lawless insurgents.

The sequel was tragedy. Estrada Palma died, not of pneumonia but of a
broken heart. Nor was that all. Encouragement was given to the lawless
and criminal elements of the island, and to those who resort to
violence, insurrection and revolution as the means of attaining their
political ends, which has been felt ever since and which has repeatedly
given rise to attempts to repeat the performance which then was so
successful. Recognition was given to the Liberals, through what were
doubtless good but certainly were mistaken motives, and the Liberals
insisted upon maintaining that recognition and profiting from it. So
when a Council, or Consulting Board, of eleven members was formed with
General Enoch H. Crowder as chairman, it contained only two
Conservatives and one man of doubtful affiliations. Three members,
Senors Garcia Kohly, Viondi and Carrera, did not belong to the August
revolutionists but were members of the Moderado party, which had
supported Estrada Palma. They acted as "Independents" on the
Commission, though they were intimately associated with the Liberals,
and as "Independents" they participated in the municipal elections. But
later they joined the Liberals outright. All the rest of the Commission,
or Consulting Board, were Liberals who had actually taken part in the
rebellion. No appointment to office could be made without the sanction
of that Board, and the result was that the Second Government of
Intervention was packed with Liberal placeholders. Competent men, who
had served the State well under President Palma's administration, were
dismissed and replaced by incompetents whose sole recommendation was
that they were Liberals. Now the voters of Cuba are as a rule easily
impressed, and do not always appreciate the possibility, through hard
work, of transforming a minority into a majority. They delight in being
at once on the winning side, and therefore pay much attention to
determining not so much which of two rival and contending parties is
really right and deserving of support, as which side is going to win.
The fact that the Liberal leaders, who previously had had almost no
recognition, social, political or official, suddenly came to the front,
and with the apparent acquiescence of the United States, or of the
commission appointed in Washington, were exerting great influence,
seemed a pretty sure indication, or at least was so interpreted, that
the United States had changed its ideas with regard to the government in
Cuba, and was favoring, and probably would continue to favor and sustain
the Liberal party. That was one of the reasons why the Liberals won
their next election. In fact they pointed to it as evidence of America's
moral support, and frequently referred to and displayed an order, said
to have been issued through mistake, which provided that every man who
had stolen a horse, and who confessed his theft frankly, should have
full proprietary title to that horse and need not surrender it to the
owner. The order is still on the statute books, a memento of the
American intervention. That was resented by the better citizens; it
discouraged many people who had had great confidence in the United
States, and it illustrates not the general policy of the second
government of intervention, but some of the unfortunate things that took
place under that intervention, that seemed to the better class in Cuba,
as mistaken.

Mr. Magoon spent the larger part of the money found in the treasury on
public works, the building of roads, and various enterprises for the
best interests of the island. It is claimed that in some instances the
contracts became a source of graft, and that the roads were not built
according to specifications. At any rate, they were built, and were
sorely needed, and the results on the whole were excellent. Of the
$26,000,000 left by the Palma administration nearly every dollar was
expended at that time.

Although the second Government of Intervention was theoretically and
nominally, and doubtless meant to be actually, quite non-political and
impartial as between the Cuban parties, the very circumstances of its
origin made it appear to favor the Liberals. It had come into power by
accepting the resignation of the Palma administration, which was
practically Conservative, at the demand of the Liberals. The Liberals
thus enjoyed all through its duration the prestige of victory, without
having to bear any of the responsibility of being in office, or
incurring any of the odium which is almost inevitable to every human
government which has not learned to achieve the impossible task of
pleasing everybody. There was no such foundation work to do as had been
done under the first Intervention, and the American government busied
itself principally with routine matters, and with making it possible for
the Cubans to resume control of their own affairs.

One of the most important undertakings at this time from a non-political
point of view was the taking of a new census. This was not done on so
elaborate a scale as the preceding census of 1899, but was more strictly
an enumeration of the people, for purposes of apportionment, etc. It was
taken under the direction of the American Government of Intervention in
1907, the actual work on it being done by a staff of Cuban canvassers
and statisticians, and it was believed to have been accurately and
comprehensively done.

The work of compiling the new census of Cuba which was taken in 1907 was
continued in the early part of 1908 and was completed and results were
published at the end of March of that year. The total population of the
island was reported to be 2,048,980, and out of this number 419,342 were
citizens and entitled to vote. It was then arranged to hold municipal
and provincial elections on August 1, and a national election on
November 14. These elections would be essential parts of the processes
by which the United States government would bring its second
intervention to a close and restore the island to the control and
government of its own people. The electoral law under which they were to
be conducted was promulgated for the August election on April 1 and for
the November election on September 11, 1908.

This law had three salient and characterizing features. The first was
that it established a system of permanent election boards which were
charged with the work of conducting the elections. In each municipality
there was to be a board of three members. In each department or
province there was to be a board of five members of whom two were to be
representatives of the two principal political parties of the island
while the other three were to be non-political members, officials of the
courts or representatives of the education department. The second
salient feature of the law was a system of compulsory registration. This
provided for the making and keeping by the election boards of lists of
all persons in the island who were entitled to vote. The basis of these
lists was the census of 1907, and it was provided that the lists should
be revised, corrected and amplified by the election boards every year.

The third and perhaps the most important feature of the law was its
provision for proportional representation. This secured minority
representation, giving each of the important political parties
membership in legislative bodies and also in the Electoral College
representation in proportion to the number of votes polled.

Under the constitution of Cuba the right of suffrage is guaranteed to
every adult male in full enjoyment of his ordinary civil rights. This of
course bestows the franchise upon a great number of illiterate persons.
The commission which revised the electoral law in 1908 carefully
considered the question of undertaking in some way to deal with the
illiterate vote so that it would not be, as it seemed on the face to be,
a potential menace to the state. It was finally decided however, that it
would be impracticable and inadvisable to attempt in any way to modify
the constitution. Provisions were, however, adopted whereby alien
residents of the island, although not permitted to vote, were made
eligible for election as members of municipal councils and also as
associate members of municipal commissions.

[Illustration: THE ACADEMY OF ARTS AND CRAFTS

The Academy of Arts and Crafts is one of the notable institutions which
make Havana an important centre of culture, both theoretical and
applied. This great school of technology was opened in 1882, and
occupies a fine building of dignified and impressive academic
architecture.]

The provincial and municipal elections occurred on August 1. There were
in the field three major political parties, namely, the Conservatives,
the Liberals and the Historical Liberals. The latter two were formed by
a split which had occurred in the Liberal party. The principal faction
was led by Jose Miguel Gomez, who claimed to be representative of the
original and only simon pure Liberals, and who regarded the other
faction as an illegitimate schism. The followers of Gomez accordingly
called themselves the Historical Liberal Party, but were popularly known
as the Miguelistas. The other faction was led by Alfredo Zayas and
called itself simply the Liberal Party, being popularly known as the
Zayistas. There was another insignificant faction which had been known
as the National Independent Party but which now merged itself with the
Zayistas. The third party was of course the Conservative.

The result of the elections of August 1 was the polling of 269,132 votes
or about 60 per cent. of the registration. The Conservatives elected
their candidates for Governor in the three provinces of Pinar del Rio,
Matanzas and Santa Clara. In the municipalities of the island the
Conservatives elected twenty-eight mayors, the Miguelistas thirty-five
and the Zayistas eighteen. The elections were conducted quietly and
legally, no serious charges of intimidation or fraud were made, and the
results were loyally accepted by men of all parties.

The campaign for the Presidential election was then continued with much
zeal. The results of the election of August 1 were taken deeply to heart
by the various Liberal leaders as demonstrating to them that the split
in their party would be fatal to them in the national election unless it
were healed or at least some sort of a modus vivendi were established.
Accordingly Jose Miguel Gomez and Alfredo Zayas "got together" and
agreed upon a compromise of their claims. It was altogether apparent
that Gomez was on the whole the stronger of the two candidates. Also he
was the older of the two men. Therefore it was agreed that he should
have the first chance at the Presidency of Cuba. He should be the
candidate at the coming election of 1908, but if he was successful in
being elected he should not seek a second term but at the end of his
first should step aside and give his support to Zayas as his successor.
With this understanding the party was reunited for the purposes of the
campaign. Gomez was made the candidate for the Presidency and Zayas was
nominated for the Vice-Presidency. The Conservatives nominated for the
Presidency General Mario G. Menocal and for the Vice-Presidency Doctor
Rafael Montoro.

The campaign was conducted with much spirit and earnestness but
generally in a dignified and law abiding manner. The chief stock in
trade of the Liberals was abuse of the former administration of Estrada
Palma, and of General Menocal as the inheritor of its traditions and
policies. There were also many intemperate attacks upon Doctor Montoro
because of his former association with the Autonomist party and the
brief Autonomist Government during the later part of the War of
Independence. How insincere this criticism of Dr. Montoro was appeared a
little later when that statesman was appointed to a very important
office under the Gomez administration.

The election occurred on November 14, under the general supervision of
the American Government of Intervention, and was conducted in a peaceful
and legal manner, giving no cause for serious complaints on either side.
The result of the polling was a decisive victory for the Liberal party.
Of the 331,455 votes the Liberals polled 201,199 and the Conservatives
130,256, there being thus a Liberal majority of 70,943. The Liberals
carried all six provinces of the island, obtaining their largest
majorities in Havana, Santa Clara and Oriente. Gomez and Zayas were
assured of the entire electoral vote, though under the law of
proportional representation for minorities the Conservatives elected
thirty-two members of Congress to the Liberals' fifty-one.

Various reasons were assigned for this decisive defeat of General
Menocal. One was, that the Liberals were in the public eye as coming
men. It was said that as their leaders had never been tried as directors
of the Republic, it was time to give them an opportunity to show what
they could do. The policy which the Liberals had outlined in advance was
very attractive to certain classes of the population. They promised to
abolish the law which General Wood had made, prohibiting cock-fighting.
They even harked back to "Jack" Cade for inspiration, and promised that
when they came into power there should be no necessity for men to work
as hard as they had been doing. In token of these two promises they
adopted as their pictorial emblem in the campaign a plow standing idle
in a weed-grown field without plowman or oxen, and with a fighting cock
perched upon its beam. Their campaign cry might therefore appropriately
have been "Cockfighting and Idleness!" It is not agreeable to recall
that such issues appealed to so large a proportion of the citizens of
Cuba that upon them the election of 1908 was won.

Much of the stock in trade of the Liberal campaign consisted also in
denunciation of General Menocal. The Liberals declared that he was
representative of the class and the régime that had practically been
dismissed by the United States government in the Second Intervention,
namely, the "silk-stocking" or intellectual class, which did not
sympathize with the people and with the real cause of popular liberty.
It was also pointed out as though it were an opprobrious fact that
General Menocal had associated with himself as Vice-Presidential
candidate Dr. Rafael Montoro, to whose character and ability not even
the Liberals ventured to take exception, but who had been an Autonomist.
When this reputed reason for his defeat was mentioned to General Menocal
he declared that he was willing to accept it, though he did not believe
it to be the true one; adding that after having been associated with Dr.
Montoro during the campaign and having intimately exchanged ideas with
him, he regarded him, Autonomist though he had been, as one of the best
men Cuba had ever produced, and would more gladly be defeated with him
than be victorious with the companion of his opponent.

The various provincial and municipal officers who had been elected on
August 1 took office and the new provincial laws went into effect on
October 1, 1908. Because of the persistent failure of the Cuban Congress
hitherto to enact new municipal legislation these were the first local
officials chosen by the people since the municipal elections which were
held under the first American Government of Intervention of 1901. Since
1901 all vacancies occurring in municipal offices had been filled either
by the votes of the municipal councils themselves or by appointment of
the national government. This was because no provision had been made for
their election by the people. Naturally this state of affairs gave great
dissatisfaction and repeated demands were made by the Liberals for the
removal of the holdover officials. It was also contended by the Liberals
that the election of members of the provincial councils in 1905 had
been illegal. Under the old law provincial governors and councilmen
were elected for four years and half of the council was renewed every
two years. Thus half of the council was elected in 1903 and these
members took their seats in 1904, and half were again elected in 1905
and took their seats in 1906. The contention of the Liberals was that
this latter half, of 1905-1906, were illegal. On April 6, 1908, the
terms of councilmen elected in 1903 and seated in 1904 expired, leaving
in office only those who had been elected in 1905 and seated in 1906,
whom the Liberals affected to regard as having been illegally elected,
and who in any case were not sufficient for a legal quorum. The Liberals
demanded therefore that all seats be declared vacant and that the powers
of the provincial assemblies be vested for the time in the Provisional
Government of Intervention. This was done, and the provincial governors
were also required to resign. These latter vacancies were filled
temporarily by the appointment of United States army officers, who
served until October 1, 1908, when they were succeeded by men elected by
the Cuban people.

There was undoubtedly great need for a thorough revision of the laws of
Cuba. Those existing at this time were for the most part a legacy of the
old Spanish government and it was quite obvious that laws which had been
enacted by a despotic government for the control of a subject colony
were not suited for a free and independent republic. They were certainly
not in harmony with the constitution which had been adopted. It was an
anomalous state of affairs that after the adoption of the constitution
Cuban municipalities should continue to be governed under the Spanish
provincial and municipal code of 1878. This code gave the Central
Government not only intimate supervision over but practical control of
all municipal affairs, even to the smallest details, and naturally was
very unsatisfactory to the people who were desirous of local home rule
as well as of national independence. In fact the efforts of the national
authorities to enforce these laws were regarded with displeasure and
actually caused strong local antagonism to the national government.

Under the second government of intervention, therefore, a commission was
organized in 1907 consisting of both Cubans and Americans, the former
being the majority, for the purpose of drafting elaborate codes of
electoral, municipal, provincial, judiciary and civil service laws. This
commission completed its work but all its recommendations were not
adopted. Its provincial and municipal codes were however put into effect
on October 1, 1908.

The general condition of the island during the second American
intervention was excellent so far as the maintenance of law and order
was concerned. This was largely due to the efficient work of the Rural
Guard, the operations of which were directed by a number of American
officers detailed for that purpose. While brigandage was not wholly
suppressed, it was much diminished and held in check.

One of the chief controversies with which the government of intervention
had to deal was that with the Roman Catholic church over various
properties formerly belonging to it which had been confiscated by the
Spanish government. There was some such property in the province of
Oriente, a part of extensive estates once held by certain monastic
orders. It had been taken by the Spanish government during the Ten
Years' War, and at the end of that conflict the government refused to
return it, but instead of doing so agreed to make an annual
appropriation for the benefit of the church. Upon the separation of
State and Church under American intervention in 1899 these
appropriations were discontinued, whereupon the church claimed that the
property should be restored to it. The validity of this claim was
recognized by the American government, but instead of complying with it
by actual restoration of the property that government purchased a part
of the property from the church at a price mutually agreed upon as
satisfactory. It was over the remainder of this property that the
controversy was renewed, and it was settled by a similar purchase in
1908. Another such controversy arose over valuable property in Havana,
which had been taken from the church by the government for the custom
house and other public offices; and it also was settled by fair purchase
on July 12, 1907.

After the installation of provincial and municipal officers on October
1, 1908, and after the successful conduct of the national election on
November 14 following, the American Government of Intervention busied
itself chiefly with preparations for withdrawing from the island and
returning the control and government to the representative of the Cuban
people. This was finally effected on January 28, 1909, when Governor
Magoon retired and Jose Miguel Gomez became President of Cuba. The total
cost to Cuba of the second American intervention was estimated at about
$6,000,000.

The general feeling of the responsible people of Cuba concerning the
second American intervention was one of extreme disappointment, owing to
the fact that they compared it with the intervention under General Wood,
or rather with the conduct of affairs under him. That first intervention
was under the control of military officers, and when they made up their
mind that a thing should be done, it was done, and as a rule well done,
and the example which was set in directing affairs of the government,
organizing public works, schools, in sanitation, and in auditing, made
the second intervention suffer by comparison.




CHAPTER XVI


Jose Miguel Gomez became President and Alfredo Zayas became
Vice-President of the Republic of Cuba on January 28, 1909. With a
substantial majority in Congress ready to do his will, and with the
immeasurable prestige of success, first over the Palma Administration
and later in the contest at the polls, the President was almost
all-powerful to adopt and to execute whatever designs he had, either for
the assumed welfare of Cuba or for the strengthening of his own
political position. He selected a Cabinet of his own supporters, as
follows:

    Secretary of State, Senor Garcia Velez.
    Secretary of Justice, Senor Divino.
    Secretary of Government, Senor Lopez Leiva.
    Secretary of the Treasury, Senor Diaz de Villegas.
    Secretary of Public Works, Senor Chalons.
    Secretary of Agriculture, Commerce and Labor, Senor Foyo.
    Secretary of Public Instruction and Arts, Senor Meza.
    Secretary of Sanitation and Charity, Senor Duque.
    Secretary to the President, Senor Damaso Pasalodos.

Not many of these men had hitherto been conspicuous in the affairs of
the island, in either peace or war, and their capacity for service was
untried. It cannot be said that they were regarded with any large degree
of enthusiastic confidence by the nation at large. Yet there was
indubitably a general purpose, even among the most resolute
Conservatives, to give them a fair trial and to wish them success. Men
who had the welfare of Cuba at heart cherished that welfare far above
any mere personal or partisan ambitions.

[Illustration: JOSE MIGUEL GOMEZ]

It would not be easy to imagine a man much more different from the first
President of Cuba than his successor, the second President; though
indeed the latter was a man of no mean record, especially in war. Jose
Miguel Gomez was born in Sancti Spiritus on July 6, 1858. He there
obtained his earlier education, which he continued at the Institute of
Havana, taking his degree of Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in 1875. He
joined the revolutionary forces shortly before the end of the Ten Years'
War. When, after the Zanjon Peace, the struggle broke out afresh, in the
Little War, Gomez took once more to the field and attained the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel. This outbreak having failed, he returned to his home
and devoted himself to managing his father's estate in Sancti Spiritus.
When once more the Cuban patriots resumed their struggle for the cause
of independence in 1895, he again answered the call to arms. The action
of Manajato won for him the rank of Colonel and the command of the
Sancti Spiritus brigade. He was subsequently promoted to Brigadier
General and then to the rank of Division General, after the battle of
Santa Teresa where he was wounded. By the year 1898 he was at the head
of the first division of the Fourth Army Corps which operated in Santa
Clara Province. In this command he figured in most of the battles fought
in that section at the time. The capture of the supposedly impregnable
ingenio Canambo in the Trinidad Valley was one of the feats of this
campaign. Also the attack and capture of Jibaro, a town defended by a
strong contingent, and the operation of strategical importance conducted
against Arroyo Blanco, are to the General's credit in this campaign, in
which he was effectively assisted by a remarkable staff of young men,
who won a reputation for their capability and courage. When the Santa
Cruz del Sur Assembly met, at the close of the war against Spain,
General Gomez was elected to represent Santa Clara. Shortly after, he
formed part of a delegation which was sent to Washington on a diplomatic
mission. On his return to Cuba he was appointed Civil Governor of the
Province of Santa Clara on March 14, 1899; which position he held until
September 27, 1905, when he resigned, having been nominated as the
candidate of the Liberal party for the Presidency. His years of office
as Governor of Santa Clara were interrupted by his attending the
sessions of the Constitutional Convention at Havana, as a delegate from
Santa Clara. When General Gomez was defeated by President Estrada Palma,
who ran for re-election, conspiracies and agitations were organized
which culminated in the revolt of August, 1906, against Estrada Palma's
administration. Of this conspiracy and agitation Gomez was the organizer
and leader. The Palma Government having proved its inability to quench
the uprising, the American authorities intervened, and at the close of
that intervention, on January 28, 1909, Gomez was installed as President
of Cuba.

Of different type entirely, yet not unsuited to work with Jose Miguel
Gomez whenever their mutual interests made cooperation desirable, was
the new Vice-President, Dr. Alfredo Zayas. He too was a man of
conspicuous record, in the War of Independence and afterward, though it
had not been made on the field of battle.

Alfredo Zayas was born on February 21, 1861, and took his degree of
licentiate in administrative law in 1882 at the University of Havana,
and the following year in civil and canonic law. He soon acquired a
reputation as a lawyer and in the world of letters. During the War of
Independence he was the delegate in Havana of the revolutionary party.
His activities in this connection having been discovered, he was
imprisoned in September, 1896, and was sent to Spain and incarcerated at
several of the prisons of the Spanish Government in Africa. After the
War of Independence, Dr. Zayas led an active political life. He was the
founder and Secretary of the Patriotic Committee, was a prominent member
of the Constituent Convention, of which he acted as Secretary, and was
foremost in organizing and leading the activities of the National,
Liberal-National and Liberal parties. He served as Senator from the
Province of Havana. He was one of the jurists who formed the
Consultative Committee, appointed to draw up the organic laws of the
executive and judicial powers, as well as the laws relating to the
provincial and municipal institutions. At different times he occupied
the posts of prosecuting attorney, municipal judge, and sub-secretary of
Justice. During the revolutionary movement which took place in 1906
against the Estrada Palma administration, Dr. Zayas was president of the
revolutionary committee. After the provisional administration which
followed the fall of President Palma, he was elected to the
Vice-Presidency of the Republic.

[Illustration: DR. ALFREDO ZAYAS]

Dr. Zayas's life in the world of letters is no less interesting. From
1890-93 he published various periodicals and collaborated in others. He
has written several books on Cuban history and studies on the language
of the primitive inhabitants of the Island, on bibliography, on
questions relating to law and political economy, etc. He is a member of
the Academy of History and for eleven years was President of the
Sociedad Economica.

The armed forces of the American government were of course withdrawn
from Cuba on January 28, 1909, at the same time with the retirement of
Governor Magoon and the second Government of Intervention, and the
maintenance of order was left for a time entirely with the Rural Guard.
That body of men had been very efficient during the American
intervention and was considered by many to be quite ample for all the
military purposes of the island. During 1909, however, President Gomez
decided to organize a permanent Cuban army. To the chief command of this
he appointed his friend Pino Guerra. The organization consisted of a
general staff, a brigade of two regiments of infantry of three
battalions each, amounting to about 2,500 officers and men; two
batteries of light field artillery and four batteries of mounted
artillery, amounting to about 800 officers and men; a machine gun corps
of four companies comprising 500 officers and men; and a corps of coast
artillery comprising 1,000 officers and men. This force was trained and
equipped under the direction of officers of the United States army who
were borrowed for the purpose by the Cuban government.

The administration of President Gomez was marked with the enactment of
many new laws, and of the undertaking of a number of enterprises. One
law granted amnesty to all persons excepting those who had been
convicted of certain peculiarly odious offenses. Another suspended the
duty on the export of sugar, tobacco and liquors which had been imposed
by the former Palma administration. On the other hand an additional tax
was imposed upon all imports. Early in the administration a perpetual
franchise was granted for telephone service throughout the entire
Island, an act which was severely criticized on the ground that the
President himself was believed to derive pecuniary profit from it. Laws
were also enacted in 1909, legalizing cock fighting and establishing the
national lottery.

In 1910, the second year of this administration, President Gomez began
to manifest marked sensitiveness toward the criticisms which were made
of his administration, and on February 3, two editors were convicted of
libelling him, because they had accused him of deriving profit from
governmental activities, and they were sentenced to terms of
imprisonment. In April, he appointed to a place in his cabinet Senor
Morua, a negro, and the first member of that race to hold cabinet office
in Cuba. In July an insurrection occurred in Oriente near the town of El
Caney, which was suppressed by the Rural Guards with little difficulty.

The active participation of government officers in party politics led to
a disturbing incident at the beginning of August. At that time the
Secretary of the Treasury, Senor Villegas, attended a convention of the
Liberal party where he became involved in a violent quarrel. In
consequence, the president ordered that thereafter no member of the
Cabinet should be permitted to attend political meetings, or engage in
active political work; whereupon Villegas resigned his place in the
Cabinet.

In November, congressional elections were held to elect half of the
members of the House of Representatives. During the campaign the former
quarrel in the Liberal party became acute. One faction started a violent
agitation for the suppression of all religious orders in the Island, for
the abolition of trusts in business, and for the prohibition of the
holding of property in Cuba by foreign corporations. The other faction
took for the chief plank in its platform the repudiation of the Platt
Amendment. An attempt was also made by the negro members of the party to
organize a third faction, comprising exclusively the members of their
race. Because of these dissensions in the Liberal party the
Conservatives made a somewhat better showing at the election than they
had done in 1908, but the Liberals were generally successful and secured
a majority in Congress.

At the opening of the session, President Gomez urged revision of the
tariff in order to provide fuller protection for certain manufacturing
industries; the building of a new Palace of Justice; and the
establishment at state expense of public libraries in the chief cities.
During this year an attempt was made to assassinate General Pino Guerra,
but it was unsuccessful. The would-be assassin was arrested and Guerra
professed to recognize in him an officer of the police who had had some
grudge against him. Alfredo Zayas and Frank Steinhart, the former United
States Consul General, also made public complaints of attempts to
assassinate them, and reported the matter to the Supreme Court, but that
tribunal declined to investigate their charges. An attempt was made to
connect the attempted assassination of General Guerra with a bill
pending before Congress, which provided that the head of the army should
not be removed excepting for cause. It was said that this bill was
strongly opposed by the Commander of the Rural Guards, and that he had
in consequence incited the attempt to assassinate Guerra. There was
much public discussion and agitation of this matter, but nothing
practical resulted from it.

Charges continued to be made increasingly of the profligacy and
corruption of the Gomez administration. It was charged, doubtless with
much truth, that the number of public offices and office holders had
been unnecessarily multiplied to a scandalous extent for the sake of
giving profitable jobs to the friends of Liberal leaders. It was also
intimated that the Government had subsidized the press to suppress the
truth concerning these and other charges, and thus to avoid an open
scandal which might result in a third American intervention. Taxation
was declared to be excessive and oppressive, amounting in some cases to
as much as 30 per cent. of the value of the property. Other charges were
that public offices, executive, legislative and even judicial, were
practically sold to the highest bidder for cash; that concessions for
public utilities were similarly disposed of for the profit not of the
public but of members of the Government, and that then extortionate
prices were charged to the public for the service rendered; that the
natural resources of Cuba were thus being parceled out to speculators
for cash; that a bill purporting to be for the improvement of the ports
had increased four-fold the expenses of those ports, for the enrichment
of a speculative company, and that in general the functions of the
government were being perverted to the uses and the personal enrichment
of a ring of Liberal politicians.

As the date of the electoral campaign of 1912 drew near, the conduct of
the administration became such as to incur the menace of another
intervention. In January of that year an arbitrary attempt was made by
President Gomez to thwart the activities and impair the influence of the
Veterans' Association, by forbidding army officers and members of the
Rural Guard to attend any of its meetings, on the pretended ground that
they were engaged in factional political agitation. As the organization
was in no sense a partisan affair, but was composed of men of varying
shades of political opinion who had the good of Cuba at heart, and who
strove to avert the danger of further intervention by making and keeping
the Cuban government above reproach, this decree of the President's was
sharply resented and was openly disobeyed by many army officers. When on
the evening of Sunday, January 14, 1912, many officers and Rural Guards
attended a meeting of the National Council of the Veterans' Association,
and were received with much enthusiasm, the situation caused so much
disquiet that the United States government felt constrained to send a
note of warning to President Gomez, stating that it was much concerned
over the state of affairs in Cuba; that the laws must be enforced and
order maintained; and that the President of the United States looked to
the President and government of Cuba to see to it that there was no need
of a third intervention.

This note evoked from President Gomez the declaration that matters in
Cuba were not in as bad a state as had been reported, and that he had
the whole situation well in hand. General Emilio Nunez, the head of the
Veterans' Association, declared that that organization would remain firm
in its object to guarantee peace, to moralize the Administration, and to
spread patriotism in the hearts of the people; and that it protested
against that which might be a menace to the freedom and independence of
Cuba, with confidence that the people of the United States would never
regard its unselfish and patriotic campaign as an excuse for unwarranted
intervention. He added that the Association had not sought to annul the
law against participation in politics by the army, but resented the
charge in the Presidents' decree that it was "playing politics."
"Patriotically we shall make every sacrifice, but we shall never resign
ourselves to be miserable slaves dominated by irresponsible power
untrammelled by laws or principles."

The leaders of the Liberal party were by no means a unit in attitude
toward the crisis, the antagonism already mentioned between President
Gomez and Vice-President Zayas flaming up anew. The newspaper organ of
the Zayista faction openly declared: "We are on the brink of an abyss,
whither we have been brought by the stubborn stupidity of a portion of
the administration and by flagrant contempt for Congress and its
enactments. These things have brought on all our existing ills." Orestes
Ferrara, Speaker of the House of Representatives, much alarmed at the
menace of intervention which might on this occasion have been as
disastrous to the Liberals as the former intervention had been to the
administration of Estrada Palma, declared that party differences must be
dropped and that "We must resign our passions and ambitions to save Cuba
from another shameful foreign domination."

Meantime the masses of thoughtful, patriotic citizens, disgusted with
what they regarded as governmental extravagance and corruption, held
themselves in admirable restraint, hoping that the peril of intervention
would be in some way avoided until they could have an opportunity of
permanently averting it through the election of a government which would
give the United States no further cause for anxiety or for even a
thought of resuming control of Cuban affairs. The crisis was thus
fortunately passed, and the settlement of the Cuban people with the
administration of Jose Miguel Gomez was postponed, as was fitting, until
the fall elections.

There followed a little later another ominous incident, for which
President Gomez was largely responsible, but which he repudiated and
dealt with in an energetic and efficient manner. The attempt, already
referred to, at the organization of a negro party in the election
campaign of 1910 was followed in May, 1912, by the outbreak of what
seemed to be a formidable negro revolt. The leaders of this movement
were two negro friends of Gomez, General Estenoz and General Ivonnet.
They had been officers in the War of Independence, and it was said that
Gomez had promised them and their negro followers great rewards if they
would support him in his campaign for the presidency. When these
promises were unfulfilled, these two men went through the Island urging
the negroes to organize a political party of their own, which would
probably hold the balance of power between the Conservatives and
Liberals. Because of their violent agitation to this end they were
arrested and imprisoned for a time. Then they were released and treated
with much consideration. Indeed, they were offered appointment to
offices, which, however, they declined. Instead, they renewed their
agitation, and on May 22 an open revolt under their leadership occurred.
So serious did the situation appear that an appeal was made to the
United States Government, and preparations were actually made to send a
naval and military expedition to protect the lives and property of
Americans in the Island. President Gomez, however, rallied his military
forces with much energy, and on June 14 completely routed the main body
of the insurgents, capturing all their supplies of ammunition and
provisions. This practically ended the trouble. Estenoz was killed in
the fighting, and Ivonnet was captured and then killed; "in an attempt
to escape."

Another embarrassment for the passing administration occurred in August,
1912, when the United States government called upon President Gomez to
make prompt settlement of certain claims which had been pending for two
years, amounting to more than $500,000, and growing out of contracts for
the waterworks and sanitation of the city of Cienfuegos. President Gomez
protested that the Cuban treasury was without funds for the purpose, and
that it would be necessary to wait until Congress could make a special
appropriation. This reply was not convincing, seeing that payment of
these identical claims had been made in a loan of $10,000,000 which the
Cuban government had made in New York with the approval of the United
States; and it was naturally assumed at Washington either that the money
had been spent for other purposes or that it was being purposely
withheld by President Gomez on some technicality or for some ulterior
motive.

As an incident of this controversy, in the closing days of August, the
Liberal press of Havana conducted a campaign of vilification against
Hugh S. Gibson, the American Chargé d'Affaires in Cuba, which culminated
in a personal assault upon that gentleman by Enrique Maza, a member of
the staff of one of the papers. This outrage provoked a sharp protest
from the Washington government, in terms which implied a menace of
action if reparation were not made. This alarmed President Gomez, and
caused him to make at least a show of punishing the offender, and to
write a long message of apology and pleading to President Taft, in which
he promised to deal with Maza and with the newspapers which had been
slandering Mr. Gibson, to the full extent of the law, and begged for a
reassuring statement of friendship from the United States government.
Ultimately Maza was punished by imprisonment, and the penalty of the law
was also applied to Senor Soto, the responsible editor of one of the
papers which had most libelled the American Charge d'Affaires. The
Cienfuegos claim was also paid; but because of it an attempt was made to
enact a law excluding all foreign contractors from participation in
Cuban public works!

The Presidential election occurred on November 1, and resulted, as we
shall hereafter see, in assurance that the Liberal party would be
retired from power in May of the following year, and that the government
of the island would be confided to the hands of those who had striven to
uphold the wise and patriotic administration of Estrada Palma. In the
few remaining months of his administration President Gomez pursued
substantially the same policy that had marked the preceding years. In
March, 1913, Congress enacted an Amnesty bill which would have meant a
general jail delivery throughout the Island, and which President Gomez
was strongly inclined to sign. He was restrained at the last moment from
doing so, however, by the energetic protests of the United States
government, which indeed were tantamount to an ultimatum; and instead
returned the measure to Congress with his veto, and with a
recommendation that it be revised so as to avoid the objections of the
United States--though he did not directly mention the United States--and
then repassed. This was done and the modified bill became a law at the
middle of April.

In addition to the general extravagance of the Gomez administration, the
overcrowding of all government offices with superfluous and incompetent
placeholders, and the expenditure of more than $140,000,000 within two
and a half years, there were several specific performances which
provoked severe censure. One of these was the installation of the
National Lottery, which was done by vote of Congress at the dictation of
the President. The pretext given for this was that Cubans loved to
gamble, and that if they had no lottery of their own they would send
their money to Madrid, for chances in the lottery there; and it was
better to keep their money in Cuba than to have it sent to Spain.

Another act of the administration which incurred strong censure and
which was ultimately repealed by the government of President Menocal,
with the approval of the courts, was what was commonly known as the
"Dragado deal." This was the granting to a speculative corporation
composed chiefly of Liberal politicians and called the Ports Improvement
Company of Cuba, of an omnibus concession for the dredging of harbors,
reclaiming of coastal swamp lands, and similar works; for which the
corporation was authorized to collect port fees, including a heavy
surtax on imported merchandise, of which a small proportion would go to
the government and the remainder to the coffers of the corporation. This
concession was granted by President Gomez in 1911, against the advice of
the United States government, and against strong and widespread protests
from the people and press of Cuba, by whom it was regarded as a
monstrous piece of corrupt jobbery. While it was in force, this
concession paid millions of dollars a year to its holders, with an
almost undiscernible minimum of advantage to the nation.

Following this came a bargain with the railroads centering in Havana, by
which the arsenal grounds belonging to the Republic and comprising a
large and valuable tract lying immediately on the Bay of Havana were
given to those companies in exchange for two comparatively small plots
which had been occupied by them as a terminal station and warehouse. In
addition the railroad companies agreed to build, or to provide the money
for building, a new Presidential Palace, which President Gomez hoped to
have finished in time for his own occupancy. This exchange was, in
itself, undoubtedly a good thing. It gave the railroads an admirable
site for the great terminal which they needed and which is now one of
the valuable assets of Havana and indeed of Cuba. But the manner in
which the bargain was made, the exercise of political influence, and the
strong and unrefuted suspicion of the corrupt employment of pecuniary
considerations, brought upon the transaction strong reprobation. An
ironic sequel was that the work which was done on the proposed new
palace was so bad that it presently had all to be torn down.

Fortunately there was no relaxation in the maintenance of sanitary
measures for the prevention of epidemics, and while there was little or
no road building or other such public works those already constructed
were generally well maintained. The judgment of thoughtful and impartial
men upon the administration of José Miguel Gomez was therefore that it
had contained some good and much evil, and that even the good had been
done too often in an unworthy if not an actually evil way. It had been
the administration of an astute and not over-scrupulous politician, who
sought to serve first his own interests, next those of his party and
friends, and last those of the nation, and not that of an enlightened
and patriotic statesman, seeking solely to promote the welfare of the
people who had chosen him to be their chief executive.




CHAPTER XVII


The fourth Presidential campaign in Cuba began in the spring of 1912.
The Liberal administration had given the nation a thorough taste of its
quality, with the result that there was a strong reaction against it on
the part of many who had been its zealous upholders. The compact between
José Miguel Gomez and Alfredo Zayas was, however, carried out, the
former not seeking re-election but standing aside in favor of the
latter, who accordingly received the Presidential nomination at the
convention which was held on April 15. Before this, on April 7, the
Conservative convention by unanimous vote and with great enthusiasm
nominated General Mario G. Menocal for President, and Enrique José
Varona for President. The campaign was conducted with much determination
on both sides, but in a generally orderly fashion, and the election,
which occurred on November 1, was also conducted in a creditable manner.
Although the Liberals had made extravagant claims in advance, the result
of the polling was a decisive victory for General Menocal, who easily
carried every one of the six provinces. This result was due in part to
the popular revulsion against the corruption of the Liberal
administration, and partly to the immense popularity of the Conservative
candidate and his admirable record as a useful public servant in various
capacities.

[Illustration: MARIO G. MENOCAL

The third President of the Republic of Cuba, General Mario G. Menocal,
comes of one of the most distinguished families in Latin America. He was
born at Jaguey Grande, Cuba, on December 17, 1866, was educated at
Cornell University, New York, and became associated in professional and
business work with his uncle, Aniceto G. Menocal, the distinguished
canal and railroad engineer. He entered the War of Independence at the
beginning and served to the end with distinction. He was defeated for
the Presidency in 1908, but was elected in 1912 and reelected in 1916.
His history is the history of Cuba for the last seven years.]

Mario G. Menocal, who was thus chosen to be the head of the Cuban
Republic, came of an old Havana family, traditionally revolutionary, and
was born in Jaguey Grande, Matanzas, in December, 1866. When his family
emigrated, as a consequence of his father having taken part in the Ten
Years' War, Mario Menocal began his education in the United States. He
was graduated at Cornell University with the Class of 1888 and took his
degree as Civil Engineer. No sooner was he graduated than his uncle,
Aniceto G. Menocal, the distinguished engineer of the Isthmian Canals,
summoned him to his side to work with him at Nicaragua. In 1893 he went
to Cuba as engineer of a French Company to exploit a salt mine at Cayo
Romano. He was working on the construction of the Santa Cruz railway in
Camaguey when the War of Independence broke out in 1895. On June 5 of
that year he joined the forces of Commander Alejandro Rodriguez as a
private. At the attack on Fort Ramblazo he was promoted to sergeant, and
it was not long before his military talents had won for him the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel.

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE AND BOYHOOD HOME OF PRESIDENT MARIO G.
MENOCAL, JAGUEY GRANDE, MATANZAS]

When the Revolutionary Government was constituted on September 15, 1895,
Colonel Menocal was appointed Assistant Secretary of War, and in that
capacity assisted Generals Gomez and Maceo in organizing the "invasion"
contingent. He later joined the Third Army Corps under Mayia Rodriguez,
and remained with it until the beginning of 1896 when he was called by
General Calixto Garcia, who had just reached the Island and who made
Menocal his Chief of Staff. Thereafter his name was associated with
Garcia's brilliant campaign in Oriente.

Among the many battles in which Colonel Menocal took part were the
hard-fought engagements of La Gloria, Bellezas, Moscones, Hierba de
Guinea, and the great struggle at Guantanamo, in July, 1896, against two
Spanish columns which were cut apart and were obliged to abandon the
Ramon de las Yaguas zone. In August the agricultural regions of Holguin
were invaded and the Loma de Heirro fort seized, artillery being used
for the first time in the war. This feat caused his promotion to the
rank of Colonel. He then was active in the Sierra Maestra Mountains to
meet Mendez's expedition. In October, Menocal seized Guaimaro,
conducting personally the assault on Fort Gonfan, having captured which,
he was made Brigadier General.

In November, 1896, he took part in the battles of Alta Conchita and
Lugones against Gen. Pando. Later he was present at the siege of Jiguani
(April 13, 1897) and at Tuaheque, Jacaibama and Jucaibanita against Vara
del Rey and Nicolas Rey, and at Baire he fought at the battle of
Ratonera. It was at this time that Gen. Calixto Garcia made him Chief of
the 3rd Division of the 2nd Corps, which included the western part of
Holguin and Tunas. At the head of these forces he organized the attack
and capture of Tunas, which was achieved by Gen. Calixto Garcia, August
30, 1897, Menocal having been wounded in a trench assault.

This strategic success won for him an immediate promotion to Division
General. In November, 1897, he attacked Fort Guamo on the Cauto River,
one of the bloodiest events of the war, and took part in the battles of
Cayamos, Monte Oscuro, Nabraga and Aguacatones, succeeding in this
latter in seizing Tejeda's supply train.

In March, 1898, he was appointed Chief of the 5th Army Corps, to join
which he marched at the head of 200 select men, among whom were many
prominent figures of the war--many still alive--as General Sartorius,
Colonels Aurelio Hevea, Enrique Nunez, Federico Mendizabal, Pablo,
Gustavo and Tomas Menocal, Rafael Pena, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes,
Commander Manuel Secades, Miguel Coyula, Ignacio Weber, Alberto de
Cardenas, Antonio Calzades and Domingo Herrera. With this brave
contingent, and assisted by the forces of Gen. Agramonte, Gen. Menocal
passed the Trocha at its most dangerous point between Ciego de Avila and
Jucaro. After a fifty days' march from Holguin, they reached Havana,
relieving Gen. Alejandro Rodriguez of his command as Chief of the 5th
Army Corps.

Gen. Menocal was in this command when the American Intervention came,
and cooperated with the American authorities in maintaining public order
in Havana while the evacuation of the Spanish troops took place. Then
General Ludlow appointed him Chief of the Havana Police, which body he
organized, giving posts under him to the most distinguished chiefs of
the Province of Havana. In 1899 he was appointed Inspector of Light
Houses and subsequently Inspector of Public Works, which offices he
resigned to manage Central Chaparra, in June, 1899.

It is difficult to speak without danger of apparent exaggeration of the
incommensurable work of General Menocal at Chaparra, as a true "captain
of industry." There what were formerly barren fields have been
transformed by something more than the touch of a magician's wand into
the greatest sugar-producing establishment in the world. Nor does it
consist merely of the gigantic mills. Houses for homes, schools, stores,
churches, surround it, forming a city of no fewer than 30,000 prosperous
inhabitants, devoted to the manufacture of sugar. Of this unique
community, General Menocal was the chief creator and for years the
responsible head. Even it, however, did not monopolize his attention,
for he organized and managed also great sugar mills at San Manuel, Las
Delicias, and elsewhere.

In 1903 General Menocal was appointed by President Palma to be one of a
Commission for the negotiation of a loan for the payment of the soldiers
of the army in the War of Independence, together with Gonzalo de Quesada
and D. Mendez Capote. Three years later he was conspicuous and active in
the Veteran movement which strove to avert the necessity of the second
American intervention. In 1908, as we have seen, he was nominated for
the Presidency, with Dr. Montoro for the Vice-Presidency, but was
defeated. Again he was nominated for the Presidency, with Enrique José
Varona as candidate for the Vice-Presidency, and was elected for the
term of 1913-1917; at the expiration of which he was reelected, with
General Emilio Nunez as Vice-President.

[Illustration: ENRIQUE JOSÉ VARONA

Poet, philosopher and statesman, Enrique José Varona y Pera was born in
Camaguey in 1849. Before attaining his majority he had published a
volume of poems. Later he was the author of "Philosophical Lectures,"
"Commentaries on Spanish Grammar and Literature," "The Intellectual
Movement in America," "Cain in Modern Literature," "Idealism" and
"Naturalism." He was a Deputy from Cuba to the Spanish Cortes; editor of
_The Cuban Review_ and _Patria_, the latter the organ of the
patriots--in New York--in the War of Independence; Secretary of Finance
and Public Instruction during the Governorship of Leonard Wood; and
Vice-President of the Republic during the first administration of
President Menocal, in 1913-1917. For many years he has been Professor of
Philosophy in the University of Havana.]

Enrique José Varona, who thus became Vice-President of Cuba in 1913,
ranked as one of the foremost scholars and writers of the nation. He was
born in Camaguey on April 13, 1849, and in early life adopted the career
of a man of letters in addition to serving the public in political
matters. He was at once an orator of rare eloquence, a philosopher of
profound learning, and a poet of exceptional charm. He served,
before the War of Independence, as a Deputy in the Spanish Cortes from
Cuba; he wrote the famous plea for Cuban independence entitled "Cuba
contra España," which was translated into a number of languages; and
under the administration of General Wood was Secretary of Public
Instruction and of the Treasury. He was once President of the
Anthropological Society of Cuba, and was a Member of the Academy of
History. He has written numerous books, comprising philosophical
disquisitions, essays on nature and art, and lyrical poetry.

Dr. Rafael Montoro, who was refused election to the Vice-Presidency in
1908, has since that date been kept in the service of his country in
highly important capacities, and now, as Secretary to the Presidency, is
most intimately associated with President Menocal, and exerts an
exceptional degree of usefulness in many directions to the national
welfare of the Cuban Republic.

Rafael Montoro was born in Havana on October 24, 1852. He received his
primary education in Havana and in his tenth year was taken to Europe
and to the United States. He was a pupil of the Charlier Institute in
New York until 1865. Having returned to Havana he took up his
preparatory studies at the school of San Francisco de Asis. In 1867 he
returned to Europe with his family, which settled in Madrid. Here he
spent his youth until 1878, devoting himself to literary and
intellectual activities; he contributed to various periodicals, was
editor of the "Revista Contemporanea"; second secretary of the Ateneo de
Madrid; vice president of the Moral and Political Sciences Section of
that institution; second secretary of the Spanish Writers' and Artists'
Association, etc. On his return to Cuba he took an active part in
constituting and organizing the Liberal Party, which seized the first
opportunity to uphold the cause of Colonial Autonomy, calling itself the
Autonomist Liberal Party. In 1879 he was elected a member of the Central
Junta of the party and in the first elections after Cuba had been
granted the right of representation at the Cortes took place, he was
elected a Deputy from the province of Havana. Later he continued working
for his party as editor of its organ _El Triunfo_, which became _El
Pais_, and as an orator in meetings and assemblies. In 1886 he was
reelected Deputy to the Cortes from the province of Camaguey and yearly
went to Spain during the period of the Legislature, being a member of
the Autonomist minority headed by Rafael Maria de Labra. The Sociedad
Economica de Amigo del Pais appointed Dr. Montoro a Special Delegate to
the Junta de Information which met at Madrid in 1890, the principal
economic institutions of Cuba having been previously invited by the
Spanish Colonial Department. The purpose of this Junta was to report on
the tariff regime of the Island and on the proposed commercial treaty
with the United States, as suggested by the famous McKinley Bill of
1890. Towards the middle of 1895 he returned to his activities in Havana
as editorial writer of _El Pais_ and member of the Central Junta of the
Party.

When autonomy was granted in 1898, he formed part, as Secretary of the
Treasury, of the Cabinet organized by José Maria Galvez, the head of the
party since its foundation in 1878. When Spanish rule came to an end, as
a consequence of the war and of the American intervention, and the
Autonomist Government ceased, Dr. Montoro retired to private life. In
1900 and 1901 he was appointed to but did not accept the professorship
of philosophy and history in the University of Havana. He was a member
of the Committee which was to undertake the reform of the Municipal
suffrage legislation under Governor Brooke and of the Committee charged
by General Wood with the revision of the legislation on the importation
tariff.

In 1902 Dr. Montoro was appointed by the Palma administration as Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James. In
1904 he was appointed also Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary in Germany, which caused him to reside alternately in
both countries until 1906 when he was appointed with Gonzalo de Quesada
and Gonzales Lanuza a delegate of the Republic to the Third Pan-American
International Conference held at Rio de Janeiro. In the same year he was
confirmed in both his posts, at London and Berlin, by Governor Magoon,
as were the other members of the diplomatic and consular corps, but
later he was appointed a member of the Consultive Committee on Laws. In
1907 he was one of the founders of the National Conservative Party, of
which he was appointed second vice-president, and was nominated as the
Party's candidate for the Vice-Presidency of the Republic, with General
Menocal as Presidential Candidate.

When General Jose M. Gomez took possession of the Government as
President, Dr. Montoro was confirmed in his posts as Minister at Berlin
and London, returning to Europe to remain there until 1910, in which
year he was appointed by President Gomez a delegate to the Fourth
Pan-American International Conference, which took place at Buenos Aires.
At this Conference he was elected to preside over the seventh section of
Consular documents, Tariff regulations, Census and Commercial
Statistics.

In 1910 and 1911, respectively, he ceased his posts as Minister at
Berlin and London to become Diplomatic Advisor of the State Department.
In 1913 he was appointed Secretary of the Presidency under General
Menocal to which post he gave an importance which it had lacked
theretofore. In this capacity he still is an assiduous and valuable
collaborator of the Menocal Administration.

Of Dr. Montoro's writings the following have been collected in book
form: "Political and Parliamentary Speeches; Reports and Dissertations"
(1878-1893), Philadelphia, 1894. "Elements of Moral and Civic
Instruction" (1903).

Dr. Montoro is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters of
which he was elected Director in 1812. He was President of the Executive
Committee at Havana of the 2nd Pan-American Scientific Congress (1915)
and was a member of the High Committee for Cuba of the Pan-American
Financial Congress (1917) and of the American Institute of International
Law (1916).

President Menocal gathered about himself a Cabinet of representative
Cubans, selected for their ability rather than on grounds of personal
favor or political advantage; two of them, the Secretaries of Justice
and Education, being members of the Liberal party. The places were
filled as follows:

    Secretary of Government, Cosimo de la Torriente.
    Secretary of the Interior, Aurelio Hevea.
    Secretary of the Treasury, Leopoldo Cancio.
    Secretary of Health and Charities, Enrique Nuñez.
    Secretary of Justice, Cristobal de la Guardia.
    Secretary of Agriculture, Emilio Nuñez.
    Secretary of Public Works, José Villalon.
    Secretary of Education, Ezequiel Garcia.

[Illustration: RAFAEL MONTORO

Called by Cabrera "Our Great Montoro" and by others the "Cuban
Castelar," Dr. Rafael Montoro has long been eminent in the public life
of Cuba as a scholar, writer, orator, statesman, diplomat,
administrator, and unwavering and resolute patriot The record of his
services to Cuba, as Ambassador to the foremost courts of Europe, as
Secretary to the Presidency, and in other distinguished capacities at
home and abroad, forms a brilliant passage elsewhere in this History of
Cuba.]

The spirit in which the new President began his work, and the spirit
which animated his associates in the government, was admirably expressed
by him soon after his election and before his inauguration, in a frank,
informal but very serious personal conversation. "What," he was asked,
"does Cuba need? And what do you expect to accomplish as her President?"

"Cuba," replied General Menocal, "needs an honest administration of its
governmental affairs; and that is what I can give it and will give it.
But more than that, Cuba needs more citizens anxious to develop its
marvellous resources and fewer citizens anxious to hold office. I was
not elected as a politician, and I have no ambition to succeed as a
politician."

[Illustration: DR. JUAN GUITERAS

One of the foremost physicians and scientists of Cuba, Dr. Juan Guiteras
is the son of the distinguished educator Eusebio Guiteras, and was born
at Matanzas on January 4, 1852. He collaborated with Dr. Carlos J.
Finlay in the discovery and demonstration of the transmission of yellow
fever by mosquitoes, and contributed much to the eradication of that and
other pestilences from Cuba. Under President Menocal's administration he
was made Director of Sanitation. He was a delegate to the second
Pan-American Scientific Congress at Washington in 1916.]

Reference being made to the menace of revolution, President Menocal
said, with emphasis:

"There will be no revolution under my administration. There may be
outbreaks headed by disappointed politicians or military adventurers,
but they will be crushed and their leaders will be punished. The day is
past when men of this class can arrest the orderly processes of
government. I shall have back of me not only a loyal army, but also a
loyal people who are determined to show to the United States and to the
world that Cuba realizes her responsibilities and is capable of
self-government. I shall appoint honest men, and will guarantee that
they honestly administer their duties. I shall urge the passage of
honest taxation laws, and have faith that the people will respond by
electing men who will assist me to make Cuba worthy of the favors which
God has lavished upon her."

With such purposes and with such expectations he entered upon his great
work. Unfortunately there was not a majority upon which he could depend
in Congress to enact the measures which were needed for the welfare of
Cuba. Indeed, there was a hostile majority, as we shall see, which
deliberately set itself to embarrass and thwart him in his undertakings.
But that had merely the effect which obstacles usually have upon men who
are really brave and strong. It indeed made his work more difficult, but
it did not turn him from his purpose nor defeat his efforts. Rather did
it give him all the greater credit and honor, to have achieved so much
in the face of so much opposition.

General Mario G. Menocal became President and Senor Enrique Jose Varona
became Vice-President of Cuba on May 20, 1913, the tenth anniversary of
the establishment of the independent Cuban Government. The President
delivered his first message to Congress on the following day. It was an
eminently practical, statesman-like and businesslike document, in which
he modestly promised a wise and prudent administration of his office,
and especially an immediate reform of the finances of the Government,
which was notoriously much needed. As a small beginning of this reform,
he offered to do away with the usual appropriation of $25,000 for
Presidential secret service. Many debts had been left over by the former
administration and he purposed to address himself to the liquidation of
these, so far as they had been honestly contracted. The notorious
Dragado concession was repealed on August 4, and a commission was
appointed to investigate the methods of the company. As a result of this
and other investigations, the former Secretary of Public Works, and
Auditor were indicted for misappropriation of public funds, and various
other officers were prosecuted.

The President desired to obtain a loan of $15,000,000 with which to pay
off the debts which had been left to him by his predecessor, and also
for urgent road work, and the paving and sewering of the streets of
Havana. This was, however, refused him by Congress, and that body, under
the domination of the Liberals, refused to pass any budget whatever.
President Menocal was therefore compelled to declare the budget of the
preceding year still in force, pending the adoption of new financial
provisions. Hoping to persuade or to compel Congress to perform its
constitutional duty, he called that body together in special session in
July and again in October, but on both occasions the Liberals all
absented themselves and thus prevented the securing of a quorum. These,
it will be observed, were similar to the tactics which the same party in
Congress had employed against President Palma in their malignant
campaign for the overthrow of his administration. But President Menocal
was not thus to be overthrown. When the Liberals in October, a second
time, refused to perform their duty he issued a manifesto in which he
seriously criticized them and made it plain that no such methods would
be permitted to interfere with the legitimate work of Government. Rumors
were indeed current that he would resort to compulsion if persuasion
failed. The Liberals attempted to reply with a countermanifesto
protesting against his action as a usurpation of congressional
authority, declaring their opposition to the making of the proposed
loan, and pretending that it would be illegal to hold the special
session which he had called for October.

The President exercised patience and waited until November 2, when the
regular session of Congress opened, and the Liberals took their seats.
At this time the Liberals practically stultified themselves by agreeing
to discuss and finally to approve the loan project which they had
formerly opposed. After transacting this and some other business,
Congress adjourned in December.

Among the reforms which President Menocal promptly undertook to effect
was the abolition of the national lottery which had been established
during the Gomez administration. In his messages and through the
influence of all legitimate presidential influence he strove to abolish
this form of legalized gambling. His arguments were that the low price
of the tickets, only 25¢, and the appeal which was thus made to the poor
and ignorant, to servants and working women as well as to men, had
caused great injury and had brought about a certain degree of moral
decline among the masses of the people. It had induced many individuals
to borrow money and even to steal in order to purchase lottery tickets,
in the delusive hope of winning one of the large prizes, which ran up to
$100,000, and thus exempting themselves from the necessity of work for
the rest of their lives. The lottery, it is true, yielded a considerable
revenue each year for the government, but General Menocal regarded this
as far more than counter-balanced by the social and moral evil which it
wrought, and by the reproach which it brought upon the good name of the
Republic. He was unable, however, to persuade Congress to abolish it,
partly because of the popular love of gambling which so largely pervades
Latin American countries, and partly--perhaps chiefly--because the
privilege of selling tickets at wholesale, at a handsome profit, was
farmed out to many members of Congress.

At the beginning of his administration, President Menocal found all the
Government offices crowded with the appointees of the former
administration. A great many of them were entirely superfluous and a
great many of them were also entirely incompetent to fill their places.
There was, therefore, a considerable clearing out of placeholders. There
might have been, of course, what is known in America as a "clean sweep,"
and this was urged by a few of the President's friends. But General
Menocal would listen to no such proposition. A Civil Service law had
indeed been formulated by the Consulting Commission presided over by
General Crowder, and had been in force since 1907, and while an
unscrupulous executive might have evaded its provisions, General Menocal
was a believer in the merit system, and in secure tenure of office for
men who were doing their duty. He therefore refused positively to remove
a single man merely because of his political affiliations. So far as
placeholders were dismissed, they were dismissed because of incompetence
or dishonesty, or because their services were superfluous. As a result
of this enlightened policy, it is true, President Menocal was compelled
to conduct his administration through the agency of a staff, the
majority of which was composed of his political opponents. He even
appointed two Liberals to his cabinet, while nearly all the foreign
ministers and consuls and important officers of the various departments
were members of that party, holding over from the Gomez administration.
It cannot be said that this policy was in all cases appreciated by those
who personally profited from it, for some of these officeholders did not
scruple to engage in intrigues against the President whose generosity
retained them in their places.

The United States Government retained a certain supervision over some of
the acts of the Cuban Government. Thus, as hitherto stated, in March,
1913, an amnesty bill had been passed at the instance of the Gomez
administration, which would have set at liberty several hundred
political and other prisoners, but it was objected to by Mr. Bryan, the
Secretary of State of the United States, and was accordingly vetoed. It
was again posed in a modified form on April 25, and was again similarly
vetoed. In November, 1913, it was once more taken up and revised so as
to extend the pardon to those who had participated in the negro
insurrection, and to some former officeholders of the Gomez
administration who had been indicted. It was also intended that it
should extend amnesty to General Ernesto Asbert, Governor of the
Province of Havana, to Senator Vidal Morales, and to Representative
Arias, who had been indicted for the murder of the Chief of Police of
Havana, General Armando Riva; a tragedy which occurred during a police
raid on a club, on the evening of July 7. This attempt to extend amnesty
to these men caused an acute and prolonged controversy. But on December
9, 1914, the bill was finally passed in a form which granted amnesty to
General Asbert, but not to Senator Arias. In this form the United States
Government sanctioned its enactment because of the belief that the real
burden of guilt rested upon the latter rather than upon the former.

This controversy over amnesty to General Asbert meanwhile had serious
political effects in Cuba. For a time the so-called Asbert faction of
the Liberal party allied itself with the Conservatives in Congress in
support of President Menocal and thus gave him a majority in that body.
But in the summer of 1914 this faction became reunited with the rest of
the Liberal party, and Conservative control of Congress was lost. The
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Senor Gonzales Lanuza, a
Conservative, resigned and was succeeded by Senor Urquiaga, a Liberal,
on August 31. When at last in February, 1915, the act of amnesty for
General Asbert was completed, and he was released and fully
rehabilitated, there was a great popular celebration of the event in the
City of Havana.

The first attempt at insurrection in President Menocal's administration
occurred on November 9, 1913, when Crecencio Garcia, a mulatto,
undertook to lead a revolt in the province of Santa Clara. It was
promptly suppressed by the Rural Guard in a manner which augured well
for the promise which the President had made, that there would be no
revolutions during his administration; and there were no more such
attempts until the great treason of ex-President Gomez.




CHAPTER XVIII


The fifth Presidential campaign of the Republic of Cuba occurred in
1916. The Conservative candidate for President was General Mario G.
Menocal, who was thus seeking reelection, and the candidate for
Vice-President was General Emilio Nuñez, of whom we have already heard
as the leader of the Veterans' Association in its legitimate and orderly
resistance to the corruption and despotism of the Gomez administration,
who had had a distinguished career in the Liberating Army in the War of
Independence, and who was at this time serving as Secretary of
Agriculture, Industry and Commerce in the cabinet of President Menocal.

[Illustration: GEN. D. EMILIO NUÑEZ]

On the Liberal side, in accordance with the compact formerly made
between him and José Miguel Gomez, the Presidential candidate was Dr.
Alfredo Zayas, and the Vice-Presidential candidate was Carlos Mendieta,
a journalist and Representative in Congress, who had long been
conspicuous in the practical management of the Liberal Party.

The general prosperity which Cuba had been enjoying under the
administration of President Menocal excited the envy and cupidity of the
Liberal place-seekers and roused them to extraordinary efforts to regain
possession of the government. A shameless attempt was made to force a
bill through Congress disqualifying a President for reelection unless he
resigned his office at least sixty days before the election; but it
failed of success. Long in advance of the actual contest a vigorous
propaganda was started all over the island on lines similar to those
which had been successful in causing the overthrow of Estrada Palma.
While few ventured to asperse the character of President Menocal
himself, his administration was vilified as corrupt and inefficient. It
was charged that he did not, like Gomez, "divide the spoils" with his
party followers, that he was both selfish and weak, and that his fatal
weakness in office had been more than amply demonstrated, and would
justify them in overthrowing his government. The Liberal newspapers
asserted that at least three quarters of the inhabitants of the island
were not in sympathy with the Conservative position and with the
President, but had been deluded into voting for him; that they did not
approve of his persistent acquiescence in every little hint and
suggestion that might come from the United States; and that having been
graduated from an American University, he was more American in his ideas
and ideals than he was true Cuban, and deserved defeat at the next
election.

This was largely for the purpose of preparing the public for the claim,
which was made before the polls had been open two hours, that the
Liberals were sweeping the country, and that the Conservatives could
make no possible or effective showing in the election. In pursuance of
this propaganda, it was so arranged that the local boards of the larger
towns and cities, where there was an excess of the rank and file of the
Liberal party, should rush in their returns. These records were sent in
immediately and seemed to indicate a sweeping victory for the Liberal
party. The country districts, where were registered the votes of the
farmers, the sugar planters, and the people of property who believed in
work and the maintenance of law and order, being remote from the
capital, came in much later, and in many instances, owing to distance
and the uncertainty of travel, reliable returns from these districts
were delayed until the next day, so that at midnight it looked as though
the election had been carried by the Liberal party. On the following
day, however, as the returns began to arrive from the remote districts,
a decided change in the aspect of the situation became apparent, and by
that night it was seen that a very closely contested election had taken
place, and that the result would probably be in doubt, as it was in the
United States, for several days.

This delay gave occasion for charges and accusations of fraud on both
sides, and each prepared itself for a hard struggle. It was discovered
that the matter would have to be settled by electoral boards and courts
established for that purpose. In the meantime, the Liberals demanded
that General Menocal acknowledge his defeat and proclaimed the election
of Dr. Zayas on all sides, and openly demanded to have the government
immediately turned over to them, or there would be serious trouble in
store for the Conservatives and the country. In the meantime, pressure
was brought to bear on the United States government, and protection was
asked by the Liberals against the manifest danger that they would be
cheated of their success at the polls. Threats were also heard that a
revolution would undoubtedly follow as a protest against the usurpation,
as it was termed, of their legitimate right to take control of the
government, and Dr. Alfredo Zayas, in a private conversation with the
American minister, hinted at this, and predicted that if a revolution
should become necessary, it would undoubtedly be successful, since he
knew that two-thirds of the army was with him in sympathy, and would
follow the Liberal command to overthrow the Menocal government if he
should see fit to give such a command.

General Menocal stated very frankly that the determination of the
contest must be left to the local boards and to the courts for decision,
and whatever that might be, regardless of any injustice that might be
imposed upon him and his party, he would acquiesce, and would be the
first man to shake the hand of the successful candidate. A similar
statement was never made by the Liberals. They continued the cry of
fraud, and openly stated that if they did not succeed a revolution would
follow. The judges of the courts, excepting the chief justice of the
Supreme Court, Senor Pichardo, had been appointed by Gomez, and
naturally great pressure was brought to bear on them to "save the
constitution," as it was called, for the Liberals. In the decisions that
followed, the Conservatives stated frankly that they believed this
pressure was producing manifestly unfair decisions, but made at no time
any attempt to ignore them or set them aside.

The court decided that in two districts, Victoria de las Tunas, in the
province of Oriente, and another town in Santa Clara, new elections must
be held. In the first one the Liberals had, at four o'clock in the
morning previous to the day of election, set fire to the town hall,
burning all of the electoral lists, so that an election was absolutely
impossible. This was probably due to the fact that Victoria de las Tunas
held General Menocal in great esteem, since, owing to his personal valor
in leading the charges against the Spanish army, when in command of that
town, the Cubans had been victorious. In the city of Santa Clara
province, the frauds claimed by both sides rendered it so impossible to
determine the true result of the election that a second election was
deemed necessary. According to the records of the Liberal party, the
vote of these two towns, or possibly either one of them, would determine
the election, and Dr. Alfredo Zayas felt quite confident that he would
be the successor of General Menocal, and openly so stated.

The Conservatives, on the other hand, said, "We can only await and abide
by the decisions of the courts, and will surrender nothing until such
decisions are handed down." The supporters of Dr. Zayas stated that the
soldiers, who had been sent there to maintain order, had been sent there
for the sole purpose of preventing the Liberals from approaching the
polls. At this General Nuñez, the Vice Presidential candidate, invited
Dr. Zayas, the Liberal leader, to accompany him thither and to point out
any Liberal in that district who wished to vote, promising that he would
furnish a machine and any protection that might be necessary to see that
he and every Liberal in the district deposited his vote, and that they
together would witness the count.

Dr. Zayas never had an opportunity to bring this matter to a decision,
owing to the fact that General Gomez, who hated Dr. Zayas bitterly, and
who had opposed him in public print more strongly than any other man,
saw immediately the possibility of riding into power as the man of the
hour, as the real, dominating force of the republic, and as the only
man, as he expressed it, able to save the electoral campaign from
becoming one of protracted discord and dispute. So he forbade Dr. Zayas
to go to the town where the election was to be held, or to accept
General Nuñez's invitation, and stated that he was himself tired of the
whole thing, and that he was going to take his yacht and go on a fishing
trip, which he did, leaving at midnight with about thirty trusted
friends, including all of the prominent Liberal leaders. Passing around
Cape San Antonio, the yacht anchored off the coast near Tunas de Zaza,
and there met a group of men by previous arrangement, and started a
revolution or a "popular uprising," as he termed it, against the Menocal
government.

In the meantime, a carefully laid plot, that had been planned months
before, for seizing control of the armed forces of the island was put
into execution. On Saturday night, February 14, 1917, without warning,
two companies of men stationed at the Columbia barracks, at a previously
arranged signal of two shots, jumped from their beds, grabbed their arms
and ammunition, and started across the parade ground for the open
country, of the west. Although the details of this plot were known,
other loyal companies at the command of their officers were called into
immediate action, charged the Liberals and captured more than half of
them and killed a few of the remainder, who at first had succeeded in
escaping. This was the only apparent disloyalty in the western end of
the island. Matanzas, Pinar del Rio and Havana remained loyal to the
government. Among the forces stationed at the City of Santiago, far
removed from the immediate control of the commanding generals of the
army, seeds of sedition, which consisted largely of promises of
immediate promotion of all officers, were planted. Every sergeant was to
be made a captain, every captain a colonel, every lieutenant a major,
with promises of increased pay, and the incidental rewards that come to
the successful revolutionist. This was also true of the Province of
Camaguey, where, at almost the same hour that the uprising took place in
Camp Columbia barracks, several companies of men seized control, made
prisoners of their comrades who were loyal to the government or shot
them dead, captured and imprisoned the civil governors, intimidated the
police, or made them prisoners, and took charge of the customhouse and
the accumulated funds, and all moneys deposited in banks, belonging to
either the state or the federal government. Incidentally all moneys that
were accessible were seized at the same time, which belonged to said
banks, on the ground that there was no time to discriminate. In the City
of Santiago several millions of dollars were thus seized by the three or
four Liberal leaders in command. These men, when the failure of the
revolution became apparent, escaped from the island, carrying some two
or three millions in United States currency and Cuban gold with them,
and landed in Santo Domingo, where some of them were afterward captured,
while the others escaped to the United States.

Securing control of Santiago de Cuba, and having access to the cables,
the rebels immediately wired to the revolutionary headquarters in New
York, which had been established by Dr. Orestes Ferrara, one of the
moving figures in the previous uprising of 1906, in company with Dr.
Raimundo Cabrera, for the dissemination of news favorable to the Liberal
side. Matter was issued, to be used in the American papers, for the
purpose of preparing the United States for the usurpation of the
government of Cuba by General Gomez, and defending such action on the
ground that it was the only solution of a bad electoral muddle, and that
the real choice of the people was General Gomez, who should have been,
and was ultimately, the leader of their party. It was said that Dr.
Zayas, without justification, had usurped and endeavored to maintain the
permanent control of the Liberal party, and that his lack of popularity
had been indicated by his defeat four years before. The entire island
was represented, and especially the army, as having voluntarily gone
over to the side of the Liberals. General Gomez was pictured as having
landed and by previous arrangement placed himself at the head of 12,000
men, who were marching upon the City of Havana; while the President of
the republic was variously reported as having been shot, and afterward
as having fled in abject fear from the palace, and as having at last
found shelter in the home of the American minister, Mr. William E.
Gonzales. It was added that Havana was under the control of the
Liberals, as was the remainder of the island, and that all that was
necessary was the triumphant march of General Gomez into the capital,
where he would assume authority as Liberal Dictator until the island
should assume its normal and peaceful condition, when another election
would be called, in which the people would have an opportunity to choose
and place the power in the hands of the only real man of destiny,
General Gomez.

In the Province of Camaguey, the insurgents followed the same program as
did those in Oriente, intimidating the police, by firing two volleys
into police headquarters and assassinating those men who were forming a
council, the civil government and various other officers having been
imprisoned. They took immediate control of the railroads, and the
rolling stock, placed Liberal or disloyal troops on trains, and started
them across the border to Santa Clara, where they joined General Gomez,
who, with his men, was marching north to the railroad.

In the meantime, General Menocal and the loyal troops of the island, in
the west, started a vigorous campaign to prevent the island from falling
into the hands of the rebels. Officers whose loyalty was beyond question
were placed in command of troops, and sent at once into Santa Clara,
Camaguey and Oriente, and one of Cuba's gunboats, with a company of 300
men, was dispatched to the City of Santiago de Cuba, to drive the
disloyal element from that place. Colonel Pujol was sent to take
measures to restore order in Camaguey. Colonel Collazo and Lieutenant
Colonel Lozama and other officials known for their courage, efficiency
and valor were placed in command of three separate bodies of troops,
with orders to surround Gomez, and give him and his supporters immediate
battle, and capture or annihilate them. These men were equipped with
machine guns, well armed and prepared for a campaign of extermination,
if necessary. In the meantime, the Secretary of Government, Colonel
Hevea, who, according to the Cuban law has control over and is
responsible for order in the interior districts, traveled by locomotive
and automobile, day and night, reporting to the President all that
occurred, and giving those orders which seemed wise for suppressing the
uprising. The American Minister, representing the sentiment of the
United States, which seriously deprecated Cuba's falling into the
revolutionary habit, visited the palace every day, with his military
aide, then Major Wittemeyer, kept in close touch with Washington, and
reported every change in the drama that was being presented in Cuba. In
the meantime, one of the Cuban officials had effectively thwarted
General Gomez in his proposed triumphant march into Havana, by blowing
up the large bridge over the Zaza river, thus preventing the
insurrectionists from gaining control of the railroads in the western
half of the island.

Realizing the grave danger that threatened Cuba in the destruction of
the cane through fire, which had already begun on a large scale, and in
the stealing, and killing of both cattle and horses on the part of the
insurrectionists, Major Wittemeyer, with the authority of the War
Department in Washington, communicated to President Menocal the fact
that the United States government would gladly land whatever force was
deemed necessary to assist in the maintenance of order and the
protection of property. This offer the President refused, stating that
he believed that there was a sufficient force absolutely loyal to his
government to control the situation, adding that he was thoroughly aware
of the plans of the Liberals, that he was in close touch with his own
command and was confident that his officers would succeed in quelling
the insurrection in a comparatively short time. He added that he thought
it wise for the government of Cuba to demonstrate its ability to
maintain itself, and to suppress any uprising that might occur of that
nature, and thus avoid the rather unpleasant task, on the part of the
United States, of being compelled to interfere with the personal and
political affairs of their sister republic.

That General Menocal's prediction was based on sound logic was
demonstrated by the fact that within twenty-three days the forces of
ex-President Gomez were surrounded, defeated and captured. The General,
his son, his aides and his entire staff were taken prisoners and brought
to Havana and placed in the penitentiary on Principe Hill. In General
Gomez's saddle bags were found military orders instructing his chiefs to
burn every sugar plantation on the Island not known to be the property
of Liberals, and tear up every mile of railroad, together with
information demonstrating that he was preparing to blow up every bridge
through the island, thus attempting to prevent the government from
sending forces against him. This work of destruction, in so far as
possible before the capture, had been carried out to the letter. The
railroads along which the revolutionists had control were out of
commission for several months, and much valuable property was
destroyed.

The disappointment in the Liberal ranks consequent upon the capture of
General Gomez and his staff, and the inevitable failure of the movement,
was general and profound, but the last desperate hope seemed to inspire
them to continue the struggle under the leadership of Carlos Mendieta,
who had been their candidate for Vice-President. The plan adopted by
them was to revert to the desperate methods of some former wars. In
brief, it was to divide into small bands, who were to carry on a reign
of terror and destruction throughout the island, the purpose of which
was solely to bring about another American intervention; the argument
was used that they had succeeded in doing this in 1906, and thus had
secured a tacit recognition of the Liberal party, and their ultimate
control of the government. "We were successful," they argued, "and since
the commercial, industrial and political relations between the two
republics are so intimate and the Platt Amendment authorizes the United
States to enter Cuba at any time when, in their estimation, the
circumstances justify such action, if we continue long enough, burn
enough, destroy enough, and succeed in keeping up this state of turmoil
long enough, the American authorities will, sooner or later, be
compelled to come here, and put an end to affairs that will undoubtedly
bring about the resignation of Menocal. His life will be made
intolerable and our several plans for his assassination, that have
heretofore met with misfortune, if followed, will later bear fruit."

At the middle of March, Carlos Mendieta, as leader of this bushranging
rebellion, issued a manifesto threatening the destruction of foreign
property and declaring that there would be no guarantee for the safety
of American lives unless the United States undertook the supervision of
the elections in Santa Clara and Oriente provinces.

In their manifesto the rebels promised to lay down their arms if the
government would hold new elections in Santa Clara Province. If the
government refused to hold such elections the rebels threatened to
continue the revolution and to proclaim Mendieta Provisional President.

The activities of the revolutionary conspirators and propagandists in
the United States, under the direction of Orestes Ferrara in New York,
meanwhile became so offensive that the United States government felt
compelled to take action. Accordingly on March 25, the State Department
at Washington warned Dr. Ferrara that unless he ceased his pernicious
operations he and his associate, Raimundo Cabrera, would be placed under
arrest. This had the result of tempering somewhat the zeal of the
conspirators, though their propaganda was still furtively maintained.

In passing, it may be stated that a part of the general plan--indeed the
first step in the proposed uprising--was to assassinate General Menocal,
while on his way from the palace to his estate, eight miles distant,
known as El Chico. The mayor of the suburb of Marianao, together with
the chief of police of that village, and four soldiers, who had agreed
for a consideration to take part in the assassination, were stationed at
a point carefully selected, with orders to fire a charge of buckshot
into the President's back from the step of his automobile, and then
behind the screen of trees and underbrush which lined the roadside to
make their escape. It was proposed to assassinate the chauffeurs and all
others who might be in the car in order to prevent immediate pursuit.
Since General Menocal was in the habit of going to his country home
every afternoon between five and six, the plan probably would have
succeeded, had it not been for an attack of conscience on the part of
one of the soldiers, who, after agreeing, lost heart, and a few hours
before the departure of the machine hastened to the palace and insisted
upon seeing the President, to whom he gave all the details of the plot.
The betrayal of the plot by the soldier, who was suspected when he did
not make his appearance in company with the others, and the machine not
leaving the palace at the usual hour, which was to have been telephoned
to the plotters, convinced them that discovery was more than probable.
The mayor, with the chief of police, and the others, immediately fled
from Marianao. Pursuit was given, in spite of which they resisted
capture for several days. Exhausted and wounded, they were finally taken
in an old sugar mill near Bahia Honda, in the Province of Pinar del Rio.

Not discouraged by this failure, numerous other plans for the
assassination of the President were arranged, among others the
manufacture of a highly explosive bomb, and an arrangement by which four
Liberals agreed to attempt to place or throw it under the President's
desk. In order to make this plan work, it was necessary to have some man
who could gain access to the palace, and to the office of the President,
and this could be done through the assistance of some one of the
soldiers who had been stationed on guard duty on the upper floor of the
executive mansion. After several months of careful study, one of these
soldiers was selected, and after another conference, the matter was
settled, and the man was intrusted with the bomb, which was delivered to
him at the appointed hour, and with which he ascended the palace stairs
and eventually succeeded in reaching the President, to whom he delivered
the bomb, with his evidence and the whole story. Of course, this second
betrayal of the plans of the conspirators brought about their capture,
and they were tried and condemned to various terms in prison. Various
other plots were formed, none of which was successful.

[Illustration: JOSÉ LUIS AZCARATA SECRETARY OF JUSTICE]

As a natural result of the revolution started a few days before, the two
additional elections ordered by the Supreme Court, were necessarily
postponed, since the island had been thrown into a turmoil by the action
of General Gomez. They were, however, afterwards held, and resulted in
decided Conservative majorities, which were carried by the electoral
boards to the Central Electoral Junta, presided over by the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court, Señor Pichardo, and justified that body in
announcing the election of General Menocal to a second term as
President. In spite of this decision of the courts, which General
Menocal had previously agreed to abide by, the insurrectionary elements
of the Liberal party still insisted that General Menocal's second term
was secured through deliberate and carefully planned frauds and
intimidation of the voters at the polls. The fact is that the election
laws of Cuba forbid and prevent any soldier from standing even in the
doorway of a polling place. He cannot approach nearer than the corner of
the building in which the votes are being deposited, nor can he leave
his post and come closer to the polls, unless some serious disturbance,
where lives are threatened, occurs, with which the police of the
district cannot cope. Since the minority is represented during the time
of voting, and during the count by a man selected for that purpose, no
fraud could well be perpetrated without the consent of someone
responsible to the opposition.

The army officers who had been led by José Miguel Gomez to revolt, had
been captured with arms in their hands, fighting to overthrow the
constitutional government of the island; a purpose of which they had
made no secret. They were therefore guilty of sedition and treason, and
were subject to trial by court martial and to capital punishment upon
conviction of their crime. They were thus tried, and some were condemned
to death and others to long terms of imprisonment; but the extreme
sentence was never executed upon one of them, while many of the prison
sentences were shortened and some of the men were pardoned outright.
This generous action of President Menocal's was performed through the
same spirit of magnanimity that moved Estrada Palma to like clemency,
years before; and it was as ill requited. Some of the men whom he had
thus saved from the gallows or the firing squad promptly resumed
criminal conspiracies against him; while the Liberal party as a whole
demanded that the pardoned officers should be at once reinstated in the
army with full rank and back pay for the time which they had spent in
insurrection and in prison, and railed against President Menocal for not
granting that additional act of grace!

The government of the United States is naturally always on the side of
law and order among its neighbors, and while it of course scrupulously
refrains from meddling in their affairs unless under intolerable
provocation, as in the case of Cuba in 1898, it has always given and
doubtless will always give its sympathy and moral support to those who
are striving for peace and progress and the security of life and
property. Toward Cuba its attitude is more marked than toward other
states, because of the special relations which exist between the two
countries. We have seen how it intervened in Cuban affairs for what it
supposed to be the restoration of tranquillity in 1906. While
unfortunately its influence was on that occasion made to appear as
though given to the revolutionary rather than the legitimate side, its
intent was unmistakable. In spite of the advantage which they took of
its intervention at that time, the Liberal leaders in Cuba have since
felt much aggrieved at it for standing in the way of their designs on
more than one occasion when they wished to revolt against constitutional
order.

The United States did not intervene in 1917. It was not, as President
Menocal confidently assured it, necessary for it to do so. But it is
pleasant to recall that it stood ready to do so, and there is of course
no possible doubt as to what the purport of its intervention would have
been. During that episode no fewer than five messages were addressed to
the people of Cuba by the government of the United States, warning them
against any attempt at forcible revolution. They breathed the spirit of
the epigram of John Hay in 1903: "Revolutions have gone out of fashion
in our neighborhood." Thus on February 19, 1917, the United States made
it known to the Cuban government and through it to the Cuban people
that--

"The American Government has in previous declarations defined its
attitude respecting the confidence and support it gives the
constitutional governments and the policy it has adopted toward any
disturbers of the peace through revolutionary ventures. The American
government again wishes to inform the Cuban people of the attitude it
has assumed in view of the present events:

"First--The government of the United States gives its support to and
stands by the Constitutional Government of the Republic of Cuba.

"Second--The present insurrection against the Constitutional Government
of Cuba is regarded by the American Government in the light of an
anti-constitutional and illegal act, which it will not tolerate.

"Third--The leaders of the revolt will be held responsible for the
damages which foreigners may suffer in their persons or their property.

"Fourth--The government of the United States will examine attentively
what attitude it will adopt respecting those concerned in the present
disturbance of the peace in Cuba, or those who are actually
participating in it."

At the beginning of March American Marines and Bluejackets were landed
at Santiago, Guantanamo, Manzanillo, Nuevitas, and El Cobre, for patrol
duty for the protection of American interests.

Again, on March 24 the American government sent a note saying:

"It has come to the knowledge of the United States Government that in
Cuba propaganda persists that in response to efforts of agents against
the constitutional government the United States is studying the adoption
of measures in their favor."

It was quite true. The remaining insurgents--Gomez and the other
principal leaders had already been captured--were declaring that just as
in 1906 American intervention had meant the success of the revolution,
so now the United States was about to intervene again to the same
effect. Wherefore this American note continued:

"The constitutional government of Cuba has been and will continue to be
sustained and backed by the government of the United States in its
efforts to reestablish order throughout the territory of the republic.

"The United States government, emphasizing its condemnation of the
reprehensible conduct of those rising against the constitutional
government in an effort to settle by force of arms controversies for
which existing laws establish adequate legal remedies, desires to make
known that until those in rebellion recognize their duties as Cuban
citizens, lay down their arms and return to legality, the United States
can hold no communication whatever with any of them and will be forced
to regard them as outside the law and unworthy of its consideration."

That was plain talk, and it had its effect. But the climax was yet to
come in a final message which stated that if destruction of property,
disturbance of public order and deliberate attempts to overthrow the
established government were continued, Cuba being an ally of the United
States, the United States would be compelled to regard the doers of such
deeds as enemies and to proceed against them as such. At that time both
the United States and Cuba were at war with Germany, and were therefore
allies in offense and defense, and it was quite logical for one ally to
regard as its enemy any enemy of the other ally. In brief, any one
waging war against the Cuban government was in effect waging war against
the government of the United States. That stern logic put a quietus upon
the attempted insurrection. "Our last recourse," said one of the rebel
leaders, "has been taken from us. There is no use in starting a
revolution if it is to be doomed to failure before it begins."




CHAPTER XIX


Cuba entered the Great War. That fact was the supreme seal to her
title-deeds to a place as peer among the nations; placing her in
blood-brotherhood with her neighbors. She entered the war almost
simultaneously with the United States, though with less delay than that
country. At Washington the President addressed Congress on April 2,
advising a declaration of war against Germany, and the declaration was
made on April 6. At Havana the President delivered his war message on
April 6, and on April 7 war was declared. In that impressive and epochal
message, the most momentous and solemn that any chief of state can ever
utter, President Menocal reviewed in dispassionate detail the criminal
record of Germany in her unrestricted submarine warfare, and then
continued:

"The government of the United States, to which country we are bound by
the closest ties, had during the last two years incessantly formulated
energetic protests and claims based on the most elemental principles of
justice in defence of its citizens who were victims on many occasions of
attacks by German submarines; of the liberty of the seas and the respect
due the lives and property of neutrals; and revindicating the right to
navigate and engage in commerce freely, without restrictions save those
sanctioned by international law, by treaties, and by the universal
practise of civilized nations.

"Since February 1 submarines have attacked and sunk without mercy. Such
acts of war without quarter, directed against all nations, to close
down the world's commerce under terrible penalties, cannot be tolerated
without accepting them as legitimate to-day and always.

"Cuba cannot appear indifferent to such violations, which at any moment
may be carried out at the cost of the lives and interests of its own
citizens. Nor can it, without loss of dignity and decorum, show
indifference to the noble attitude assumed by the United States, to
which we are bound by ties of gratitude and by treaties. Cuba cannot
remain neutral in this supreme conflict, because a declaration of
neutrality would compel it to treat alike all belligerents, denying them
with equal vigor entrance to our ports and imposing other restrictions
which are contrary to the sentiment of the Cuban people and which
inevitably in the end would result in conflict with our friend and ally.

"In full and firm consciousness that I am fulfilling one of my most
sacred duties, although with profound sentiment, because I am about to
propose a resolution which will plunge our country into the dangers of
the greatest conflagration in history, but without casting odium upon,
or without animosity toward, the German people, but convinced that we
are compelled to take this step by our international obligations and the
principles of justice and liberty, I appeal to the honorable Congress in
the use of its executive faculties, with full knowledge of all the
antecedents in the case and with the mature deliberation of its
important claim, to resolve, as a result of these unjustifiable and
repeated acts of aggression by submarines, notwithstanding the protests
of neutral governments, among them Cuba, that there has been created and
exists a state of war between Cuba and the imperial German government,
and adopt all measures necessary, which I reserve to myself the right to
recommend at the proper moment, for the maintenance of our rights; to
defend our territory; to provide for our security, and to cooperate
decidedly to these ends with the United States government, lending it
what assistance may be in our power for the defence of the liberty of
the seas, of the rights of neutrals, and of international justice."

The next day the Cuban Congress adopted the declaration of war, in the
exact words of the President's message. A resolution was at the same
time introduced and adopted, authorizing the President to organize and
to place at the disposal of the President of the United States a
contingent of 10,000 men, for military service in Europe.

It would be superfluous to dwell upon the causes which led Cuba thus
promptly and heartily to commit herself to the side of the Allies in the
war. They were largely identical with those which impelled other nations
to the same course. There was a resolution to vindicate the sanctity of
treaties and the majesty of international law. There was an abhorrence
of the infamous practices of the German government and the German army.
There was resentment against the gross violation of neutral rights of
which Germany had been guilty. There was recognition of the grave menace
to popular governments the world over which was presented by the
voracious and unscrupulous ambitions of Prussian militarism. There was a
feeling that as the war had first been directed against two small
nations, on the principle that small states had no rights that large
ones were bound to respect, it was incumbent upon other small states to
protest against that arrogant attitude. There was a desire to show that
Cuba, youngest and one of the smallest of the nations, was ready to take
her full part as a nation among nations, in war as well as in peace.
There was, also, no doubt a legitimate feeling that in this matter it
would be appropriate for Cuba--though of course under no compulsion--to
align herself with the great northern neighbor with whom she sustained
such close relations.

At the same time, backed undoubtedly by German money, and as a part of
the German propaganda, financial interests, banks and houses of long
standing in Cuba, all of which were eventually placed on a black list,
exerted a very strong influence among their customers and through their
connections, commercial, social and political, in favor of Germany. They
did succeed in influencing and directing the editorial policy of some
prominent newspapers, but the chief result of their pernicious
activities was to get themselves and their sympathizers into trouble.
One of the foremost bankers of Havana, where he had lived for many years
and was personally much liked and esteemed in society, while not openly
espousing the cause of Germany, after Cuba had declared war, was known
to be thoroughly in sympathy with Germany. He with over a hundred other
Germans was interned, or kept _incommunicado_, and in his house
documents were found demonstrating that he was not only an agent in
distributing German propaganda, but also a distributor of funds intended
to promote the cause of Germany in Cuba and the West Indies.

Another very strong influence that was exerted in Cuba against the
attitude of President Menocal and his government was that of many of the
clergy of the Roman Catholic church, who openly spoke to their
congregations in favor of Germany and against the cause of the Allies.
Nor was the Liberal party by any means as loyal to the Allies as the
unanimous vote in Congress might seem to suggest. Many of its members
either openly or secretly gave their sympathy and influence to the
German side. This was partly because of their inveterate opposition to
anything advocated by the Conservative government; and partly because of
the aid which German interests in Cuba had given, morally, politically
and pecuniarily, to the insurrection of José Miguel Gomez in 1917. It
was proved in trials in the courts of Cuba, which were held in
consequence of the damages wrought by that uprising, that Germans and
men of German parentage had conspired to give information to the rebels
and to supply them with munitions, and in other ways strove to aid that
movement in overthrowing the government. But these seditious and
disloyal elements in Cuba were probably no stronger in Cuba than in the
United States or other countries.

Cuba did not suffer from incendiarism and similar German outrages as did
the United States. On the other hand, the Cuban government was fully as
strict as that of the United States in taking possession of German
property, and in blacklisting all firms and individuals known to be in
sympathy with Germany. All trading of any kind with such parties was
forbidden; an arrangement being made by which open accounts with them
could be closed. A Custodian of Alien Property was also appointed.

Even before the declaration of war the Cuban government took strenuous
means to prevent violations of neutrality. A few weeks before the
declaration of war German agents fitted up a steamer in Havana harbor as
a commerce-destroying cruiser, and watched for an opportunity to take
her out to the high seas. Learning of these plans, the Cuban government
stationed a cruiser alongside that vessel, with guns trained upon her,
to prevent the purposed escape. Immediately upon the declaration of war
the four German ships which were lying interned in Havana harbor were
seized by the Cuban government. It was found that the German crews had
seriously damaged the machinery of the vessels, as they did at New York
and elsewhere; but the Cuban government had repairs made and then turned
the vessels over to the United States.

In what we may call the non-military activities of the war, Cuba was
notably energetic and efficient. There was close cooperation with the
United States government in the matter of food conservation and supply.
Cuba was naturally looked to for an increased supply of sugar, for which
there was great need; and as a result of inquiries by Mr. Hoover, the
United States Food Commissioner, as to what the island could do in that
respect, the Cuban Department of Agriculture sent the chief of its
Bureau of Information, Captain George Reno, to Washington to confer with
Mr. Hoover and to formulate plans for the exercise of the most efficient
cooperation possible between Cuba and the United States. Recognizing the
desirability if not the necessity that Cuba should not only be able to
feed herself during the war but should also export as much food as
possible, the insular government took steps at once for the increase of
food production to the highest attainable degree, and also for the
practice of thrift and economy. In consequence Cuba endured cheerfully
the same system of wheatless days and meatless days and rationing in
various articles of food that prevailed in the United States; with
excellent results.

President Menocal also made preparations, at the suggestion of and in
conjunction with the United States War Department, for the provision of
a detachment of troops for service either in Europe or in any part of
the world that the Department at Washington might deem expedient. The
best officers of the Cuban army accepted an invitation from the
military authorities of the United States to receive instruction in
modern military tactics, which had been brought out by the war, and
Senator Manuel Coronado patriotically gave a sum sufficient for the
building of a number of airplanes, to be used by Cuban aviators.
Volunteers for this division were easily secured and the instruction
began under the direction of Cuban aviators who had been in the service
of France. The War Department of the United States notified the Republic
of Cuba that owing to the severe exposure of the men to the freezing
water and mud of the trenches of Belgium and France, it was doubtful
whether soldiers of tropical countries could withstand the strain upon
their health necessarily endured during the winter campaign in Europe,
intimating that their services would be far more useful in taking the
place of other troops stationed in warmer climates, as the Porto Ricans
were taking the place of the marines that were stationed in the Panama
Canal Zone. This was a rather severe disappointment to General Pujol and
the other officers, who were very anxious to take their places in the
line of fire.

Noteworthy and most admirable were the achievements of Cuba in the
financial operations of the war. Subscriptions were eagerly made to
every one of the Liberty Loans, and to the final Victory Loan, with the
result that in every case the amount allotted to Cuba was far exceeded.
The quota for the third loan was subscribed twice over within five days.
In this work not only did banks and commercial houses take part, as a
matter of business, but also many private citizens volunteered as
canvassers; though indeed the eagerness of people to subscribe made
canvassing perfunctory and urging superfluous.

[Illustration: SEÑORA MENOCAL

It is not alone through the felicitous circumstance of her being the
wife of President Mario G. Menocal that Señora Marienita Seva de Menocal
is entitled to the distinction--never more appropriate than in her
case--of being the "first lady of the land." Her title rests equally
upon personal charm, the graces of social hospitality, and womanly
leadership of the most efficient kind in philanthropic and patriotic
endeavor for the advancement of the public welfare and the confirmation
of the integrity and promotion of the prosperity of the Republic; while
her indefatigable labors in the great war invested her name with
affectionate and grateful distinction in the camps and among the peoples
of the Allied nations.]

A similar interest was manifested in Red Cross contributions and Red
Cross work, with equally gratifying results. In both of these activities
a leading and most efficient part was taken by the women of Cuba. In
subscribing to the loans they were most generous; in canvassing for
subscriptions from others and in collecting and working for the Red
Cross they were indefatigable and irresistible. They made it a point of
patriotic honor, and almost a condition of social acceptability, to
respond in the fullest possible manner to every such call of the war. In
Cuba's domestic struggles, the women had suffered cruelly, and their
sympathies sprang spontaneously and generously toward the lands of
Europe where womanhood was suffering a thousand martyrdoms. Thus as the
manhood of Cuba with a unanimity which the few exceptions only
emphasized rallied to the call of the President to throw the material
and militant might of the Republic on the side of law, of civilization
and of democracy, the womanhood of Cuba, with no less unanimity and
zeal, followed Señora Menocal in the equally necessary and grateful
tasks of the campaign which women even better than men could perform.

No tribute could be too high to render to these devoted women, who were
always ready to make personal sacrifices of time, of strength, of money,
of work, for the cause of humanity. Amid all its historic fiestas and
pageants, Havana has seen no fairer or more inspiring spectacle than
that of the Red Cross women, Senora Menocal at their head, marching in
stately procession through her streets to manifest their devotion to the
cause and to arouse others to equal earnestness. The magnitude of the
sums raised by the women of Cuba for the war loans and for the Red
Cross, and for Cuban hospital units at the front, and the amount of
bandages and other hospital supplies and clothing prepared by them for
the armies "over there," made proud items in Cuban statistics of the
Great War.

Thitherto Cuba had often been engaged in war, but it was always in what
may be termed selfish war, for her own defence against an alien enemy or
for her own liberation from oppressors who, at first kin, had become
alien. Now for the first time it was her privilege to engage in a
greater struggle than any before, and one which was for her own
interests only to the extent to which those interests were involved with
and were practically identical with the interests of all civilized
nations and of world-wide humanity. Said Thomas Jefferson on a memorable
occasion, referring to the relations between America and Great Britain:

"Nothing would more tend to knit our affections than to be fighting once
more, side by side, in the same cause."

Thus we must reckon that affection and confidence between Cuba and the
United States were greatly strengthened and confirmed by the fact that
they were at least potentially and indeed to some degree actually
fighting side by side in the same cause, and that cause not exclusively
their own but that of the whole world. Nor was the event without a
comparable effect upon Cuba's relations to the world at large. Her
sympathies were broadened; her recognition by other powers was extended;
and as once she had been a mere pawn in the international game, now she
became a vital and potent factor in international affairs.




CHAPTER XX


"A revolution which comprehends the responsibilities incumbent upon the
founders of nations." Those were almost the last words of José Marti,
epigrammatically expressive of his purpose in fomenting the ultimate and
triumphant revolution of 1895-1898, and of the purpose of those devoted
men who caught the standard of liberty from his dying hand and through
labors and perils and tragedies incommensurable bore it on to victory.
How well that purpose has been served in these scarcely twenty years of
the independent Republic of Cuba, how true to Marti's transcendent ideal
his successors in Cuban leadership have been, the record which we have
briefly rehearsed must tell. On the whole, the answer to the implied
interrogatory is gratifying and reassuring.

The real leaders of the Cuban nation have comprehended the
responsibilities, unspeakably profound and weighty, that rest upon the
founders of a nation, and no less upon those who direct the affairs of a
nation after its foundation, to the last chapter in its age-long annals.
We should go far, very far, before we could find a statesman more
appreciative of that responsibility than Tomas Estrada Palma, or one who
more manfully strove to discharge its every duty with scrupulous
fidelity and with all the discretion and wisdom with which he had
himself been plenteously endowed and which he could summon to his
council board from among his loyal compatriots.

We must regard it as the supreme reproach of José Miguel Gomez that,
with all his ability and energy, he lacked that supreme quality, the
sense of civic responsibility, which Marti prescribed for Cuba and for
Cubans. His shameful and unpardonable treason--a double treason, to his
own party partner as well as to the government of his country--was not
inspired by the genius of Marti. It did not comprehend the gigantic
responsibilities which it so lightly sought to assume, but was marked
with the irresponsibility which has characterized so many revolutions in
other Latin American countries, and which has brought upon those lands
disaster and measureless reproach.

Under the third Presidency which Cuba has enjoyed that responsibility is
happily comprehended in complete degree. Not even Estrada Palma
possessed a higher sense of duty to the state and to the world than
Mario G. Menocal, nor gave to it more tangible and efficient exposition.
Nor shall we incur reproach of lack of reverence for a great name if we
perceive that in certain essential and potent particulars Cuba's third
President is even more capable of discharging that responsibility than
was the first. The younger, alert, practical man of affairs, expert in
the duties of both peace and war, has the advantage over the elder sage
whose life for many years had been cloistered in academic calm.

We might not inappropriately gauge the extent of Cuba's discharge of her
responsibilities as a sovereign nation by the measure of her progress in
various paths of human welfare. This is not the place for a
comprehensive census of the island, or for a conspectus of its
statistics. _Ex pede Herculem._ From a few items we may estimate the
whole. In the days of unembarrassed Spanish rule, before that
sovereignty was challenged by revolutions, the island had a population
of a million souls. It had between two hundred and three hundred
teachers, and--in 1841--9,082 children enrolled in schools. That was one
schoolchild in every 110 of the population. To-day the island has a
population of 2,700,000, and it has 350,000 children enrolled in its
schools. That is one child in every eight of the population. The
contrast between one-eighth and one-one hundred and tenth is one valid
and expressive measure of Cuba's discharge of her responsibility.

Under the administration of President Menocal the annual appropriation
for public education is more than $10,000,000. There are six great
normal schools to train the 5,500 teachers who are needed to care for
the 350,000 pupils; and as the national government conducts all the
schools there is no discrimination between poor places and wealthy
communities, but an equal grade of teaching is maintained in all. Nor
does the state stop with primary education, but provides practically
free secondary and university education for all who desire it.

[Illustration: FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ ROLDÁN SECRETARY OF PUBLIC
INSTRUCTION]

Shall we take public health as another measure of progress? In the half
dozen years just before the War of Independence the death rate in Havana
was 33 to the 1,000. By 1902 it was reduced to 22, or only a little more
than in New York. To-day, under President Menocal, the death rate for
all Cuba is only 11.2. In the registration area of the United States it
is 14. In the United Kingdom it is 14.2, and Britain vaunts herself
upon its lowness. In France it is 19.6; in Argentina it is 21.6; in
Chili it is 31.1. There are only three countries in the world with lower
rates of mortality than Cuba; and they are New Zealand, with 9.5,
Newfoundland with 10.5, and Australia with 10.6.

Again, consider what is still the chief industry of Cuba. Before the
administration of President Menocal, these were the yearly sugar crops,
in tons:

    1908      961,958
    1909    1,513,582
    1910    1,804,349
    1911    1,480,217
    1912    1,893,687

Compare or contrast those figures with these, under the administration
of a President who comprehends his responsibilities:

    1913    2,429,240
    1914    2,596,567
    1915    2,583,845
    1916    3,006,624
    1917    3,019,936
    1918    3,444,605
    1919    4,000,000

No less impressive and significant are the figures which indicate the
volume of trade between Cuba and the United States. The imports of
American goods into Cuba in 1903 were only $23,000,000; in 1908 they
were $48,577,000; in 1917 they were $189,875,000. The exports of Cuban
goods to the United States were in 1908 only $78,869,000, and in 1917
they were $225,275,000, and in 1919 more than $500,000,000. The balance
of trade is thus heavily in Cuba's favor. Small as Cuba is in
comparison with some of her neighbors, her commerce with the United
States far exceeds theirs. Thus in 1917 the commerce, in both
directions, of Brazil with the United States was $180,000,000; of Chili,
$205,000,000; of Argentina, $305,000,000; of Mexico, $248,000,000; and
of Cuba, $415,150,000.

[Illustration: BONEATO ROAD, ORIENTE

No country in the world, probably, is more amply equipped with good
road--for both industrial and pleasure purposes, than Cuba. Radiating
from the capital and other important cities splendid automobile highways
give access to all parts of the island, leading not only to cities and
ports but also for hundreds of miles through enchanting scenery. Of such
highways the Boneato Road, winding through the mountains of Santiago, in
the Province of Oriente, is a superb example.]

Financially, the administration of President Menocal is to be credited
with the cancellation of the heavy and largely unnecessary debts which
were left to it by the preceding administration; an achievement which
contributed greatly to the improvement of Cuba's international credit.
The foreign claims of Great Britain, France and Germany, which had been
an embarrassing problem for several years, have been so satisfactorily
adjusted that their complete settlement will be effected at a time
convenient to all parties concerned. The grave fiscal and economic
crisis which followed the beginning of the war of 1914, in practically
all the markets of the world was avoided in Cuba by the Economic Defense
Bill, and the establishment of a Cuban national monetary system has
facilitated exchange and all manner of transactions in Cuba, and has
redeemed the country from the reproach of being ridden by and dependent
upon foreign coin as its medium of exchange.

[Illustration: JOSÉ A. DEL CUETO PRESIDENT OF SUPREME COURT]

The sanitary redemption of Cuba was indeed effected under the
administration of Leonard Wood in the first American Government of
Intervention. But the fortunate condition then attained has been not
only fully maintained but constantly and materially bettered through
the activity of the public health department of the Menocal
administration. New problems in sanitation have arisen, only to be met
with promptness, thoroughness and success. One of the most severe tests
of the efficiency of the organization against disease occurred when the
dreaded bubonic plague was imported; and that efficiency was amply
vindicated by the complete eradication of that pestilence within a few
weeks.

[Illustration: DR. FERNANDO MÉNDEZ-CAPOTE, SECRETARY OF SANITATION]

[Illustration: GEN. JOSÉ MARTI, SECRETARY OF WAR]

Shortly after his accession to the Presidency, General Menocal effected
a complete reorganization of the military system. It was not his purpose
to burden the country with unnecessary armaments, but he realized the
necessity of a certain degree of militant preparation for emergencies
and therefore provided it with a small but efficient army and navy,
commensurate with the necessities of the country, and entirely subject,
of course, to the control and direction of the people through their
civil government. The efficiency of this arm of the Government was well
demonstrated at the time already described in these pages when, early in
1917, a widespread revolution was attempted for the purpose of
overthrowing the constitutional and legal government of the country. At
that time the President showed the same triumphant ability as a military
strategist that he had displayed as a civil administrator, in directing
the movements of the Government troops from the Palace in Havana. It was
due to his vigilance and energy in directing the campaign, as well, of
course, as to the able assistance of his staff, that the rebel forces
were promptly surrounded and captured and thus a death blow was struck
at what we may hope will prove to have been the last attempt at
revolution in Cuba.

No less remarkable than his energy in war was the President's
magnanimity in dealing with his vanquished enemies when peace had been
restored, though sometimes against the will of many of his foremost
advisers. He led the movement of opinion favorable to harmony and
reconciliation, which was finally confirmed by a law of congress
granting full amnesty to all civilians who participated in that ill
advised insurrection. Instead of using persecution, bitterness and
vindictive oppression against his enemies, President Menocal restored
good will through the Island by his magnanimous generosity and abundant
acts of grace.

We have already spoken of President Menocal's admirable course in
pointing out where the duty of his country lay in the great crisis of
the European war, and in confirming the traditional friendship between
Cuba and the United States by making the insular republic an ally of its
great northern neighbor in that world-wide conflict. His recommendation
of a declaration of war was immediately and unanimously adopted by the
Cuban Congress, and thereafter the policy of the republic, under his
direction, was one of close cooperation with the United States, and of
placing all the resources and energies of the Island at the disposal of
the Allied cause. It is worthy of record that the French Government
showed its appreciation, not only of his spirit and purpose but of his
actual achievements in the war, by conferring upon him the Grand Cross
of the Legion of Honor.

During these last few years the agricultural, industrial and economical
resources of Cuba have been developed to an extent hitherto unknown and
undreamed of in the history of the country. Industries have been
immensely stimulated, great new enterprises have been created, and an
expansion of foreign trade has been attained which makes Cuba in
proportion to its size the foremost commercial country of the world.

[Illustration: EUGENIO SANCHEZ AGRAMONTE

Bearing a name which has been identified with many high achievements in
medical and other science, Dr. Eugenio Sanchez Agramonte has added new
lustre to it by his own achievements for the health of humanity and for
the welfare of his fatherland. He was born in Camaguey on April 17,
1865, and had already attained enviable rank as a physician and
sanitarian when, still a young man, he entered the War of Independence.
His chief services were rendered as Director of the Sanitary Department
of the Army of Liberation, in which place he had the rank of General. He
was also Director of the great Casa de Beneficia. After the war he took
an active interest in civic affairs, and became the president of the
Conservative party. With the election of General Menocal to the
Presidency of the Cuban Republic, General Agramonte was elected
president of the Senate, which position he held until 1917, when
President Menocal appointed him Secretary of Agriculture, Commerce and
Labor.]

According to recent data the foreign trade of Cuba is $800,000,000.
Reckoning the population of the Island at about 2,700,000, that means a
foreign trade of more than $296 per capita. In the year immediately
preceding the outbreak of the European war, and before the great
disturbance of commerce caused by that conflict, the foreign trade of
the United States of America amounted to only $39 per capita, and even
that of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to only $170.

Before the enraptured vision of Columbus, Cuba baffled appreciation. To
the more discriminating vision of to-day, her future equally baffles
while it piques imagination. Louis Napoleon, meditating upon the
possibilities of an American Isthmian canal, once said:

"The geographical position of Constantinople rendered her the Queen of
the ancient world. Occupying, as she does, the central point between
Europe, Asia and Africa, she could become the entreport of the commerce
of all those countries, and obtain over them immense preponderance; for
in politics, as in strategy, a central position always commands the
circumference."

Then he pointed out the similarity of position of Nicaragua, where he
hoped to construct a canal, and argued that it similarly might obtain a
like status in the Western World. It needs little suggestion to point
out that Cuba fulfils those conditions in a supreme degree. It was not
vainly that Spaniards centuries ago called Havana the Key of the Gulf,
of the Caribbean, of the Indies, of the Western World. The position of
Cuba is unique and incomparable, with relation to the United States,
Mexico, Central America and South America, and the two enclosed seas
which form the Mediterranean of the American Continents. Of old the
treasure fleets of Spain passed by her coasts, and visited her harbors.
To-day she is similarly visited by the fleets which ply between North
America and South America, and between the Atlantic and the Pacific
oceans. Reckoned by routes of traffic on the charted seas, she is the
commercial centre of the world.

[Illustration: ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, HAVANA]

It is not with ambition for conquest or for political ascendancy that
Cuba exults in that proud position, but merely that she may in the
words of her President "show herself worthy of the favors which God has
lavished upon her," and make herself a joy unto herself and a
convenience and a benefaction to the peaceful world. It is into such an
estate that she has now found the sure way to enter, and is indeed
confidently and triumphantly entering, through achievements which,
though embraced in only half a dozen years, are worthy of a generation
of progress and are auspicious of immeasurable generations of progress
yet to come; achievements toward which her present Chief of State has
greatly and indispensably contributed.

The story of Cuba is from Velasquez to Menocal. That is the story which
we have tried to tell. But that is by no means the whole history of
Cuba. Even of that portion of it we have been able here to give only an
outline of the essential facts. But surely the span of four hundred and
seven years must not be reckoned as a finality. It is only the beginning
of the annals of a land and a people whose place among the nations of
the world in honorable perpetuity is now assured as far as it can be
assured by human purpose and achievement.

These pages are, then, in fact, merely the prologue to records of
progress and attainment which shall honor the name of Cuba and adorn the
story of the world, "far on, in summers that we shall not see."

From Velasquez to Menocal. The span is tremendous, in character as well
as in lapse of time. It is a span from the fanatical and ruthless
conqueror seeking only his own and his country's advantage, selfish and
sordid, to the broad-minded and altruistic statesman and philanthropist,
seeking the advantage and the advancement of his fellow men. It is a
span, in brief, from the Sixteenth Century age of force to the Twentieth
Century age of law.

Nevertheless, the span and the contrast involve a certain analogy. It
was the work of Velasquez, masterful man of vision that he was, to begin
the transformation of a land of aboriginal barbarians into at least a
semblance of civilization; the transformation from the primitive,
scarcely more than animal, existence of the Cuban autochthones, to the
strenuous if sophisticated life of Spain. It has been and is the work of
President Menocal and his accomplished and patriotic colleagues to
induct the land and people from the discredited remnants of a false
colonial system into the clearer light, the fuller life and the
immeasurably more spacious and elevated opportunities of a free and
independent people who "comprehend the responsibilities incumbent upon
the founders of nations."




INDEX


    Abarzuza, Sr. proposes reforms for Cuba, IV, 6.

    Abreu. Marta and Rosalie, patriotism of, IV, 25.

    Academy of Sciences, Havana, picture of, IV, 364.

    Adams, John Quincy, enunciates American policy toward Cuba, II, 258;
      portrait, 259;
      on Cuban annexation, 327.

    Aglona, Prince de. Governor, II, 363.

    Agramonte, Aristide, in yellow fever campaign, IV, 172.

    Agramonte, Enrique, in Cuban Junta, IV, 12.

    Agramonte, Eugenio Sanchez, sketch and portrait, IV, 362.

    Agramonte, Francisco, IV, 41.

    Agramonte, Ignacio, portrait, facing. III, 258.

    Agriculture, early attention to, I, 173, 224;
      progress, 234;
      II, 213;
      absentee landlords, 214;
      statistics, 223;
      discussed in periodicals, 250;
      rehabilitation of after War of Independence, IV, 147.

    Aguayo, Geronimo de, I, 161.

    Aguero, Joaquin de, organizes revolution, III, 72;
      final defeat, 87.

    Aguiar, Luis de, II, 60.

    Aguiera, Jose, I, 295.

    Aguila, Negra, II, 346.

    Aguilera, Francisco V., sketch and portrait, III, 173.

    Aguirre, Jose Maria, filibuster, IV, 55;
      death, 85.

    Albemarle, Earl of, expedition against Havana, II, 46;
      occupies Havana, 78;
      controversy with Bishop Morell, 83.

    Alcala, Marcos, I, 310.

    Aldama, Miguel de, sketch and portrait, III, 204.

    Aleman, Manuel, French emissary, II, 305.

    Algonquins, I, 7.

    Allen, Robert, on "Importance of Havana," II, 81.

    Almendares River, tapped for water supply, I, 266;
      view on, IV, 167.

    Almendariz, Alfonso Enrique, Bishop, I, 277.

    Alquiza, Sancho de, Governor, I, 277.

    Altamarino, Governor, I, 105;
      post mortem trial of Velasquez, 107;
      attacked by the Guzmans, 109;
      removed, 110.

    Altamirano, Juan C., Bishop, I, 273;
      seized by brigands, 274.

    Alvarado, Luis de, I, 147.

    Alvarado, Pedro de, in Mexico, I, 86.

    Amadeus, King of Spain, III, 260.

    America, relation of Cuba to, I, 1;
      II, 254. See UNITED STATES.

    American Revolution, effect of upon Spain and her colonies, II, 138.

    American Treaty, between Great Britain and Spain, I, 303.

    Andrea, Juan de, II, 9.

    Angulo, Francisco de, exiled, I, 193.

    Angulo, Gonzales Perez de, Governor, I, 161;
      emancipation proclamation, 163;
      quarrel with Havana Council, 181;
      flight from Sores, 186;
      end of administration, 192.

    Anners, Jean de Laet de, quoted, I, 353.

    Annexation of Cuba to United States, first suggested, II, 257, 326;
      campaign for, 380;
      sought by United States, III, 132, 135;
      Marcy's policy, 141;
      Ostend Manifesto, 142;
      Buchanan's efforts, 143;
      not considered in War of Independence, IV, 19.

    Antonelli, Juan Bautista, engineering works in Cuba, I, 261;
      creates water supply for Havana, 266.

    Apezteguia. Marquis de, Autonomist leader, IV, 94.

    Apodaca, Juan Ruiz, Governor, II, 311.

    Arana, Martin de, warns Prado of British approach, II, 53.

    Arana, Melchior Sarto de, commander of La Fuerza, I, 237.

    Arana, Pedro de, royal accountant, I, 238.

    Aranda, Esquival, I, 279.

    Arango, Augustin, murder of, III, 188.

    Arango, Napoleon, treason of, III, 226.

    Arango y Pareño, Francisco, portrait, frontispiece, Vol. II;
      organizes Society of Progress, II, 178;
      leadership in Cuba, 191;
      attitude toward slavery, 208;
      his illustrious career, 305 et seq.

    Aranguren, Nestor, revolutionist, IV, 85;
      death, 92.

    Araoz, Juan, II, 181.

    Arias, A. R., Governor, III, 314.

    Arias, Gomez, I, 145.

    Arignon, Villiet, quoted, II, 26, 94.

    Armona, José de, II, 108.

    Army, Cuban, organization of, III, 178;
      reorganized, 263;
      under Jose Miguel Gomez, IV, 301.

    Army, Spanish, in Cuba, III, 181, 295.

    Aroztegui, Martin de, II, 20.

    Arrate, José Martin Felix, historian, II, 17, 179.

    Arredondo, Nicolas, Governor at Santiago, II, 165.

    Asbert, Gen. Ernesto, amnesty case, IV, 326.

    "Assiento" compact on slavery, II, 2.

    Assumption, Our Lady of the, I, 61.

    Astor, John Jacob, aids War of Independence, IV, 14.

    Asylums for Insane, II, 317.

    Atares fortress, picture, II, 103.

    Atkins, John, book on West Indies, II, 36.

    Atrocities, committed by Spanish, III, 250;
      Cespedes's protest against, 254;
      "Book of Blood," 284;
      Spanish confession of, 286;
      war of destruction,
      295;
      Weyler's "concentration" policy, IV, 85.

    Attwood's Cay. See GUANAHANI.

    Autonomist party, III, 305;
      IV, 34;
      attitude toward Campos in War of Independence, 59;
      Cabinet under Blanco, 94;
      earnest efforts for peace, 101;
      record of its government, 102.

    Avellanda, Gertrudis Gomez de, III, 331;
      portrait, facing, 332.

    Avila, Alfonso de, I, 154.

    Avila, Juan de, Governor, I, 151;
      marries rich widow, 154;
      charges against him, 157;
      convicted and imprisoned, 158.

    Avila. See DAVILA.

    Aviles, Pedro Menendez de, See MENENDEZ.

    Ayala, Francisco P. de, I, 291.

    Ayilon, Lucas V. de, strives to make peace between Velasquez
      and Cortez, I, 98.

    Azcarata, José Luis, Secretary of Justice, sketch and portrait,
      IV, 341.

    Azcarate, Nicolas, sketch and portrait, III, 251, 332.

    Azcarraga, Gen., Spanish Premier, IV, 88.


    "Barbeque" sought by Columbus, I, 18.

    Bachiller, Antonio, sketch and portrait, III, 317.

    Bacon, Robert, Assistant Secretary of State of U. S., intervenes
      in revolution, IV, 272.

    Bahia Honda, selected as U. S. naval station, IV, 256.

    Balboa, Vasco Nuñez de, I, 55, 91.

    Bancroft, George, quoted, I, 269;
      II, 1, 24, 41, 117, 120, 159.

    Banderas, Quintin, revolutionist, IV, 34;
      raid, 57;
      death, 84.

    Baracoa, Columbus at, I, 18;
      Velasquez at, 60;
      picture, 60;
      first capital of Cuba, 61, 168.

    Barreda, Baltazar, I, 201.

    Barreiro, Juan Bautista, Secretary of Education, IV, 160.

    Barrieres, Manuel Garcia, II, 165.

    Barrionuevo, Juan Maldonado, Governor, I, 263.

    Barsicourt, Juan Procopio. See SANTA CLARA, Conde.

    Bayamo, founded by Velasquez, I, 68, 168;
      Cuban Republic organized there, III, 157.

    Bayoa, Pedro de, I, 300.

    Bay of Cortez, reached by Columbus, I, 25.

    Bees, introduced by Bishop Morell, II, 104;
      increase of industry, 132.

    "Beggars of the Sea," raid Cuban coasts, I, 208.

    Bells, church, controversy over, II, 82.

    Bembrilla, Alonzo, I, 111.

    Benavides, Juan de, I, 280.

    Berrea, Esteban S. de, II, 6.

    Betancourt, Pedro, Civil Governor of Matanzas, IV, 179;
      loyal to Palma, 271.

    Betancourt. See CISNEROS.

    "Bimini," Island of, I, 139.

    Bishops of Roman Catholic Church in Cuba, I, 122.

    "Black Eagle," II, 346.

    _Black Warrior_ affair, III, 138.

    Blanchet, Emilio, historian, quoted, II, 9, 15, 24;
      on siege of Havana, 57, 87.

    Blanco, Ramon, Governor, IV, 88;
      undertakes reforms, 89;
      plans Cuban autonomy, 93;
      on destruction of _Maine_, 99;
      resigns, 121.

    Blue, Victor, observations at Santiago, IV, 110.

    Bobadilla, F. de, I, 54.

    Boca de la Yana, I, 18.

    "Bohio" sought by Columbus, I, 18.

    Bolivar, Simon, II, 333;
      portrait, 334;
      "Liberator," 334 et seq.;
      influence on Cuba, 341;
      "Soles de Bolivar," 341.

    Bonel, Juan Bautista, II, 133.

    "Book of Blood," III, 284.

    Bourne, Edward Gaylord, quoted, on slavery, II, 209;
      on Spanish in America, 226.

    Brinas, Felipe, III, 330.

    British policy toward Spain and Cuba, I, 270;
      aggressions in West Indies, 293;
      slave trade, II, 2;
      war of 1639, 22;
      designs upon Cuba, 41;
      expedition against Havana, 1762, 46;
      conquest of Cuba, 78;
      relinquishment to Spain, 92. See GREAT BRITAIN.

    Broa Bay, I, 22.

    Brooke, Gen. John R., receives Spanish surrender of Cuba, IV, 122;
      proclamation to Cuban people, 145;
      retired, 157.

    Brooks, Henry, revolutionist, IV, 30.

    Buccaneers, origin of, I, 269.

    Buccarelli, Antonio Maria, Governor, II, 110;
      retires, 115.

    Buchanan, James, on U. S. relations to Cuba, II, 263;
      III, 135;
      Minister to Great Britain, 142;
      as President seeks annexation of Cuba to U. S., 143.

    Bull-fighting, II, 233.

    Burgos, Juan de, Bishop, I, 225.

    Burtnett, Spanish spy against Lopez, III, 65.

    Bustamente, Antonio Sanchez de, jurist, sketch and portrait, IV, 165.


    Caballero, José Agustin, sketch and portrait, III, 321.

    Caballo, Domingo, II, 173.

    Cabanas, defences constructed, II, 58;
      Laurel Ditch, view, facing, 58.

    Caballero, Diego de, I, 111.

    Cabezas, Bishop, I, 277.

    Cabrera, Diego de, I, 206.

    Cabrera, Luis, I, 198.

    Cabrera, Lorenzo de, Governor, I, 279;
      removed, 282.

    Cabrera, Rafael, filibuster, IV, 70.

    Cabrera, Raimundo, conspirator in New York, IV, 334;
      warned, 339.

    Cadreyta, Marquis de, I, 279.

    Cagigal, Juan Manuel de, Governor, II, 154;
      defence of Havana, 155;
      removed and imprisoned, 157.

    Cagigal, Juan Manuel, Governor, II, 313;
      successful administration, 315.

    Cagigal de la Vega, Francisco, defends Santiago, II, 29;
      Governor, 32;
      Viceroy of Mexico, 34.

    Caguax, Cuban chief, I, 63.

    Calderon, Gabriel, Bishop, I, 315.

    Calderon, Garcia, quoted, II, 164, 172.

    Calderon de la Barca, Spanish Minister,
      on _La Verdad_, III, 19;
      on colonial status, 21;
      negotiations with Soulé, 140.

    Calhoun, John C., on Cuba, III, 132.

    Calleja y Isisi, Emilio, Governor, III, 313;
      proclaims martial law, IV, 30;
      resigns, 35.

    Camaguey. See PUERTO PRINCIPE, I, 168.

    Campbell, John, description of Havana, II, 14.

    Campillo, Jose de, II, 19.

    Campos, Martinez de, Governor, III, 296;
      proclamations to Cuba, 297, 299;
      makes Treaty of Zanjon and ends Ten Years War, 299;
      in Spanish crisis, IV, 36;
      Governor again, 37;
      establishes Trocha, 44;
      defeated by Maceo, 46;
      conferences with party leaders, 59, 63;
      removed, 63.

    Cancio, Leopoldo, Secretary of Treasury, IV, 161, 320.

    Canizares, Santiago J., Minister of Interior, IV, 48.

    Canning, George, policy toward Cuba, II, 257;
      portrait, 258.

    Canoe, of Cuban origin, I, 10.

    Canon, Rodrigo, I, 111.

    Canovas del Castillo, Spanish Premier, IV, 36;
      assassinated, 88.

    Cape Cruz, Columbus at, I, 20.

    Cape Maysi, I, 4.

    Cape of Palms, I, 17.

    Capote, Domingo Menendez. Vice-President, IV, 90;
      Secretary of State, 146;
      President of Constitutional Convention. 189.

    Carajaval, Lucas, defies Dutch, I, 290.

    Cardenas, Lopez lands at, III, 49.

    Caribs, I, 8.

    Carillo, Francisco, filibuster, IV, 55.

    Carleton, Sir Guy, at Havana, II, 47.

    Carranza, Domingo Gonzales, book on West Indies, II, 37.

    Carrascesa, Alfonso, II, 6.

    Carreño, Francisco, Governor, I, 219;
      conditions at his accession, 228;
      dies in office, 229;
      work in rebuilding Havana, 231.

    Carroll, James, in yellow fever campaign, IV, 172.

    Casa de Beneficienca, founded, I, 335;
      II, 177.

    Casa de Resorgiamento, founded, II, 31.

    Casares, Alfonso, codifies municipal ordinances, I, 207.

    Castellanos, Jovellar, last Spanish Governor of Cuba, IV, 121;
      surrenders Spanish sovereignty, 123.

    Castillo, Demetrio, Civil Governor of Oriente, IV, 180.

    Castillo, Ignacio Maria del, Governor, III, 314.

    Castillo, Loinaz, revolutionist. IV, 269.

    Castillo, Pedro del, Bishop, I, 226.

    Castro, Hernando de, royal treasurer, I, 115.

    Cathcart Lord, expedition to West Indies, II, 28.

    Cathedral of Havana, picture, facing I, 36;
      begun, I, 310.

    Cat Island. See GUANAHANI.

    Cayo, San Juan de los Remedios del, removal of, I, 319.

    Cazones, Gulf of, I, 21.

    Cemi, Cuban worship of, I, 55.

    Census, of Cuba, first taken, by Torre, II, 131;
      by Las Casas, 176;
      of slaves, 205;
      of 1775, 276;
      of 1791, 277;
      Humboldt on, 277;
      of 1811, 280;
      of 1817, 281;
      of 1827, 283;
      of 1846, 283;
      of 1899, IV, 154;
      of 1907, 287.

    Cespedes, Carlos Manuel, III, 157;
      portrait, facing 158;
      in Spain, 158;
      leads Cuban revolution, 158;
      President of Republic, 158;
      proclamation, 168;
      negotiations with Spain, 187;
      removed from office, 275.

    Cespedes, Carlos Manuel, filibuster, IV, 55.

    Cespedes, Enrique, revolutionist, IV, 30.

    Cervera, Admiral, brings Spanish fleet to Cuba, IV, 110;
      portrait, 110;
      surrenders, 114.

    Chacon, José Bayoma, II, 13.

    Chacon, Luis, I, 331, 333.

    Chalons, Sr., Secretary of Public Works, IV, 297.

    Chamber of Commerce founded, II, 307.

    Charles I, King, I, 74;
      denounces oppression of Indians, 128.

    Chaves, Antonio, Governor, I, 157;
      prosecutes Avila, 157;
      ruthless policy toward natives, 159;
      controversy with King, 160;
      dismissed from office, 161.

    Chaves, Juan Baton de, I, 331.

    Chilton, John, describes Havana, I, 349.

    Chinchilla, José, Governor, III, 314.

    Chinese, colonies in America, I, 7;
      laborers imported into Cuba, II, 295.

    Chorrera, expected to be Drake's landing place, I, 248.

    Chorrera River, dam built by Antonelli, I, 262.

    Christianity, introduced into Cuba by Ojeda, I, 55;
      urged by King Ferdinand, 73.

    Church, Roman Catholic, organized and influential in Cuba, I, 122;
      cathedral removed from Baracoa to Santiago, 123;
      conflict with civil power, 227;
      controversy with British during British occupation, II, 84;
      division of island into two dioceses, 173;
      attitude toward War of Independence, IV, 26;
      controversy over property, 294.

    Cienfuegos, José, Governor, II, 311.

    Cimmarones, "wild Indians," I, 126;
      revolt against De Soto, 148.

    Cipango, Cuba identified with, by Columbus, I, 5.

    Cisneros, Gaspar Betancourt, sketch and portrait, II, 379.

    Cisneros, Pascal Jiminez de, II, 110, 127.

    Cisneros, Salvador, III, 167;
      sketch and portrait, 276;
      President of Cuban Republic, 277;
      President of Council of Ministers, IV, 48;
      in Constitutional Convention, 190.

    Civil Service, law, IV, 325;
      respected by President Menocal, 325.

    Clay, Henry, policy toward Cuba, II, 261.

    Clayton, John M., U. S. Secretary of State, issues proclamation
      against filibustering, III, 42.

    Cleaveland, Samuel, controversy over church bells, II, 83.

    Cleveland, Grover. President of United States, issues warning against
      breaches of neutrality, IV, 70;
      reference to Cuba
      in message of 1896, 79;
      its significance, 80.

    Coat of Arms of Cuba, picture, IV, 251;
      significance, 251.

    Cobre, copper mines, I, 173, 259.

    "Cockfighting and Idleness" campaign, IV, 291.

    Coffee, cultivation begun, II, 33, 113.

    Coinage, reformed, II, 142;
      statistics of, 158.

    Collazo, Enrique, filibuster, IV, 55.

    Coloma, Antonio Lopez, revolutionist, IV, 30.

    Colombia, designs upon Cuba, II, 262;
      III, 134;
      attitude toward Cuban revolution, 223.

    Columbus, Bartholomew, recalled to Spain, I, 57.

    Columbus, Christopher, portrait, frontispiece, Vol. I;
      discoverer of America, I;
      i;
      first landing in America, 2;
      monument on Watling's Island, picture, 3;
      arrival in Cuba, 11;
      question as to first landing place, 12;
      first impressions of Cuba and intercourse with natives, 14;
      exploration of north coast, 16;
      end of first visit, 18;
      second visit, 19;
      exploration of south coast, 21;
      at Bay of Cortez, 25;
      turns back from circumnavigation, 26;
      at Isle of Pines, 26;
      final departure from Cuba, 27;
      diary and narrative, 28 et seq.;
      death and burial, 33;
      tomb in Havana cathedral, 34;
      removal to Seville, 36;
      removal from Santo Domingo to Havana, II, 181;
      epitaph, 182.

    Columbus, Diego, plans exploration and colonization of Cuba, I, 57;
      attempts mediation between Velasquez and Cortez, 97;
      replaces Velasquez with Zuazo, 100;
      rebuked by King, 100.

    Comendador, Cacique, I, 55.

    Commerce, begun by Velasquez, I, 68;
      rise of corporations, II, 19;
      after British occupation, 98;
      under Torre, 132;
      reduction of duties, 141;
      extension of trade, 163;
      Tribunal of Commerce founded, 177;
      Real Compania de Havana, 199;
      restrictive measures, 200;
      Chamber of Commerce founded, 307;
      commerce with United States, III, 2;
      during American occupation, IV, 184;
      present, 358.

    Compostela, Diego E. de, Bishop, I, 318;
      death, 332.

    Concepcion, Columbus's landing place, I, 3.

    Concessions, forbidden under American occupation, IV, 153.

    Concha, José Gutierrez de la, Governor, III, 62, 290.

    Conchillos, royal secretary, I, 59.

    Congress, Cuban, welcomed by Gen. Wood, IV, 246;
      turns against Palma, 269;
      friendly to Gomez, 303;
      hostile to Menocal, 323;
      protects the lottery, 324.

    Constitution: Cuban Republic of 1868, III, 157;
      of 1895, IV, 47;
      call for Constitutional Convention, 185;
      meeting of Convention, 187;
      draft completed, 192;
      salient provisions, 193;
      Elihu Root's comments, 194;
      Convention discusses relations with United States, 197;
      Platt
      Amendment, 199;
      amendment adopted, 203;
      text of Constitution, 304 et seq.;
      The Nation, 205;
      Cubans, 205;
      Foreigners, 207;
      Individual Rights, 208;
      Suffrage, 211;
      Suspension of Guarantees, 212;
      Sovereignty, 213;
      Legislative Bodies, 214;
      Senate, 214;
      House of Representatives, 216;
      Congress, 218;
      Legislation, 221;
      Executive, 222;
      President, 222;
      Vice-President, 225;
      Secretaries of State, 226;
      Judiciary, 227;
      Supreme Court, 227;
      Administration of Justice, 228;
      Provincial Governments, 229;
      Provincial Councils, 230;
      Provincial Governors, 231;
      Municipal Government, 233;
      Municipal Councils, 233;
      Mayors, 235;
      National Treasury, 235;
      Amendments, 236;
      Transient Provisions, 237;
      Appendix (Platt Amendment), 238.

    "Constitutional Army," IV, 268.

    Contreras, Andres Manso de, I, 288.

    Contreras, Damien, I, 278.

    Convents, founded, I, 276;
      Nuns of Santa Clara, 286.

    Conyedo, Juan de, Bishop, II, 35.

    Copper, discovered near Santiago, I, 173;
      wealth of mines, 259;
      reopened, II, 13;
      exports, III, 3.

    Corbalon, Francisco R., I, 286.

    Cordova de Vega, Diego de, Governor, I, 239.

    Cordova, Francisco H., expedition to Yucatan, I, 84.

    Cordova Ponce de Leon, José Fernandez, Governor, I, 316.

    Coreal, Francois, account of West Indies, quoted, I, 355.

    Coronado, Manuel, gift for air planes, IV, 352.

    Cortes, Spanish, Cuban representation in, II, 308;
      excluded, 351;
      lack of representation, III, 3;
      after Ten Years' War, 307.

    Cortez, Hernando, Alcalde of Santiago de Cuba, I, 72;
      sent to Mexico by King, 74;
      agent of Velasquez, 86;
      early career, 90;
      portrait, 90;
      quarrel with Velasquez, 91;
      marriage, 92;
      commissioned by Velasquez to explore Mexico, 92;
      sails for Mexico, 94;
      final breach with Velasquez, 96;
      denounced as rebel, 97;
      escapes murder, 99.

    Cosa, Juan de la, geographer, I, 6, 53.

    Councillors, appointed for life, I, 111;
      conflict with Procurators, 113.

    Creoles, origin of name, II, 204.

    Crittenden, J. J., protests against European intervention in Cuba,
      III, 129.

    Crittenden, William S., with Lopez, III, 96;
      captured, 101;
      death, 105.

    Crombet, Flor, revolutionist, IV, 41, 42.

    Crooked Island. See ISABELLA.

    Crowder, Gen. Enoch H., head of Consulting Board, IV, 284.

    Cuba: Relation to America, I, 1;
      Columbus's first landing, 3;
      identified with Mangi or Cathay, 4;
      with Cipango, 5;
      earliest maps, 6;
      physical history, 7, 37 et seq.;
      Columbus's discovery, 11 et seq.;
      named Juana, 13;
      other names, 14;
      Columbus's account of, 28;
      geological history, 37-42;
      topography, 42-51;
      climate, 51-52;
      first circumnavigation, 54;
      colonization, 54;
      Velasquez at Baracoa, 60;
      commerce begun, 68;
      government organized, 69;
      named Ferdinandina, 73;
      policy of Spain toward, 175;
      slow economic progress, 215;
      land legislation, 232;
      Spanish discrimination against, 266;
      divided into two districts, 275;
      British description in 1665, 306;
      various accounts, 346;
      turning point in history, 363;
      close of first era, 366;
      British conquest, II, 78;
      relinquished to Spain, 92;
      great changes effected, 94;
      economic condition, 98;
      reoccupied by Spain, 102;
      untouched by early revolutions, 165;
      effect of revolution in Santo Domingo, 190;
      first suggestion of annexation to United States, 257;
      "Ever Faithful Isle," 268;
      rise of independence, 268;
      censuses, 276 et seq.;
      representation in Cortes, 308;
      "Soles de Bolivar," 341;
      representatives rejected from Cortes, 351;
      transformation of popular spirit, 383;
      independence proclaimed, III, 145;
      Republic organized, 157;
      War of Independence, IV, 15;
      Spanish elections held during war, 67;
      Blanco's plan of autonomy, 93;
      sovereignty surrendered by Spain, 123;
      list of Spanish Governors, 123. See REPUBLIC OF CUBA.

    Cuban Aborigines;
      I, 8;
      manners, customs and religion, 8 et seq.;
      Columbus's first intercourse, 15, 24;
      priest's address to Columbus, 26;
      Columbus's observations of them, 29;
      hostilities begun by Velasquez, 61;
      subjected to Repartimiento system, 70;
      practical slavery, 71;
      Key Indians, 125;
      Cimmarones, 126;
      new laws in their favor, 129;
      Rojas's endeavor to save them, 130;
      final doom, 133;
      efforts at reform, 153;
      oppression by Chaves, 159;
      Angulo's emancipation proclamation, 163.

    "Cuba-nacan," I, 5.

    "Cuba and the Cubans," quoted, II, 313.

    "Cuba y Su Gobierno," quoted, II, 354.

    Cuellar, Cristobal de, royal accountant, I, 59.

    Cushing, Caleb, Minister to Spain, III, 291.

    Custom House, first at Havana, I, 231.


    Dady, Michael J., & Co., contract dispute, IV, 169.

    Davila, Pedrarias, I, 140.

    Davis, Jefferson, declines to join Lopez, III, 38.

    Del Casal, Julian, sketch and portrait, IV, 6.

    Del Cueta, José A., President of Supreme Court, portrait, IV, 359.

    Delgado, Moru, Liberal leader, IV, 267.

    Del Monte, Domingo, sketch, portrait, and work, II, 323.

    Del Monte, Ricardo, sketch and portrait, IV, 2.

    Demobilization of Cuban army, IV, 135.

    Desvernine, Pablo, Secretary of Finance, IV, 146.

    Diaz, Bernal, at Sancti Spiritus, I, 72;
      in Mexico, 86.

    Diaz, Manuel, I, 239.

    Diaz, Manuel Luciano, Secretary of Public Works, IV, 254.

    Diaz, Modeste, III, 263.

    Divino, Sr., Secretary of Justice, IV, 297.

    Dockyard at Havana, established, II, 8.

    Dolz, Eduardo, in Autonomist Cabinet, IV, 96.

    Dominguez, Fermin V., Assistant Secretary of Foreign Affairs, IV, 50.

    Dorst, J. H., mission to Pinar del Rio, IV, 107.

    "Dragado" deal, IV, 310.

    Drake, Sir Francis, menaces Havana, I, 243;
      in Hispaniola, 246;
      leaves Havana unassailed, 252;
      departs for Virginia, 255.

    Duany, Joaquin Castillo, in Cuban Junta, IV, 12;
      Assistant Secretary of Treasury, 50;
      filibuster, 70.

    Dubois, Carlos, Assistant Secretary of Interior, IV, 50.

    Duero, Andres de, I, 93, 115.

    Dulce y Garay, Domingo, Governor, III, 190, 194;
      decree of confiscation, 209;
      recalled, 213.

    Dupuy de Lome, Sr., Spanish Minister at Washington, IV, 40;
      writes offensive letter, 98;
      recalled, 98.

    Duque, Sr., Secretary of Sanitation and Charity, IV, 297.

    Durango, Bishop, I, 225.

    Dutch hostilities, I, 208, 279;
      activities in West Indies, 283 et seq.


    Earthquakes, in 1765, I, 315;
      II, 114.

    Echeverria, Esteban B., Superintendent of Schools, IV, 162.

    Echeverria, José, Bishop, II, 113.

    Echeverria, José Antonio, III, 324.

    Echeverria, Juan Maria, Governor, II, 312.

    Education, backward state of, II, 244;
      progress under American occupation, IV, 156;
      A. E. Frye, Superintendent, 156;
      reorganization of system, 162;
      Harvard University's entertainment of teachers, 163;
      achievements under President Menocal, 357.

    Elections: for municipal officers under American occupation, IV, 180;
      law for regulation of, 180;
      result, 181;
      for Constitutional Convention, 186;
      for general officers, 240;
      result, 244;
      Presidential, 1906, 265;
      new law, 287;
      local elections under Second Intervention, 289;
      Presidential, 290;
      for Congress in 1908, 303;
      Presidential, 1912, 309;
      Presidential, 1916, disputed, 330, result confirmed, 341.

    Enciso, Martin F. de, first Spanish writer about America, I, 54.

    Epidemics: putrid fever, 1649, I, 290;
      vaccination introduced, II, 192;
      small pox and yellow fever, III, 313;
      at Santiago, IV, 142;
      Gen. Wood applies Dr. Finlay's theory of yellow fever, 171;
      success, 176;
      malaria, 177.

    Escudero, Antonio, de, II, 10.

    Espada, Juan José Diaz, portrait, facing II, 272.

    Espagnola. See HISPANIOLA.

    Espeleta, Joaquin de, Governor, II, 362.

    Espinosa, Alonzo de Campos, Governor, I, 316.

    Espoleto, José de, Governor, II, 169.

    Estenoz, Negro insurgent, IV, 307.

    Estevez, Luis, Secretary of Justice, IV, 160;
      Vice-President, 245.

    Evangelista. See ISLE OF PINES.

    Everett, Edward, policy toward Cuba, III, 130.

    "Ever Faithful Isle," II, 268, 304.

    Exquemeling, Alexander, author and pirate, I, 302.


    "Family Pact," of Bourbons, effect upon Cuba, II, 42.

    Felin, Antonio, Bishop, II, 172.

    Fels, Cornelius, defeated by Spanish, I, 288.

    Ferdinand, King, policy toward Cuba, I, 56;
      esteem for Velasquez, 73.

    Ferdinandina, Columbus's landing place, I, 3;
      name for Cuba, 73.

    Ferrara, Orestes, Liberal leader, IV, 260;
      revolutionist, 269;
      deprecates factional strife, 306;
      revolutionary conspirator in New York, 334;
      warned by U. S. Government, I, 239.

    Ferrer, Juan de, commander of La Fuerza, I, 239.

    Figueroa, Vasco Porcallo de, I, 72;
      De Soto's lieutenant, 142;
      returns from Florida in disgust, 145.

    Figuerosa, Rojas de, captures Tortuga, I, 292.

    Filarmonia, riot at ball, III, 119.

    Filibustering, proclamation of United States against, III, 42;
      after Ten Years' War, 311, in War of Independence, IV, 20;
      expeditions intercepted, 52;
      many successful expeditions, 69;
      warnings, 70.

    Fine Arts, II, 240.

    Finlay, Carlos G., theory of yellow fever successfully applied
      under General Wood, IV, 171;
      portrait, facing, 172.

    Fish, Hamilton, U. S. Secretary of State, prevents premature
      recognition of Cuban Republic, III, 203;
      protests against Rodas's decree, 216;
      on losses in Ten Years' War, 290;
      seeks British support, 292;
      states terms of proposed mediation, 293.

    Fish market at Havana, founder for pirate, II, 357.

    Fiske, John, historian, quoted, I, 270.

    Flag, Cuban, first raised, III, 31;
      replaces American, IV, 249;
      picture, 250;
      history and significance, 250.

    Flores y Aldama, Rodrigo de, Governor, I, 301.

    Florida, attempted colonization by Ponce de Leon, I, 139;
      De Soto's expedition, 145. See MENENDEZ.

    Fonseca, Juan Rodriguez de, Bishop of Seville, I, 59.

    Fonts-Sterling, Ernesto, Secretary of Finance, IV, 90;
      urges resistance to revolution, 270.

    Fornaris, José, III, 230.

    Forestry, attention paid by Montalvo, I, 223;
      efforts to check waste, II, 166.

    Foyo, Sr., Secretary of Agriculture, Commerce and Labor, IV, 297.

    France, first foe of Spanish in Cuba, I, 177;
      "Family Pact," II, 42;
      interest in Cuban revolution, III, 126.

    Franquinay, pirate, at Santiago, I, 310.

    French refugees, in Cuba, II, 189;
      expelled, 302.

    French Revolution, effects of, II, 184.

    Freyre y Andrade, Fernando, filibuster,
      IV, 70;
      negotiations with Pino Guerra, 267.

    Frye, Alexis, Superintendent of Schools, IV, 156;
      controversy with General Wood, 162.

    Fuerza, La: picture, facing I, 146;
      building begun by De Soto, I, 147;
      scene of Lady Isabel's tragic vigil, 147, 179;
      planned and built by Sanchez, 194;
      work by Menendez, and Ribera, 209;
      slave labor sought, 211;
      bad construction, 222;
      Montalvo's recommendations, 223;
      Luzan-Arana quarrel, 237;
      practical completion, 240;
      decorated by Cagigal, II, 33.


    Galvano, Antony, historian, quoted, I, 4.

    Galvez, Bernardo, seeks Cuban aid for Pensacola, II, 146;
      Governor, 168;
      death, 170.

    Galvez, José Maria, head of Autonomist Cabinet, IV, 95.

    Garaondo, José, I, 317.

    Garay, Francisco de, Governor of Jamaica, I, 102.

    Garcia, Calixto, portrait, facing III, 268;
      President of Cuban Republic, III, 301;
      joins War of Independence, IV, 69;
      his notable career, 76 et seq.;
      joins with Shafter at Santiago, 111;
      death, 241.

    Garcia, Carlos, revolutionist, IV, 269.

    Garcia, Esequiel, Secretary of Education, IV, 320.

    Garcia, Marcos, IV, 44.

    Garcia, Quintiliano, III, 329.

    Garvey, José N. P., II, 222.

    Gastaneta, Antonio, II, 9.

    Gelder, Francisco, Governor, I, 292.

    Gener y Rincon, Miguel, Secretary of Justice, IV, 161.

    Geraldini, Felipe, I, 310.

    Germany, malicious course of in 1898, IV, 104;
      Cuba declares war against, 348;
      property in Cuba seized, 349;
      aid to Gomez, 350.

    Gibson. Hugh S., U. S. Chargé d'Affaires, assaulted, IV, 308.

    Giron. Garcia, Governor, I, 279.

    Godoy, Captain, arrested at Santiago, and put to death, I, 203.

    Godoy, Manuel, II, 172.

    Goicouria, Domingo, sketch and portrait, III, 234.

    Gold, Columbus's quest for, I, 19;
      Velasquez's search, 61;
      the "Spaniards' God," 62;
      early mining, 81;
      value of mines, 173.

    Gomez, José Antonio, II, 18.

    Gomez, José Miguel, Civil Governor of Santa Clara, IV, 179;
      aspires to Presidency, 260, 264;
      turns from Conservative to Liberal party, 265;
      compact with Zayas, 265;
      starts revolution, 269;
      elected President, 290;
      becomes President, 297;
      Cabinet, 297;
      sketch and portrait, 298;
      acts of his administration, 301;
      charged with corruption, 304;
      conflict with Veterans' Association, 304;
      quarrel with Zayas, 306;
      suppresses Negro revolt, 307;
      amnesty bill, 309;
      National Lottery, 310;
      "Dragado" deal, 310;
      railroad deal, 310;
      estimate of his administration, 311;
      double treason in 1916, 332;
      defeated and captured, 337;
      his orders for devastation, 337;
      aided by Germany, 350.

    Gomez, Juan Gualberto, revolutionist, IV, 30;
      captured and imprisoned, 52;
      insurgent, 269.

    Gomez, Maximo, III, 264;
      succeeds Gen. Agramonte, 275;
      makes Treaty of Zanjon with Campos, 299;
      in War of Independence, IV, 15;
      commander in chief, 16, 43;
      portrait, facing 44;
      plans great campaign of war, 53;
      controversy with Lacret, 84;
      opposed to American invasion, 109;
      appeals to Cubans to accept American occupation, 136;
      impeachment by National Assembly ignored, 137;
      influence during Government of Intervention, 149;
      considered by Constitutional Convention, 191;
      proposed for Presidency, 240;
      declines, 241.

    Gonzalez, Aurelia Castillo de, author, sketch and portrait, IV, 192.

    Gonzales, William E., U. S. Minister to Cuba, IV, 335;
      watches Gomez's insurrection, 336.

    Gorgas, William C., work for sanitation, IV, 175.

    Government of Cuba: organized by Velasquez, I, 69;
      developed at Santiago, 81;
      radical changes made, 111;
      revolution in political status of island, 138;
      codification of ordinances, 207;
      Ordinances of 1542, 317;
      land tenure, II, 12;
      reforms by Governor Guemez, 17;
      reorganization after British occupation, 104;
      great reforms by Torre, 132;
      budget and tax reforms, 197;
      authority of Captain-General, III, 11;
      administrative and judicial functions, 13 et seq.;
      military and naval command, 16;
      attempted reforms, 63;
      concessions after Ten Years' War, 310.

    Governors of Cuba, Spanish, list of, IV, 123.

    Govin, Antonio, in Autonomist Cabinet, IV, 95;
      sketch and portrait, 95.

    Grammont, buccaneer, I, 311.

    Gran Caico, I, 4.

    Grand Turk Island. See GUANAHANI.

    Grant, U. S., President of United States, III, 200;
      inclined to recognize Cuban Republic, 202;
      prevented by his Secretary of State, 203;
      comments in messages, 205, 292.

    Great Britain, interest in Cuban revolution, III, 125;
      protection sought by Spain, 129;
      declines cooperation with United States, 294;
      requires return of fugitives, 310.

    Great Exuma. See FERDINANDINA.

    Great Inagua, I, 4.

    Great War, Cuba enters, IV, 348;
      offers 10,000 troops, 348;
      German intrigues and propaganda, 349;
      attitude of Roman Catholic clergy, 349;
      ships seized, 350;
      cooperation with Food Commission, 351;
      military activities, 352;
      liberal subscriptions to loans, 352;
      Red Cross work, 352;
      Señora Menocal's inspiring leadership, 353.

    Grijalva, Juan de, I, 65;
      expedition to Mexico, 66;
      names Mexico New Spain, 97;
      unjustly recalled and discredited, 88.

    Guajaba Island, I, 18.

    Guama, Cimmarron chief, I, 127.

    Guanabacoa founded, II, 21.

    Guanahani, Columbus's landing place, I, 2.

    Guanajes Islands, source of slave trade, I, 83.

    Guantanamo, Columbus at, I, 19;
      U. S. Naval Station, IV, 256.

    Guardia, Cristobal de la, Secretary of Justice, IV, 320.

    Guazo, Gregorio, de la Vega, Governor, I, 340;
      stops tobacco war, 341;
      warnings to Great Britain and France, 342;
      military activity and efficiency, II, 5.

    Guemez y Horcasitas, Juan F., Governor, II, 17;
      reforms, 17;
      close of administration, 26.

    Guerra, Amador, revolutionist, IV, 30.

    Guerra, Benjamin, treasurer of Junta, IV, 3.

    Guerro, Pino, starts insurrection, IV, 267, 269;
      commander of Cuban army, 301;
      attempt to assassinate him, 303.

    Guevara, Francisco, III, 265.

    Guiteras, Juan, physician and scientist, sketch and portrait, IV, 321.

    Guiteras, Pedro J., quoted, I, 269;
      II, 6;
      42;
      207.

    Guzman, Gonzalez de, mission from Velasquez to King Charles I, I, 85;
      vindicates Velasquez, 108;
      Governor of Cuba, 110;
      marries rich sister-in-law, 116;
      litigation over estate, 117;
      tremendous indictment by Vadillo, 120;
      appeals to King and Council for Indies, 120;
      seeks to oppress natives, 128;
      second time Governor, 137;
      makes more trouble, 148;
      trouble with French privateers, 178.

    Guzman, Nuñez de, royal treasurer, I, 109;
      death and fortune, 115.

    Guzman, Santos, spokesman of Constitutionalists, IV, 59.


    Hammock, of Cuban origin, I, 10.

    Hanebanilla, falls of, view, facing III, 110.

    Harponville, Viscount Gustave, quoted, II, 189.

    Harvard University, entertains Cuban teachers, IV, 163.

    Hatuey, Cuban chief, leader against Spaniards, I, 62;
      death, 63.

    Havana: founded by Narvaez, I, 69;
      De Soto's home and capital, 144;
      rise in importance, 166;
      Governor's permanent residence, 180;
      inadequate defences, 183;
      captured by Sores, 186;
      protected by Mazariegos, 194;
      sea wall proposed by Osorio, 202;
      fortified by Menendez, 209;
      "Key of the New World," 210;
      commercial metropolis of West Indies, 216;
      first hospital founded, 226;
      San Francisco church, picture, facing 226;
      building in Carreño's time, 231;
      custom house, 231;
      threatened by Drake, 243;
      preparations for defence, 250;
      officially called "city," 262;
      coat of arms, 202;
      primitive conditions, 264;
      first theatrical performance, 264;
      capital of western district, 275;
      great fire, 277;
      attacked by Pit Hein, 280;
      described by John Chilton, 349;
      first dockyard established, II, 8;
      attacked by British under Admiral
      Hosier, 9;
      University founded, 11;
      described by John Campbell, 14;
      British expedition against in 1762, 46;
      journal of siege, 54;
      American troops engaged, 66;
      surrender, 69;
      terms, 71;
      British occupation, 78;
      great changes, 94;
      description, 94;
      view from Cabanas, facing, 96;
      reoccupied by Spanish, 102;
      hurricane, 115;
      improvements in streets and buildings, 129;
      view in Old Havana, facing 130;
      street cleaning, and market, 169;
      slaughter house removed, 194;
      shopping, 242;
      cafés, 243;
      Tacon's public works, 365;
      view of old Presidential Palace, facing III, 14;
      view of the Prado, facing IV, 16;
      besieged in War of Independence, 62;
      view of bay and harbor, facing, 98;
      old City Wall, picture, 122;
      view of old and new buildings, facing 134;
      General Ludlow's administration, 146;
      Police reorganized, 150;
      view of University, facing 164;
      view of the new capitol, facing 204;
      view of the President's home, facing 268;
      view of the Academy of Arts and Crafts, facing 288;
      new railroad terminal, 311.

    Hay, John, epigram on revolutions, IV, 343

    Hayti. See HISPANIOLA.

    Hein, Pit, Dutch raider, I, 279.

    Henderson, John, on Lopez's expedition, III, 64.

    _Herald_, New York, on Cuban revolution, III, 89.

    Heredia, José Maria. II, 274;
      exiled, 344;
      life and works, III, 318;
      portrait, facing 318.

    Hernani, Domingo, II, 170.

    Herrera, historian, on Columbus's first landing, I, 12;
      on Hatuey, 62;
      description of West Indies, 345.

    Herrera, Geronimo Bustamente de, I, 194.

    Hevea, Aurelio, Secretary of Interior, IV, 320.

    Hispaniola, Columbus at, I, 19;
      revolution in, II, 173;
      186;
      effect upon Cuba, 189.

    Hobson, Richmond P., exploit at Santiago, IV, 110.

    Holleben, Dr. von, German Ambassador at Washington, intrigues of,
      IV, 104.

    Home Rule, proposed by Spain, IV, 6;
      adopted, 8.

    Horses introduced into Cuba, I, 63.

    Hosier, Admiral, attacks Havana, I, 312;
      II, 9.

    Hospital, first in Havana, I, 226;
      Belen founded, 318;
      San Paula and San Francisco, 195.

    "House of Fear," Governor's home, I, 156.

    Humboldt, Alexander von, on slavery, II, 206;
      on census, 277;
      282;
      on slave trade, 288.

    Hurricanes, II, 115, 176, 310.

    Hurtado, Lopez, royal treasurer, I, 116;
      has Chaves removed, 162.


    Ibarra, Carlos, defeats Dutch raiders, I, 288.

    Incas, I, 7.

    Independence, first conceived, II, 268;
      326;
      first revolts for, 343;
      sentiment fostered by slave trade, 377;
      proclaimed by Aguero, III, 72;
      proclaimed by Cespedes at Yara, 155;
      proposed by United States to Spain, 217;
      War of Independence, IV, 1;
      recognized by Spain, 119. See WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

    Intellectual life of Cuba, I, 360;
      lack of productiveness in Sixteenth Century, 362;
      Cuban backwardness, II, 235;
      first important progress, 273;
      great arising and splendid achievements, III, 317.

    Insurrections. See REVOLUTIONS, and SLAVERY.

    Intervention, Government of: First, established, IV, 132;
      organized, 145;
      Cuban Cabinet, 145;
      saves island from famine, 146;
      works of rehabilitation and reform, 148;
      marriage law, 152;
      concessions forbidden, 153;
      census, 154;
      civil governments of provinces, 179;
      municipal elections ordered, 180;
      electoral law 180;
      final transactions, 246;
      Second Government of Intervention, 281;
      C. E. Magoon, Governor, 281;
      Consulting Board, 284;
      elections held, 289, 290;
      commission for revising laws, 294;
      controversy over church property, 294.

    Intervention sought by Great Britain and France, III, 128;
      by United States, IV, 106.

    Iroquois, I, 7.

    Irving, Washington, on Columbus's landing place, I, 12.

    Isabella, Columbus's landing place, I, 3.

    Isabella, Queen, portrait, I, 13.

    Isidore of Seville, quoted, I, 4.

    Islas de Arena, I, 11.

    Isle of Pines, I, 26;
      recognized as part of Cuba, 224;
      status under Platt Amendment, IV, 255.

    Italian settlers in Cuba, I, 169.

    Ivonnet, Negro insurgent, IV, 307.


    Jamaica, Columbus at, I, 20.

    Japan. See CIPANGO.

    Jaruco, founded, II, 131.

    Jefferson, Thomas, on Cuban annexation, II, 260;
      III, 132.

    Jeronimite Order, made guardian of Indians, I, 78;
      becomes their oppressor, 127.

    Jesuits, controversy over, II, 86;
      expulsion of, 111.

    Jordan, Thomas, joins Cuban revolution, III, 211.

    Jorrin, José Silverio, portrait, facing III, 308.

    Jovellar, Joachim, Governor, III, 273;
      proclaims state of siege, 289;
      resigns, 290.

    Juana, Columbus's first name for Cuba, I, 13.

    Juan Luis Keys, I, 21.

    Judiciary, reforms in, II, 110;
      under Navarro, 142;
      under Unzaga, 165;
      under Leonard Wood, IV, 177.

    Junta, Cuban, in United States, III, 91;
      New York, IV, 2;
      branches elsewhere, 3;
      policy in enlisting men, 19.

    Junta de Fomento, II, 178.

    Juntas of the Laborers, III, 174.


    Keppel, Gen. See ALBEMARLE.

    Key Indians, I, 125;
      expedition against, 126.

    "Key of the New World and Bulwark of the Indies," I, 210.

    Kindelan, Sebastian de, II, 197, 315.


    Lacoste, Perfecto, Secretary of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce,
      IV, 160.

    Land tenure, II, 12;
      absentee landlords, 214.

    Lanuza, Gonzalez, Secretary of Justice, IV, 146;
      portrait, 146.

    Lares, Amador de, I, 93.

    La Salle, in Cuba, I, 73.

    Las Casas, Bartholomew, Apostle to the Indies, arrival in Cuba, I, 63;
      portrait, 64;
      denounces Narvaez, 66;
      begins campaign against slavery, 75;
      mission to Spain, 77;
      before Ximenes, 77.

    Las Casas, Luis de, Governor, II, 175;
      portrait, 175;
      death, 182.

    Lasso de la Vega, Juan, Bishop, II, 17.

    Lawton, Gen. Henry W., leads advance against Spanish, IV, 112;
      Military Governor of Oriente, 139.

    Lazear, Camp, established, IV, 172.

    Lazear, Jesse W., hero and martyr in yellow fever campaign, IV, 172.

    Ledesma, Francisco Rodriguez, Governor, I, 310.

    Lee, Fitzhugh, Consul General at Havana, IV, 72;
      reports on "concentration" policy of Weyler, 86;
      asks for warship to protect Americans at Havana, 97;
      _Maine_ sent, 98;
      commands troops at Havana, 121.

    Lee, Robert Edward, declines to join Lopez, III, 39.

    Legrand, Pedro, invades Cuba, I, 302.

    Leiva, Lopez, Secretary of Government, IV, 297.

    Lemus, Jose Morales, III, 333.

    Lendian, Evelio Rodriguez, educator, sketch and portrait, IV, 162.

    Liberal Party, III, 306;
      triumphant through revolution, IV, 285;
      dissensions, 303;
      conspiracy against election, 329.

    Liberty Loans, Cuban subscriptions to, IV, 352.

    Lighthouse service, under Mario G. Menocal, IV, 168.

    Linares, Tomas de, first Rector of University of Havana, II, 11.

    Lindsay, Forbes, quoted, II, 217.

    Linschoten, Jan H. van, historian, quoted, I, 351.

    Liquor, intoxicating, prohibited in 1780, II, 150.

    Literary periodicals: _El Habanero_, III, 321;
      _El Plantel_, 324;
      _Cuban Review_, 325;
      _Havana Review_, 329.

    Literature, II, 245;
      early works, 252;
      poets, 274;
      great development of activity, III, 315 et seq.

    Little Inagua, I, 4.

    Llorente, Pedro, in Constitutional Convention, IV, 188, 190.

    Lobera, Juan de, commander of La Fuerza, I, 182;
      desperate defence against Sores, 185.

    Lolonois, pirate, I, 296.

    Long Island. See FERDINANDINA.

    Lopez, Narciso, sketch and portrait, III, 23;
      in Venezuela, 24;
      joins the Spanish
      army, 26;
      marries and settles in Cuba, 30;
      against the Carlists in Spain, 31;
      friend of Valdez, 31;
      offices and honors, 33;
      plans Cuban revolution, 36;
      betrayed and fugitive, 37;
      consults Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, 38;
      first American expedition, 39;
      members of the party, 40;
      activity in Southern States, 43;
      expedition starts, 45;
      proclamation to his men, 46;
      lands at Cardenas, 49;
      lack of Cuban support, 54;
      reembarks, 56;
      lands at Key West, 58;
      arrested and tried, 60;
      second expedition organized, 65;
      betrayed, 67;
      third expedition, 70;
      final expedition organized, 91;
      lands in Cuba, 98;
      defeated and captured, 112;
      death, 114;
      results of his works, 116.

    Lorenzo, Gen., Governor at Santiago, II, 347.

    Lorraine, Sir Lambton, III, 280.

    Los Rios, J. B. A. de, I, 310.

    Lottery, National, established by José Miguel Gomez, IV, 310.

    Louisiana, Franco-Spanish contest over, II, 117;
      Ulloa sent from Cuba to take possession, 118;
      O'Reilly sent, 123;
      Uznaga sent, 126.

    Louverture, Toussaint, II, 186.

    Luaces, Joaquin Lorenzo, sketch and portrait, III, 330.

    Ludlow, Gen. William, command and work at Havana, IV, 144.

    Lugo, Pedro Benitez de, Governor, I, 331.

    Luna y Sarmiento, Alvaro de, Governor, I, 290.

    Luz y Caballero, José de la, "Father of the Cuban Revolution,"
      III, 322;
      great work for patriotic education, 323;
      Portrait, frontispiece, Vol III.

    Luzan, Gabriel de, Governor, I, 236;
      controversy over La Fuerza, 237;
      feud with Quiñones, 241;
      unites with Quiñones to resist Drake, 243;
      energetic action, 246;
      tenure of office prolonged, 250;
      end of term, 260.


    Macaca, province of, I, 20.

    Maceo, José Antonio, proclaims Provisional Government, IV, 15;
      leader in War of Independence, 41;
      commands Division of Oriente, 43;
      defeats Campos, 46;
      plans great campaign, 53;
      invades Pinar del Rio, 61;
      successful campaign, 73;
      death, 74;
      portrait, facing 74.

    Maceo, José, IV, 41;
      marches through Cuba, 76.

    Machado, Eduard, treason of, III, 258.

    Machete, used in battle, IV, 57.

    Madison, James, on status of Cuba, III, 132.

    Madriaga, Juan Ignacio, II, 59.

    Magoon, Charles E., Provisional Governor, IV, 281;
      his administration, 283;
      promotes public works, 286;
      takes census, 287;
      election law, 287;
      retires, 295.

    Mahy, Nicolas, Governor, II, 315.

    Mail service established, II, 107;
      under American occupation, IV, 168.

    Maine sent to Havana, IV, 98;
      destruction of, 98;
      investigation, 100.

    Maldonado, Diego, I, 146.

    Mandeville, Sir John, I, 20.

    Mangon, identified with Mangi, I, 20.

    Manners and Customs, II, 229 et seq.;
      balls, 239;
      shopping, 242;
      relations of black and white races, 242;
      cafés, 243;
      early society, 248.

    Monosca, Juan Saenz, Bishop, I, 301.

    Manrique, Diego, Governor, II, 109.

    Manzaneda y Salines, Severino de, Governor, I, 320.

    Manzanillo, Declaration of Independence issued, III, 155.

    Maraveo Ponce de Leon, Gomez de, I, 339.

    Marco Polo, I, 4, 20.

    Marcy, William L., policy toward Cuba, III, 136.

    Mar de la Nuestra Señora, I, 18.

    Mariguana. See GUANAHANI.

    Marin, Sabas, succeeds Campos in command, IV, 63.

    Markham, Sir Clements, on Columbus's first landing, I, 12.

    Marmol, Donato, III, 173, 184.

    Marquez, Pedro Menendez, I, 206.

    Marriage law, reformed under American occupation, IV, 152;
      controversy over, 153.

    Marti, José, portrait, frontispiece, Vol IV;
      leader of War of Independence, IV, 2;
      his career, 9;
      in New York, 11;
      organizes Junta, 11;
      goes to Cuba, 15;
      death, 16;
      his war manifesto, 17;
      fulfilment of his ideals, 355.

    Marti, José, secretary of War, portrait, IV, 360.

    Marti, the pirate, II, 357.

    Martinez Campos. See Campos.

    Martinez, Dionisio de la Vega, Governor, II, 8;
      inscription on La Punta, 14.

    Martinez, Juan, I, 192.

    Martyr, Peter, I, 53.

    Maso, Bartolome, revolutionist, IV, 34;
      rebukes Spotorno, 35;
      President of Cuban Republic, 43;
      Vice President of Council, 48;
      President of Republic, 90;
      candidate for Vice President, 242;
      seeks Presidency, 243.

    Mason, James M., U. S. Minister to France, III, 141.

    Masse, E. M., describes slave trade, II, 202;
      rural life, 216;
      on Spanish policy toward Cuba, 227;
      social morals, 230.

    Matanzas, founded, I, 321;
      meaning of name, 321.

    Maura, Sr., proposes Cuban reforms, IV, 5.

    McCullagh, John B., reorganizes Havana Police, IV, 150.

    McKinley, William, President of United States, message of 1897
      on Cuba, IV, 87;
      declines European mediation, 103;
      message for war, 104.

    Maza, Enrique, assaults Hugh S. Gibson, IV, 308.

    Mazariegos, Diego de, Governor, I, 191;
      a scandalous moralist, 193;
      defences against privateering, 193;
      takes charge of La Fuerza, 195;
      controversy with Governor of Florida, 196;
      replaced by Sandoval, 197.

    Medina, Fernando de, I, 111.

    Mendez-Capote, Fernando, Secretary of Sanitation, portrait, IV, 360.

    Mendieta, Carlos, candidate for Vice President, IV, 328;
      rebels, 338.

    Mendive, Rafael Maria de, III, 328.

    Mendoza, Martin de, I, 204.

    Menendez, Pedro de Aviles, I, 199;
      commander of Spanish fleet, 200;
      clash with Osorio, 201;
      Governor of Cuba, 205;
      dealing with increasing enemies, 208;
      fortifies Havana, 209;
      recalled to Spain, 213;
      conflict with Bishop Castillo, 226.

    Menocal, Aniceto G., portrait, IV, 50.

    Menocal, Mario G., Assistant Secretary of War, IV, 49;
      Chief of Police at Havana, 144, 150;
      in charge of Lighthouse Service, 168;
      candidate for President, 290;
      slandered by Liberals, 291;
      elected President, 312;
      biography, 312;
      portrait, facing 312;
      view of birthplace, 313;
      Cabinet, 320;
      opinion of Cuba's needs, 321;
      first message, 322;
      conflict with Congress, 323;
      important reforms, 324;
      suppresses rebellion, 327;
      candidate for reelection, 328;
      vigorous action against Gomez's rebellion, 335;
      declines American aid, 337;
      escapes assassination, 339;
      reelection confirmed, 341;
      clemency to traitors, 342;
      message on entering Great War, 346;
      fulfilment of Marti's ideals, 355;
      estimate of his administration, 356;
      achievements for education, 357;
      health, 357;
      industry and commerce, 358;
      finance, 359;
      "from Velasquez to Menocal," 365.

    Menocal, Señora, leadership of Cuban womanhood in Red Cross and
      other work, IV, 354;
      portrait, facing 352.

    Mercedes, Maria de las, quoted, II, 174;
      on slave insurrection, 368.

    Merchan, Rafael, III, 174;
      patriotic works, 335.

    Merlin, Countess de. See MERCEDES.

    _Merrimac_, sunk at Santiago, IV, 111.

    Mesa, Hernando de, first Bishop, I, 122.

    Mestre, José Manuel, sketch and portrait, III, 326.

    Meza, Sr., Secretary of Public Instruction and Arts, IV, 297.

    Mexico, discovered and explored from Cuba, I, 87;
      designs upon Cuba, II, 262;
      Cuban expedition against, 346;
      warned off by United States, III, 134;
      fall of Maximilian, 150.

    Milanes, José Jacinto, sketch, portrait and works, III, 324.

    Miles, Gen. Nelson A., prepares for invasion of Cuba, IV, 111.

    Miranda, Francisco, II, 156;
      with Bolivar, 335.

    Miscegenation, II, 204.

    Molina, Francisco, I, 290.

    Monastic orders, I, 276.

    Monroe Doctrine, foreshadowed, II, 256;
      promulgated, 328.

    Monroe, James, interest in Cuba, II, 257;
      promulgates Doctrine, 328;
      portrait, 329.

    Monserrate Gate, Havana, picture, II, 241.

    Montalvo, Gabriel, Governor, I, 215;
      feud with Rojas family, 218;
      investigated and retired, 219;
      pleads for naval protection for Cuba, 220.

    Montalvo, Lorenzo, II, 89.

    Montalvo, Rafael, Secretary of Public Works, urges resistance
      to revolutionists, IV, 270.

    Montanes, Pedro Garcia, I, 292.

    Montano See VELASQUEZ, J. M.

    Montes, Garcia, Secretary of Treasury, IV, 254.

    Montesino, Antonio, I, 78.

    Montiel, Vasquez de, naval commander, I, 278.

    Montoro, Rafael, Representative in Cortes, III, 308;
      spokesman of Autonomists, IV, 59;
      in Autonomist Cabinet, 95;
      candidate for Vice President, 290;
      attacked by Liberals, 291;
      biography, 317;
      portrait, facing 320.

    Morales case, IV, 92.

    Morales. Pedro de, commands at Santiago, I, 299.

    Morals, strangely mixed with piety and vice, II, 229.

    Morell, Pedro Augustino, Bishop, II, 53;
      controversy with Albemarle, 83;
      exiled, 87;
      death, 113.

    Moreno, Andres, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, IV, 90.

    Moret law, abolishing slavery, III, 243.

    Morgan, Henry, plans raid on Havana, I, 297;
      later career, 303.

    Morro Castle, Havana, picture, facing I, 180;
      site of battery, 180;
      tower built by Mazariegos, 196;
      fortified against Drake, 249;
      planned by Antonelli, 261;
      besieged by British, II, 55.

    Morro Castle, Santiago, built, I, 289;
      picture, facing 298.

    Mucaras, I, 11.

    Muenster, geographer, I, 6.

    Mugeres Islands, I, 84.

    Munive, Andres de, I, 317.

    Murgina y Mena, A. M., I, 317.

    Music, early concerts at Havana, II, 239.


    Nabia, Juan Alfonso de, I, 207.

    Nancy Globe, I. 6.

    Napoleon's designs upon Cuba, II, 203.

    Naranjo, probable landing place of Columbus, I, 12.

    Narvaez, Panfilo de, portrait, I, 63;
      arrival in Cuba, 63;
      campaign against natives, 65;
      explores the island, 67;
      errand to Spain, 77;
      sent to Mexico to oppose Cortez, 98;
      secures appointment of Councillors for life, 111.

    Naval stations, U. S., in Cuba, IV, 255.

    Navarrete, quoted, I, 3, 12.

    Navarro, Diego Jose, Governor, II, 141, 150.

    Navy, Spanish, in Cuban waters, III, 182, 225.

    Negroes, imported as slaves, I, 170;
      treatment of, 171;
      slaves and free, increasing numbers of, 229. See SLAVERY.

    New Orleans, anti-Spanish outbreak, III, 126.

    New Spain. See MEXICO.

    Newspapers: _Gazeta_, 1780, II, 157;
      _Papel Periodico_, 179;
      246;
      publications in Paris, Madrid and New York, 354;
      El Faro Industrial, III, 18;
      Diario de la Marina, 18;
      La Verdad, 18;
      La Vos de Cuba, 260;
      La Vos del Siglo, 232;
      La Revolucion, 333;
      El Siglo, 334;
      El Laborante, 335.

    Norsemen, American colonists, I, 7.

    Nougaret, Jean Baptiste, quoted, II, 26.

    Nuñez, Emilio, in Cuban Junta, IV, 12;
      in war, 57;
      Civil Governor of Havana, 179;
      head of Veterans' Association, 305;
      Secretary of Agriculture, 320;
      candidate for Vice President, 328;
      election confirmed, 341.

    Nuñez, Enrique, Secretary of Health and Charities, IV, 320.


    Ocampo, Sebastian de, circumnavigates Cuba, I, 54.

    O'Donnell, George Leopold, Governor, II, 365;
      his wife's sordid intrigues, 365.

    Oglethorpe, Governor of Georgia, hostile to Spain, II, 24, 30.

    O'Hara, Theodore, with Lopez, III, 46.

    Ojeda, Alonzo de, I, 54;
      introduces Christianity to Cuba, 55.

    Olid, Christopher de, sent to Mexico, I, 88.

    Olney, Richard. U. S. Secretary of State, attitude toward War
      of Independence, IV, 71.

    Oquendo, Antonio de, I, 281.

    Orejon y Gaston, Francisco Davila de, Governor, I, 301, 310.

    O'Reilly, Alexandre, sent to occupy Louisiana, II, 123;
      ruthless rule, 125.

    Orellano, Diego de, I, 86.

    Ornofay, province of, I, 20.

    Ortiz, Bartholomew, alcalde mayor, I, 146;
      retires, 151.

    Osorio, Garcia de Sandoval, Governor, I, 197;
      conflict with Menendez, 199, 201;
      retired, 205;
      tried, 206.

    Osorio, Sancho Pardo, I, 207.

    Ostend Manifesto, III, 142.

    Ovando, Alfonso de Caceres, I, 214;
      revises law system, 233.

    Ovando, Nicolas de, I, 54.


    Palma, Tomas Estrada, head of Cuban Junta in New York, IV, 3;
      Provisional President of Cuban Republic, 15;
      Delegate at Large, 43;
      rejects anything short of independence, 71;
      candidate for Presidency, 241;
      his career, 241;
      elected President, 245;
      arrival in Cuba, 247;
      portrait, facing 248;
      receives transfer of government from General Wood, 248;
      Cabinet, 254;
      first message, 254;
      prosperous administration, 259;
      non-partisan at first, 264;
      forced toward Conservative party, 264;
      reelected, 266;
      refuses to believe insurrection impending, 266;
      refuses to submit to blackmail, 268;
      betrayed by Congress, 269;
      acts too late, 270;
      seeks American aid, 271;
      interview with W. H. Taft, 276;
      resigns Presidency, 280;
      estimate of character and work, 282;
      death, 284.

    Palma y Romay, Ramon, III, 327.

    Parra, Antonio, scientist, II, 252.

    Parra, Maso, revolutionist, IV, 30.

    Parties, political, in Cuba, IV, 59;
      origin and characteristics of Conservative and Liberal, 181, 261.

    Pasalodos, Damaso, Secretary to President, IV, 297

    Pasamonte, Miguel, intrigues against Columbus, I, 58.

    Paz, Doña de, marries Juan de Avila, I, 154.

    Paz, Pedro de, I, 109.

    Penalosa, Diego de, Governor, II, 31.

    Penalver. See PENALOSA.

    Penalver, Luis, Bishop of New Orleans, II, 179.

    "Peninsulars," III, 152.

    Pensacola, settlement of, I, 328;
      seized by French, 342;
      recovered by Spanish, II, 7;
      defended by Galvez, 146.

    Pereda, Gaspar Luis, Governor, I, 276.

    Perez, Diego, repels privateers, I, 179.

    Perez, Perico, revolutionist, IV, 15, 30, 78.

    Perez de Zambrana, Luisa, sketch and portrait, III, 328.

    Personal liberty restricted, III, 8.

    Peru, good wishes for Cuban revolution, III, 223.

    Philip II, King, appreciation of Cuba, I, 260.

    Pieltain, Candido, Governor, III, 275.

    Pierce, Franklin, President of United States, policy toward
      Cuba, III, 136.

    Pina, Severo, Secretary of Finance, IV, 48.

    Pinar del Rio, city founded, II, 131;
      Maceo invades province, IV, 61;
      war in, 73.

    Pineyro, Enrique, III, 333;
      sketch and portrait, 334.

    Pinto, Ramon, sketch and portrait, III, 62.

    "Pirates of America," I, 296.

    Pizarro, Francisco de, I, 54, 91.

    Platt, Orville H., Senator, on relations of United States
      and Cuba, IV, 198;
      Amendment to Cuban Constitution, 199;
      Amendment adopted, 203;
      text of Amendment, 238.

    Pococke, Sir George, expedition against Havana, II, 46.

    Poey, Felipe, sketch and portrait, III, 315.

    Point Lucrecia, I, 18.

    Polavieja, Gen., Governor, III, 314.

    Police, reorganized, II, 312;
      under American occupation, IV, 150;
      police courts established, 171.

    Polk, James K., President of the United States, policy toward
      Cuba, III, 135.

    Polo y Bernabe, Spanish Minister at Washington, IV, 98.

    Ponce de Leon, in Cuba, I, 73;
      death, 139.

    Ponce de Leon, of New York, in Cuban Junta, IV, 13.

    Pope, efforts to maintain peace, between United States and
      Spain, IV, 104.

    Porro, Cornelio, treason of, III, 257.

    Port Banes, I, 18.

    Port Nipe, I, 18.

    Port Nuevitas, I, 3.

    Portuguese settlers, I, 168.

    Portuondo, Rafael, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, IV, 48;
      filibuster, 70.

    Prado y Portocasso, Juan, Governor, II, 49;
      neglect of duty, 52;
      sentenced to degradation, 108.

    Praga, Francisco de, I, 282.

    Presidency, first candidates for, IV, 240;
      Tomas Estrada Palma elected, 245;
      José Miguel Gomez aspires to, 260;
      candidates in 1906, 265;
      Palma's resignation, 280;
      Jose Miguel Gomez elected, 290;
      fourth campaign, 312;
      Mario G. Menocal elected, 312;
      fifth campaign, 328;
      General Menocal reelected, 341.

    Prim, Gen., Spanish revolutionist, III, 145.

    Printing, first press in Cuba, II, 245.

    Privateers, French ravage Cuba, I, 177;
      Havana and Santiago attacked, 178;
      Havana looted, 179;
      Jacques Sores, 183;
      Havana captured, 186;
      Santiago looted, 193;
      French raids, 220, et seq.

    Proctor, Redfield, Senator, investigates and reports on condition
      of Cuba in War of Independence, IV, 87.

    Procurators, appointment of, I, 112.

    Protectorate, tripartite, refused by United States, II, 261;
      III, 130, 133.

    Provincial governments organized, IV, 179, confusion in, 292.

    Public Works, promoted by General Wood, IV, 166;
      by Magoon, 286.

    Puerto Grande. See GUANTANAMO.

    Puerto Principe, I, 18, 167.

    Punta, La, first fortification, I, 203;
      strengthened against Drake, 249;
      fortress planned by Antonelli, 261;
      picture, IV, 33.

    Punta Lucrecia, I, 3.

    Punta Serafina, I, 22.


    Queen's Gardens, I, 20.

    Quero, Geronimo, I, 277.

    Quesada, Gonzalo de, Secretary of Cuban Junta, IV, 3;
      Minister to United States, 275.

    Quesada, Manuel, sketch and portrait, III, 167;
      proclamation, 169;
      death, 262.

    Quezo, Juan de, I, 113.

    Quilez, J. M., Civil Governor of Pinar del Rio, IV, 179.

    Quiñones, Diego Hernandez de, commander of fortifications at
      Havana, I, 240;
      feud with Luzan, 241;
      unites with Luzan to resist Drake, 243.

    Quiñones, Doña Leonora de, I, 117.


    Rabi, Jesus, revolutionist, IV, 34, 42.

    Railroads, first in Cuba, II, 343.

    Raja, Vicente, Governor, I, 337.

    Ramirez, Alejandro, sketch and portrait, II, 311.

    Ramirez, Miguel, Bishop, partisan of Guzman, I, 120;
      political activities and greed, 124.

    Ramos, Gregorio, I, 274.

    Ranzel, Diego, I, 295.

    Recio, R. Lopez, Civil Governor of Camaguey, IV, 180.

    Recio, Serafin, III, 86.

    Reciprocity, secured by Roosevelt for Cuba, IV, 256.

    "Reconcentrados," mortality among, IV, 86.

    Red Cross, Cuban activities, IV, 353.

    Redroban, Pedro de, I, 201.

    Reed, Walter, in yellow fever campaign, IV, 172.

    Reformists, Spanish, support Blanco's Autonomist policy, IV, 97.

    Reggio, Andreas, II, 32.

    Reno, George, in War of Independence, IV, 12;
      running blockade, 21;
      portrait, 21;
      services in Great War, 351.

    Renteria, Pedro de, partner of Las Casas, I, 75;
      opposes slavery, 76.

    Repartimiento, I, 70.

    Republic of Cuba: proclaimed and organized, III, 157;
      first representative Assembly, 161;
      Constitution of 1868, 164;
      first House of Representatives, 176;
      Judiciary, 177;
      legislation, 177;
      army, 178;
      fails to secure recognition, 203;
      Government reorganized, 275;
      after Treaty of Zanjon, 301;
      reorganized in War of Independence, IV, 15;
      Maso chosen President, 43;
      Conventions of Yara and Najasa, 47;
      Constitution adopted, 47;
      Government reorganized, Cisneros President, 48;
      capital at Las Tunas, 56;
      removes to Cubitas, 72;
      exercises functions of government, 72;
      reorganized in 1897, 90;
      after Spanish evacuation of island, 134;
      disbanded, 135;
      Constitutional Convention called, 185;
      Constitution completed, 192;
      relations with United States, 195;
      Platt Amendment, 203;
      enters Great War, 346.

    Revolutions: Rise of spirit, II, 268;
      in South America, 333;
      "Soles de Bolivar," 341;
      attempts to revolt, 344;
      "Black Eagle," 346;
      plans of Lopez, III, 36;
      Lopez's first invasion, 49;
      Aguero's insurrection, 72;
      comments of New York _Herald_, 89;
      Lopez's last expedition, 91;
      results of his work, 116;
      European interest, 125;
      beginning of Ten Years' War. 155;
      end of Ten Years' War, 299;
      insurrection renewed, 308, 318;
      War of Independence, IV, 1;
      Sartorius Brothers, 4;
      end of War of Independence, 116;
      revolt against President Palma, 266;
      ultimatum, 278;
      government overthrown, 280;
      Negro insurrection, 307;
      conspiracy against President Menocal, 327;
      great treason of José Miguel Gomez, 332;
      Gomez captured, 337;
      warnings from United States Government, 338;
      revolutions denounced by United States, 343.

    Revolutionary party, Cuban, IV, 1, 11.

    Rey, Juan F. G., III, 40.

    Riano y Gamboa, Francisco, Governor, I, 287.

    Ribera, Diego de, I, 206;
      work on La Fuerza, 209.

    Ricafort, Mariano, Governor, II, 347.

    Ricla, Conde de, Governor, II, 102;
      retires, 109.

    Rio de la Luna, I, 16.

    Rio de Mares, I, 16.

    Riva-Martiz, I, 279.

    Rivera, Juan Ruiz, filibuster, IV, 70;
      succeeds Maceo, 79.

    Rivera, Ruiz, Secretary of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry, IV, 160.

    Roa, feud with Villalobos, I, 323.

    Rodas, Caballero de, Governor, III, 213;
      emancipation decree, 242.

    Rodney, Sir George, expedition to West Indies, II, 153.

    Rodriguez, Alejandro, suppresses revolt, IV, 266.

    Rodriguez, Laureano, in Autonomist Cabinet, IV, 95.

    Rojas, Alfonso de, I, 181.

    Rojas, Gomez de, banished, I, 193;
      Governor of La Fuerza, 217;
      rebuilds Santiago, 258.

    Rojas, Hernando de, expedition to Florida, I, 196.

    Rojas, Juan Bautista de, royal treasurer, I, 218.

    Rojas, Juan de, aid to Lady Isabel de Soto, I, 145;
      commander at Havana, 183.

    Rojas, Manuel de, Governor, I, 105;
      adopts policy of "Cuba for the Cubans," 106;
      second Governorship, 121;
      dealings with Indians, 126;
      noble endeavors frustrated, 130;
      resigns, 135;
      the King's unique tribute to him, 135.

    Roldan, Francisco Dominguez, Secretary of Public Instruction,
      sketch and portrait, IV, 357.

    Roldan, José Gonzalo, III, 328.

    Roloff, Carlos, revolutionist, IV, 45;
      Secretary of War, 48;
      filibuster, 70.

    Romano Key, I, 18.

    Romay, Tomas, introduces vaccination, II, 192;
      portrait, facing 192.

    Roncali, Federico, Governor, II, 366;
      on Spanish interests in Cuba, 381.

    Roosevelt, Theodore, at San Juan Hill, IV, 113;
      portrait, 113;
      President of United States, on relations with Cuba, 245;
      estimate of General Wood's work in Cuba, 251;
      fight with Congress for Cuban reciprocity, 256;
      seeks to aid President Palma against revolutionists, 275;
      letter to Quesada, 275.

    Root, Elihu, Secretary of War, on Cuban Constitution, IV, 194;
      on Cuban relations with United States, 197;
      explains Platt Amendment, 201.

    Rowan, A. S., messenger to Oriente, IV. 107.

    Rubalcava, Manuel Justo, II, 274.

    Rubens, Horatio, Counsel of Cuban Junta, IV, 3.

    Rubios, Palacios, I, 78.

    Ruiz, Joaquin, spy, IV, 91;
      death, 92. See ARANGUREN.

    Ruiz, Juan Fernandez, filibuster, IV, 70.

    Rum Cay. See CONCEPTION.

    Rural Guards, organized by General Wood, IV, 144;
      efficiency of, 301.

    Ruysch, geographer, I, 6.


    Saavedra, Juan Esquiro, I, 278.

    Sabinal Key, I, 18.

    Saco, José Antonio, pioneer of Independence, II, 378;
      portrait, facing 378;
      literary and patriotic work, III, 325, 327.

    Sagasta, Praxedes, Spanish Premier, proposes Cuban reforms, IV, 6;
      resigns, 36.

    Saint Augustine, expedition against, I, 332.

    Saint Mery, M. de, search for tomb of Columbus, I, 34.

    Salamanca, Juan de, Governor, I, 295;
      promotes industries, 300.

    Salamanca y Negrete, Manuel, Governor, III, 314.

    Salaries, some early, I, 263.

    Salas, Indalacio, IV, 21.

    Salazar. See SOMERUELOS.

    Salcedo, Bishop, controversy with Governor Tejada, I, 262.

    Sama Point, I, 4.

    Samana. See GUANAHANI.

    Sampson, William T., Admiral, in Spanish-American War, IV, 110;
      at Santiago, 114;
      portrait, 115.

    Sanchez, Bartolome, makes plans for La
      Fuerza, I, 194;
      begins building, 195;
      feud with Mazariegos, 197.

    Sanchez, Bernabe, II, 345.

    Sancti Spiritus, founded by Velasquez, I, 68, 168.

    Sandoval, Garcia Osorio, Governor, I, 197. See OSARIO.

    Sanitation, undertaken by Guemez, II, 18;
      vaccination introduced by Dr. Romay. 192;
      bad conditions, III, 313;
      General Wood at Santiago, IV, 142;
      achievements under President Menocal, 357.

    Sanguilly, Julio, falls in leading revolution, IV, 29, 55.

    Sanguilly, Manuel, in Constitutional Convention, IV, 190.

    San Lazaro watchtower, picture, I, 155;
      fortified against Drake, 248.

    San Salvador. See GUANAHANI.

    Santa Clara, Conde de, Governor, II, 194, 300.

    Santa Crux del Sur, I, 20.

    Santa Cruz, Francisco, I, 111.

    Santiago de Cuba, Columbus at, I, 19;
      founded by Velasquez, 68;
      second capital of island, 69;
      seat of gold refining, 80;
      site of cathedral, 123;
      condition in Angulo's time, 166;
      looted by privateers, 193;
      fortified by Menendez, 203;
      raided and destroyed by French, 256;
      rebuilt by Gomez de Rojas, 258;
      capital of Eastern District, 275;
      Morro Castle built, 289;
      captured by British, 299;
      attacked by Franquinay, 310;
      attacked by Admiral Vernon, II, 29;
      literary activities, 169;
      great improvements made, 180;
      battles near in War of Independence, IV, 112;
      naval battle, 114;
      General Wood's administration, 135;
      great work for sanitation, 142.

    Santiago, battle of, IV, 114.

    Santiago, sunset scene, facing III, 280.

    Santillan, Diego, Governor, I, 205.

    Santo Domingo See HISPANIOLA.

    Sanudo, Luis, Governor, I, 336.

    Sarmiento. Diego de, Bishop, makes trouble, I, 149, 152.

    Saunders, Romulus M., sounds Spain on purchase of Cuba, III, 135.

    Sartorius, Manuel and Ricardo, revolutionists, IV, 4.

    Savine, Albert, on British designs on Cuba, II, 40.

    Schley, Winfield S., Admiral, in Spanish-American War, IV, 110;
      portrait, 110;
      at Santiago, 114.

    Schoener's globe, I, 5.

    Schools, backward condition of, II, 174, 244, 312. See EDUCATION.

    Shafter, W. R., General, leads American army into Cuba, IV, 111.

    Shipbuilding at Havana, II, 8, 33, 113, 300.

    Sickles, Daniel E., Minister to Spain, offers mediation, III, 217.

    Silva, Manuel, Secretary of Interior, IV, 90.

    Slave Insurrection, II, 13;
      III, 367, et seq.

    Slavery, begun in Repartimiento system, I, 70;
      not sanctioned by King, 82;
      slave trading begun, 83;
      growth and regulation, 170;
      oppressive policy of Spain, 266;
      the "Assiento," II, 2;
      great growth
      of trade, 22;
      gross abuses, 202;
      described by Masse, 202;
      census of slaves, 204;
      rise of emancipation movement, 206;
      rights of slaves defined by King, 210;
      African trade forbidden, 285;
      Negro census, 286;
      early records of trade, 288;
      Humboldt on, 288;
      statistics of trade, 289 et seq.;
      domestic relations of slaves, 292;
      dangers of system denounced, 320;
      official complicity in illegal trade, 366;
      slave insurrection, 367;
      inhuman suppression by government, 374 et seq.;
      emancipation by revolution of 1868, 159;
      United States urges Spain to abolish slavery, 242;
      Rodas's decrees, 242;
      Moret law, 243.

    Smith, Caleb. publishes book on West Indies, II, 37.

    Smuggling, II, 133.

    "Sociedad de Amigos," II, 169.

    "Sociedad Patriotica," II, 166.

    "Sociedad Patriotica y Economica," II, 178.

    Society of Progress, II, 78.

    Solano, José de, naval commander, II, 147.

    "Soles de Bolivar," II, 341;
      attempts to suppress, 343.

    Solorzano, Juan del Hoya, I, 337;
      II, 10.

    Someruelos, Marquis of, Governor, II, 196, 301.

    Sores, Jacques, French raider, II, 183;
      attacks Havana, 184;
      captures city, 186.

    Soto, Antonio de, I, 292.

    Soto, Diego de, I, 109, 217.

    Soto, Hernando de, Governor and Adelantado, I, 140;
      portrait, 140;
      arrival in Cuba, 141;
      tour of island, 142;
      makes Havana his home, 144;
      chiefly interested in Florida, 144;
      sails for Florida, 145;
      his fate in Mississippi, 147;
      trouble with Indians, 148.

    Soto, Lady Isabel de, I, 141;
      her vigil at La Fuerza, 147;
      death, 149.

    Soto, Luis de, I, 141.

    Soulé, Pierre, Minister to Spain, III, 137;
      Indiscretions, 138;
      Ostend Manifesto, 142.

    South Sea Company, II, 21, 201.

    Spain: Fiscal policy toward Cuba, I, 175;
      wars with France, 177;
      discriminations against Cuba, 266, 267;
      protests against South Sea Company, II, 22;
      course in American Revolution, 143;
      war with Great Britain, 151;
      attitude toward America, 159;
      peace with Great Britain, 162;
      restrictive laws, 224;
      policy under Godoy, 265;
      decline of power, 273;
      seeks to pawn Cuba to Great Britain for loan, 330;
      protests to United States against Lopez's expedition, III, 59;
      seeks British protection, 129;
      refuses to sell Cuba, 135;
      revolution against Bourbon dynasty, 145 et seq.;
      rejects suggestion of American mediation in Cuba, 219;
      seeks American mediation, 293;
      strives to placate Cuba, IV, 5;
      crisis over Cuban affairs, 35;
      attitude toward War of Independence, 40;
      considers Autonomy, 71;
      Cabinet crisis of 1897, 88;
      proposes joint investigation of Maine disaster, 100;
      at war with United States, 106;
      makes Treaty of Paris, relinquishing Cuba, 118.

    Spanish-American War: causes of, IV, 105;
      declared, 106;
      blockade of Cuban coast, 110;
      landing of American army in Cuba, 111;
      fighting near Santiago, 112;
      fort at El Caney, picture, 112;
      San Juan Hill, battle, 113;
      San Juan Hill, picture of monument, 114;
      naval battle of Santiago, 115;
      peace negotiations, 116;
      "Peace Tree," picture, 116;
      treaty of peace, 118.

    Spanish literature in XVI century, I, 360.

    Spotorno, Juan Bautista, seeks peace, rebuked by Maso, IV, 35.

    Steinhart, Frank, American consul, advises President Palma to
      ask for American aid, IV, 271;
      correspondence with State Department, 272.

    Stock raising, early attention to, I, 173, 224;
      development of, 220.

    Stokes, W. E. D., aids War of Independence, IV, 14.

    Students, murder of by Volunteers, III, 260.

    Suarez y Romero, Anselmo, III, 326.

    Sugar, Industry begun under Velasquez, I, 175, 224;
      growth of industry, 265;
      primitive methods, II, 222;
      growth, III, 3;
      great development under President Menocal, IV, 358.

    "Suma de Geografia," of Enciso, I, 54.

    Sumana, Diego de, I, 111.


    Tacon, Miguel, Governor, II, 347;
      despotic fury, 348;
      conflict with Lorenzo, 349;
      public works, 355;
      fish market, 357;
      melodramatic administration of justice, 359.

    Taft, William H., Secretary of War of United States, intervenes
      in revolution, IV, 272;
      arrives at Havana, 275;
      negotiates with President Palma and the revolutionists, 276;
      portrait, 276;
      conveys ultimatum of revolutionists to President Palma, 279;
      accepts President Palma's resignation, 280;
      pardons revolutionists, 280;
      unfortunate policy, 283.

    Tainan, Antillan stock, I, 8.

    Tamayo, Diego, Secretary of State, IV, 159;
      Secretary of Government, 254.

    Tamayo, Rodrigo de, I, 126.

    Tariff, after British occupation, II, 106;
      reduction, 141;
      oppressive duties. III, 5;
      under American occupation, IV, 183.

    Taxation, revolt against, II, 197;
      "reforms," 342;
      oppressive burdens, III, 6;
      increase in Ten Years' War, 207;
      evasion of, 312;
      under American intervention, IV, 151.

    Taylor, Hannis, American Minister at Madrid, IV, 33.

    Tejada, Juan de, Governor, I, 261;
      great works for Cuba, 262;
      resigns, 263.

    Teneza, Dr. Francisco, Protomedico, I, 336.

    Ten Years' War, III, 155 et seq.;
      first battles, 184;
      aid from United States, 211;
      offers of American mediation, 217;
      rejected, 219;
      campaigns of destruction, 222;
      losses reported, 290;
      end in Treaty of Zanjon, 299;
      losses, 304.

    Terry, Emilio, Secretary of Agriculture, IV, 254.

    Theatres, first performance in Cuba, I, 264;
      first theatre built, II, 130, 236.

    Thrasher, J. S., on census, II, 283.

    Tines y Fuertes, Juan Antonio, Governor, II, 31.

    Tobacco, early use, I, 9;
      culture promoted, 300;
      monopoly, 334;
      "Tobacco War," 338;
      effects of monopoly, II, 221.

    Tobar, Nuñez, I, 141, 143.

    Tolon, Miguel de, III, 330.

    Toltecs, I, 7.

    Tomayo, Esteban, revolutionist, IV, 34.

    Torquemada, Garcia de, I, 239;
      investigates Luzan, 241.

    Torre, Marquis de la, Governor, II, 127;
      work for Havana, 129;
      death, 133.

    Torres Ayala, Laureano de, Governor, I, 334;
      reappointed, 337.

    Torres, Gaspar de, Governor, I, 234;
      conflict with Rojas family, 235;
      absconds, 235.

    Torres, Rodrigo de, naval commander, II, 34.

    Torriente, Cosimo de la, Secretary of Government, IV, 320.

    Toscanelli, I, 4.

    Treaty of Paris, IV, 118.

    Tres Palacios, Felipe Jose de, Bishop, II, 174.

    Tribune, New York, describes revolutionary leaders, III, 173.

    Trinidad, founded by Velasquez, I, 68, 168;
      great fire, II, 177.

    Trocha, begun by Campos, IV, 44;
      Weyler's, 73.

    Troncoso, Bernardo, Governor, II, 168.

    Turnbull, David, British consul, II, 364;
      complicity in slave insurrection, 372.


    Ubite, Juan de, Bishop, I, 123.

    Ulloa, Antonio de, sent to take possession of Louisiana, II, 118;
      arbitrary conduct, 120.

    Union Constitutionalists, III, 306.

    United States, early relations with Cuba, II, 254;
      first suggestion of annexation, 257;
      John Quincy Adams's policy, 258;
      Jefferson's policy, 260;
      Clay's policy, 261;
      representations to Colombia and Mexico, 262;
      Buchanan's policy, 263;
      Monroe Doctrine, 328;
      consuls not admitted to Cuba, 330;
      Van Buren's policy, 331;
      growth of commerce with Cuba, III, 22;
      President Taylor's proclamation against filibustering, 41;
      course toward Lopez, 60;
      attitude toward Cuban revolutionists, 123;
      division of sentiment between North and South, 124;
      policy of Edward Everett, 130;
      overtures for purchase of Cuba, 135;
      end of Civil War, 151;
      new policy toward Cuba, 151;
      recognition denied to revolution, 172;
      aid and sympathy given secretly, 195;
      Cuban appeals for recognition, 200;
      recognition denied, 203;
      protests against Rodas's decrees, 216;
      offers of mediation, 217;
      rejected by Spain, 219;
      increasing interest and sympathy with revolutionists, 273;
      warning to Spanish Government, 291;
      effect of reciprocity upon Cuba, 313;
      attitude toward War of Independence, IV, 27, 70;
      Congress favors recognition, 70;
      tender of good
      offices, 71;
      President Cleveland's message of 1896, 79;
      appropriation for relief of victims of "concentration" policy, 86;
      President McKinley's message of 1897, 87;
      sensation at destruction of _Maine_, 99;
      declaration of war against Spain, 106;
      Treaty of Paris, 118;
      establishment of first Government of Intervention, 132;
      relations with Republic of Cuba, 195;
      protectorate to be retained, 196;
      Platt Amendment, 199;
      mischief-making intrigues, 200;
      naval stations in Cuba, 255;
      reciprocity, 256;
      second Intervention, 281;
      warning to José Miguel Gomez, 305;
      asks settlement of claims, 308;
      Chargé d'Affaires assaulted, 308;
      supervision of Cuban legislation, 326;
      warning to revolutionists, 339;
      attitude toward Gomez revolution, 343.

    University of Havana, founded, II, 11.

    Unzaga, Luis de, Governor, II, 157.

    Urrutia, historian, quoted, I, 300.

    Urrutia, Sancho de, I, 111.

    Utrecht, Treaty of, I, 326;
      begins new era, II, 1.

    Uznaga, Luis de, sent to rule Louisiana, II, 126;
      reforms, 165.


    Vaca, Cabeza de, I, 140.

    Vadillo, Juan, declines to investigate Guzman, I, 118;
      temporary Governor, 119;
      tremendous indictment of Guzman, 120;
      retires after good work, 121;
      clash with Bishop Ramirez, 124.

    Valdes, historian, quoted, II, 175.

    Valdes, Gabriel de la Conception, III, 325.

    Valdes, Jeronimo, Bishop, I, 335.

    Valdes, Pedro de, Governor, I, 202, 272;
      retires, 276.

    Valdes, Geronimo, Governor, II, 364.

    Valdueza, Marquis de, I, 281.

    Valiente, José Pablo, II, 170, 180.

    Valiente, Juan Bautista, Governor of Santiago, II, 180.

    Vallizo, Diego, I, 277.

    Valmaseda, Count, Governor, proclamation against revolution, III,
      171, 270;
      recalled for barbarities, 273.

    Van Buren, Martin, on United States and Cuba, II, 331.

    Vandeval, Nicolas C., I, 331, 333.

    Varela, Felix, sketch and portrait, III, 320;
      works, 321.

    Varnhagen, F. A. de, quoted, I, 2.

    Varona, Bernabe de, sketch and portrait, III, 178.

    Varona, José Enrique, Secretary of Treasury, IV, 159;
      Vice President, 312;
      biography, 316;
      portrait, facing 316.

    Varona, Pepe Jerez, chief of secret service, IV, 268.

    Vasquez, Juan, I, 330.

    Vedado, view in, IV, 176.

    Vega, Pedro Guerra de la, I, 243;
      asks fugitives to aid in defence against Drake, 248.

    Velasco, Francisco de Aguero, II, 345.

    Velasco, Luis Vicente, defender of Morro against British, II, 58;
      signal valor, 61;
      death, 67.

    Velasquez, Antonio, errand to Spain, I, 77

    Velasquez, Bernardino, I, 115.

    Velasquez, Diego, first Governor of Cuba, I, 59;
      portrait, 59;
      colonizes Cuba, 60;
      hostilities with natives, 61, explores the island, 67;
      marriage and bereavement, 68;
      founds various towns, 68;
      begins Cuban commerce, 68;
      organizes government, 69;
      favored by King Ferdinand, 73;
      appointed Adelantado, 74;
      seeks to rule Yucatan and Mexico, 85;
      recalls Grijalva, 88;
      quarrels with Cortez, 91;
      sends Cortez to explore Mexico, 92, 94;
      seeks to intercept and recall Cortez, 97;
      sends Narvaez to Mexico, 98;
      removed from office by Diego Columbus, 100;
      restored by King, 102;
      death and epitaph, 103;
      posthumous arraignment by Altamarino, 107;
      convicted and condemned, 108.

    Velasquez, Juan Montano, Governor, I, 293.

    Velez Garcia, Secretary of State, IV, 297.

    Velez y Herrera, Ramon, III, 324.

    Venegas, Francisco, Governor, I, 278.

    Vernon, Edward, Admiral, expedition to Darien, II 27;
      Invasion of Cuba, 29.

    Viamonte, Bitrian, Governor, I, 286.

    Viana y Hinojosa, Diego de, Governor, I, 317.

    Victory loan, Cuban subscriptions to, IV, 353.

    Villa Clara, founded, I, 321.

    Villafana, attempts to assassinate Cortez, I, 99.

    Villafana, Angelo de, Governor of Florida, controversy with
      Mazariegos, I, 196.

    Villalba y Toledo, Diego de, Governor, I, 290.

    Villalobos, Governor, feud with Roa, I, 323.

    Villalon, José Ramon, in Cuban Junta, IV, 13;
      Secretary of Public Works, 160, 330.

    Villalon Park, scene in, IV, 247.

    Villanueva, Count de, II, 342.

    Villapando, Bernardino de, Bishop, I, 225.

    Villarin, Pedro Alvarez de, Governor, I, 333.

    Villaverde, Cirillo, III, 327.

    Villaverde, Juan de, Governor of Santiago, I, 276.

    Villegas, Diaz de, Secretary of Treasury, IV, 297;
      resigns, 302.

    Villuendas, Enrique, in Constitutional Convention, IV, 188;
      secretary, 189.

    Virginius, capture of, III, 277;
      butchery of officers and crew, 278 et seq.;
      British intervention, 280;
      list of passengers, 281;
      diplomatic negotiations over, 283.

    Vives, Francisco, Governor, II, 317;
      despotism, 317;
      expedition against Mexico, 346.

    Viyuri, Luis, II, 197.

    Volunteers, organized, III, 152;
      murder Arango, 188;
      have Dulce recalled, 213;
      cause murder of Zenea, 252;
      increased activities, 260;
      murder of students, 261.


    War of Independence, IV, i, 8;
      circumstances of beginning, 9;
      finances, 14;
      Republic of Cuba proclaimed, 15;
      attitude of Cuban people, 22;
      actual outbreak, 29;
      martial law proclaimed, 30;
      Spanish forces in Cuba, 31;
      arrival and policy of Martinez Campos, 38;
      Gomez and Maceo begin great campaign, 53;
      Spanish defeated, and reenforced, 55;
      campaign of devastation, 60;
      entire island involved, 61;
      fall of Campos, 63;
      Weyler in command, 66;
      destruction by both sides, 68;
      losses, 90;
      entry of United States, 107;
      attitude of Cubans toward American intervention, 108;
      end of war, 116.

    Watling's Island. See GUANAHANI.

    Wax, development of Industry, II, 132.

    Webster, Daniel, negotiations with Spain, III, 126.

    Weyler y Nicolau, Valeriano, Governor, IV, 65;
      portrait, 66;
      harsh decree, 66;
      conquers Pinar del Rio. 83;
      "concentration" policy, 85;
      recalled, 88.

    Wheeler, Gen. Joseph, at Santiago, IV, 113, 115.

    White, Col. G. W., with Lopez, III, 40.

    Whitney, Henry, messenger to Gomez, IV, 107.

    Williams, Ramon O., United States consul at Havana, IV, 32;
      acts in behalf of Americans in Cuba, 72;
      opposes sending _Maine_ to Havana, 100.

    Wittemeyer, Major, reports on Gomez revolution to Washington
      government, IV, 336;
      offers President Menocal aid of United States, 337.

    Wood, General Leonard, at San Juan Hill, IV, 113;
      Military Governor of Santiago, 135;
      his previous career, 140;
      unique responsibility and power, 141;
      dealing with pestilence, 142;
      organizes Rural Guards, 144;
      portrait, facing 158;
      Military Governor of Cuba, 158;
      well received by Cubans, 158;
      estimate of _La Lucha_, 158;
      his Cabinet, 159;
      comments on his appointments, 160;
      reorganization of school system, 161;
      promotes public works, 166;
      Dady contract dispute, 171;
      applies Finlay's yellow fever theory with great success, 171;
      reform of jurisprudence, 177;
      organizes Provincial governments, 179;
      holds municipal elections, 180;
      promulgates election law, 181;
      calls Constitutional Convention, 185;
      calls for general election, 240;
      his comments on election, 245;
      announces end of American occupation, 246;
      surrenders government of Cuba to
      Cubans, 249;
      President Roosevelt's estimate of his work, 251;
      view of one of his mountain roads, facing 358.

    Woodford, Stewart L., United States Minister to Spain, IV, 103;
      presents ultimatum and departs, 106.


    Xagua, Gulf of, I, 21.

    Ximenes, Cardinal and Regent, gives Las Casas hearing on Cuba, I, 77.


    Yanez, Adolfo Saenz, Secretary of Agriculture and Public Works,
      IV, 146.

    Yellow Fever, first invasion, II, 51;
      Dr. Finlay's theory applied by General Wood, IV, 171;
      disease eliminated from island, 176.

    Yero, Eduardo, Secretary of Public Instruction, IV, 254.

    Ynestrosa, Juan de, I, 207.

    Yniguez, Bernardino, I, 111.

    Yucatan, islands source of slave trade, I, 83;
      explored by Cordova, 84.

    Yznaga, Jose Sanchez, III, 37.


    Zaldo, Carlos, Secretary of State, IV, 254.

    Zambrana, Ramon, III, 328.

    Zanjon, Treaty of, III, 299.

    Zapata, Peninsula of, visited by Columbus, I, 22.

    Zarraga, Julian, filibuster, IV, 70.

    Zayas, Alfredo, secretary of Constitutional Convention, IV, 189;
      compact with José Miguel Gomez, 265;
      spokesman of revolutionists against President Palma, 277;
      elected Vice President, 290;
      becomes Vice President, 297;
      sketch and portrait, 300;
      quarrel with Gomez, 306;
      candidate for President, 328;
      hints at revolution, 330.

    Zayas, Francisco, Lieutenant Governor, I, 205;
      resigns, 206.

    Zayas, Francisco, in Autonomist Cabinet, IV, 95.

    Zayas, Juan B., killed in battle, IV, 78.

    Zayas, Lincoln de, in Cuban Junta, IV, 12;
      Superintendent of Schools, 162.

    Zenea, Juan Clemente, sketch and portrait, III, 252;
      murdered, 253;
      his works, 332.

    Zequiera y Arango, Manuel, II, 274.

    Zipangu. See CIPANOO.

    Zuazo, Alfonso de, appointed second Governor of Cuba, I, 100;
      dismissed by King, 102.