CHAPTER VI

CUBA

1

There must be twenty thousand mendicant venders of lottery tickets in Cuba, from ragged urchins to reputable graybeards wearing straw hats and carefully creased trousers. These friars of chance know no shame, and are more persistent than bluebottles, coming to you five or six times after having been sent off. They shout the number of their series and whisk the red sheets in your face, knowing that you have no redress against them--for they are in a way Government servants, or at least Government commission agents. Every lottery ticket they sell helps the national exchequer of the Republic of Cuba. People buy--they have not the wills to stand out against such persistence. They vaguely hope to draw a lucky number--though they may have deep doubts of the honesty of the Administration.

But the quickest way to get rid of a lottery vender is to cry in a loud voice: "_These are no good; these draw no prizes._" That scares them. It is easy to buy a ticket for a lottery that has already been drawn. Besides that, there are forgeries and "unlucky numbers."

If there are twenty thousand ticket venders there must be fifty thousand bootblacks on the island. Such a passion for blacking your boots! And then as many beggars. There are beggars of all ages, and as plentiful as in Moscow, and more active than the Russians. From the moment I arrived in Cuba, away in the east at Santiago, I was besieged with people wanting money. It was astonishing. I was sailing to a dream island, to "the little lazy isle where the trumpet orchids blow," to a new world, to El Dorado, the golden one, to a verdant tropic land where God and the sun and the benevolent, ever-freshening trade wind made work almost unnecessary and poverty impossible--Cuba, called the Pearl of the Antilles. And instead, I found a land made ugly and a people destitute and desperate.

At the dock in Santiago de Cuba, torn to this side and to that by the clamorous ragamuffins who wanted to carry my knapsack, and hung on to by beggars and lottery venders at the same time, I plunged through dusty and filthy streets to the Plaza of this breathless commercialized city of which Cortes was first Mayor. Here stand two grandiose hotels, one of them called the Hotel Venus, surely an amusing name for would-be respectability. Both hotels are expensive. No provincialism of price holds here--dinner costs you five dollars.

Cuba has a southern coast reminding one of the southern coast of England where Santiago would be Southampton. Santiago is of great strategic importance to the island, and its capitulation on July 17, 1898, ended the war with Spain. This southern coast faces Jamaica, from which it is distant less than two hundred miles. Habana on the northern coast is over five hundred miles distant and is reached by a tenuous, rickety, narrow-gauge railway. It may be said that this railway keeps to the worst of the island all the way--but that is because the railroad is naturally the artery of cane transport. Camaguey, about two hundred miles north-west of Santiago is the center of an immense sugar-planting area, of which the ox teams drawing cane trucks on caterpillar wheels through deep soft earth are most characteristic. The sinister-looking progress of war "tanks" along the alleys of the sugar plantations has a strange effect. Camaguey itself is such that no educated person would live there except for a short while, to make money. When you continue your journey to Santa Clara there is a good deal of improvement and more of the Spanish dignity of living. Habana, of course, is a well-shod city of pleasure of remarkable brilliance. Habana does not feel to be Cuba. It is the Coney Island of Key West, Florida.

2

Of course it is possible to see Cuba in a more pleasant light. There is much glamour over Cuba if you half close your eyes. It is an ideal place for a wicked elopement. The hero of the Hergesheimer novel thither resorts. It is certainly the place for a good cigar. Cuba has become a sportsman's island, the place _par excellence_ where an American can get a drink. The characteristic sound of the towns is the rattle of ice in the inverted metal tumblers where the cocktail is coming to birth. The cocktail and the cigar are the first emblems of Habana. Then comes the Cuban girl _sans peur_, and then the gamblers' dice. Horse racing and boxing and cockfighting and betting and gambling are tremendous human interests--stronger in the Cuban than in the visiting American. Even the ice-cream venders carry dice boxes on their barrows and will "shake you for one" as soon as sell you straight.

You can go back and forth to Florida, not like Ponce de Leon, but by airplane in an hour or so. You read in the Habana _News_ how over at Tampa the Floridians are trying to enforce even the blue law which makes the blues compulsory on Sundays, and you realize what a contrast the Cuban sporting resort affords.

Among many places of pleasure one stands out in my experience as both novel and fascinating, and that is the Galatea Lawn Tennis Club, on the Prado. Here is played all the evening and until late into the night a game of human roulette.

Gay lights adorn a pleasantly painted wooden structure which possesses a doorway but no windows, and a rapturous thundering Cuban band clamors from the interior; men stroll in and out all the time as if it were a drinking saloon, but there is nothing outside to indicate the nature of the entertainment. "Probably a cabaret with screened rooms and suppers and dancing girls," you surmise. But once inside you are aware that it is nothing of the kind.

Instead, behold a closed asphalt tennis court and six beautiful girls in white with racquets. They play, and on all four sides in tiers and in the gallery above are men gloating upon the game. There is the greatest animation. Up on its perch rattles the band. Down below, at a series of counters, men are constantly buying tickets and going back to their seats. Negroes are going about collecting money and talking to men in the audience. The girls slash the balls, the bells on the top of the net tinkle, the men cheer. And there does not appear to be one woman among the spectators--they are all men. I turned to an American and asked what was the interest. Was it a tennis tournament?

He laughed.

"It's a betting camp; that's all there is to it," he replied.

I took a seat.

The girls were named Margot, Justine, Esther, Norma, Tosca, Nena, and their names in bright-colored letters gleamed on the scoring board. Before each girl's name was a square of color to indicate her favor, and this corresponded to the color of the ribbon girdle which each girl wore on her white dress. Margot was blue, Justine was white, Esther was red, Norma was green, Tosca was yellow, and Nena was brown.

Chalked on a panel of slate after each girl's name was the number of dollars and cents laid on her winning. And electric star lights showed the score, point by point.

I at once chose Margot as my favorite, not because of her play but because of her style, her form, her glittering dark face. I imagine most newcomers did the same. For I soon realized that though she did not win she was a rapturous favorite of the men, who applauded every good stroke she made and were almost ready to leap over the nets with excitement when she was leading.

It was not the ordinary game of tennis, but one in which directly you lost a point you returned to your seat and gave way to the next in turn. The games were singles. Six points was the game. The scorer was mounted at a table on which were electric buttons, and when a girl won a point he pressed the corresponding button on the table and a star light appeared opposite her name on the scoring board.

All the girls played well, but there was no winning or losing on service. The ball had to be bounced first and then struck over the net for the service. This precluded fast skidding services. After that the play was quick and clever and very fascinating, for each girl had a different style of play. And not one was so much better that you could be sure she would not at last miss a stroke. Frequently three of the girls would reach four points, and once all six stood level at four, and three got to five before steady little Norma captured the sixth and took all the dollars which had been bet on the others and shared them with those who had bet on her.

It seemed to me there was a greater thrill and allurement than at a roulette table. For the figures of chance were not of ivory, but living and human. If you wished strongly enough you might make them win. But what of the girls themselves in this camp of betting men--they were always expressionless toward them. That was part of the fascination. No girl showed by her face that she knew any one of them or was interested in anything else but the game. And they never seem to tire, and the courts are never empty and two girls are always playing. And the drums and horns of the band are clashing, and the Negro bookies are collecting the bets. Each man chooses his own little white goddess to win--six Galateas and six hundred Pygmalions, the Galatea Lawn Tennis Club.

3

Cuba is the largest and the richest of the West India islands, and has attracted more colonists, more financial capital, and more attention than the rest. It must be thought, however, that the Spaniards from the first were ill-fitted to possess it. For from the time of the crafty and mean Velasquez, who wrought for the ruin of Cortes, until the Spanish-American war it is a pitiful history. Since that war the history of Cuba has had a problematical aspect.

In 1898 the United States made war on Spain to free Cuba and give her independence, not perhaps entirely grasping the fact that the disorders of Cuba were as much due to bad Cuban citizens as to bad Spanish governors. This, however, became rapidly clear to soldiers and administrators, and Cuba has never been given complete liberty and independence. Now and then, for a year or so, she has been given freedom on a string, but that is all.

American troops occupied the island till 1902 and began the great task of "cleaning it up." General Leonard Wood made his mark there as Governor. The measure of his efficiency is the measure of his unpopularity. There was a rumor this summer that he was returning, and the newspapers almost came out with black edges. But he eliminated a great deal of crime and also of disease during his régime.

In 1900 America prepared a constitution for Cuba, and chose the Cubans who were to adopt it. The president was to be chosen by an electoral college, the Senate by electoral colleges, and only the Congress by direct personal vote. In this way much scope was left to an outside power controlling the presidency. The constitution was adopted in 1900, and next year the famous Platt amendment was dictated by the United States and signed by the Cuban government.

The chief point of the amendment was that it forbade Cuba to enter into alliance or make treaty with any foreign power if thereby her independence were impaired; it granted to the United States certain coaling stations on the island; and it reserved to the United States the right to intervene in Cuban affairs at any time to protect life or property.

This proved almost too much even for the pocket politicians of Cuba, but they were unable to obtain any modification of the terms. A favorable president negotiated a strong commercial treaty in 1903 but the terms of the Platt amendment had caused a dissentient movement which it was difficult to quell. The parties took to arms and the pro-American president was forced to resign.

The constitution therefore had to be suspended. From 1906 to 1908 the island was occupied by the United States army. Charles Magoon became governor of Cuba.

Then the Cubans were given another chance, and in 1909 the Liberal, Miguel Gomez, became president and the army was withdrawn. But almost at once Gomez' political following broke up, half of it demanding the withdrawal of the Platt amendment. There was much irregular fighting, the United States army was held in readiness, and American political influence was thrown on to the side of the Cuban Conservatives. Their candidate for presidency was satisfactory and was elected in 1912.

The control of the country continued, with political storms. Cuba entered the World War with the United States, voted a considerable sum of money for it, and conscripted its adult male population. By Christmas, 1918, if the war had lasted so long, there would have been a Cuban army in the field. The Armistice was fortunate for Cuba.

After the war sugar maintained a high price, but the Cubans hoarded their excellent crop and tried to hold up the world for a fortune. But ignorance of world prices, tendencies, and powers of recuperation misled the people. Even Americans failed to grasp the facts, and thought prices could be kept up. In 1919 came the crash, when Cuba was forced to sell her sugar at a peace-time price. The United States in control declared a moratorium (January, 1920), and the poverty-stricken country became blockaded by unsaleable American goods. Sixty million dollars of American merchandise poured into Cuba, but the consignees, not being able to meet the price, refused to accept delivery. That merchandise in large quantity still choked the warehouses of the chief ports in 1922. It has now been compulsorily evacuated and much of it is to be seen in shops offered at a price which suggests bankrupt stock. So at least in March, 1923, when I visited Habana again.

The planters and the middlemen were badly hit but, as ever, the chief weight of the blow fell upon the laboring masses. Hence the poverty and misery of Cuba enduring in 1923 despite a new rise in the price of sugar. As regards the political situation, it is controlled by an American General and a council of financial experts. Budget-estimates of Cuba have to be initialed by the United States before they may be passed. The United States government chooses who shall be president and then makes sure that he is elected.

"Anyhow, our coming has done them all a lot of good," says an American planter. "You should have seen the place before we came."

"Yes," said I. "That is what I am trying to see."

"But the Cuban," says a banker, "is a man you can do nothing with. He's as crooked as a dog's hind leg."

"Look at them!" says another. "Thugs; rolling necks, low and brutal brows, searing eyes that dry up any dew they pass over; vicious to the last degree, shady, underhand, corrupt. They can't govern their country. They murder one another on the least pretext. All of them carry guns and knives."

There lies the way to an understanding of the predicament of the Cubans and of the peoples of Latin America. Their ways are essentially distasteful to the Anglo-Saxon. The blond Northerner feels a genuine instinctive moral mandate to "clean up" these peoples. His conscience is invulnerable--for his spoliatory business self is cased in the chain mail of the moral mandate.

Though the Cuban is overtaxed and also smitten with the lottery plague, the Government is ever in financial distress. Why? Not only because of the failures of the markets but because the Treasury leaks in many directions, and the republic will not live on its income, and cannot find enough integrity to cover its activities. It is capable of buying for three quarter of a million dollars the Santa Clara convent which cost a quarter of a million a few months before governmental purchase. State thrift is unknown. Public offices are means of personal enrichment. The Government will constantly seek aid from America, mortgaging its liberty to get it, year by year ever necessitating the presence of American authority at Habana and upon occasion the persuasive gleam of the bayonet.

Cuba is a protectorate.