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.

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.