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.

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.

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.