The History of Cuba Volume IV Part 23

The Presidential election occurred on November 1, and resulted, as we shall hereafter see, in a.s.surance 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 repa.s.sed. 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Another act of the administration which incurred strong censure and which was ultimately repealed by the government of President Menocal, with the approval of the courts, was what was commonly known as the "Dragado deal."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 a.r.s.enal 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 a.s.sets 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 Jose 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 Jose 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 Jose Varona for President. The campaign was conducted with much determination on both sides, but in a generally orderly fas.h.i.+on, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a.s.sociated in professional and business work with his uncle, Aniceto G. Menocal, the distinguished ca.n.a.l 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 Cla.s.s 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 Ca.n.a.ls, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BIRTHPLACE AND BOYHOOD HOME OF PRESIDENT MARIO G.

MENOCAL, JAGUEY GRANDE, MATANZAS]

When the Revolutionary Government was const.i.tuted on September 15, 1895, Colonel Menocal was appointed a.s.sistant Secretary of War, and in that capacity a.s.sisted 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 a.s.sociated 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 a.s.sault 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 a.s.sault.

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 a.s.sisted by the forces of Gen. Agramonte, Gen. Menocal pa.s.sed 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 Jose 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENRIQUE JOSe VARONA

Poet, philosopher and statesman, Enrique Jose 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 Governors.h.i.+p 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 Jose 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 ent.i.tled "Cuba contra Espana," 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 a.s.sociated 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 Inst.i.tute 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 inst.i.tution; second secretary of the Spanish Writers' and Artists'

a.s.sociation, etc. On his return to Cuba he took an active part in const.i.tuting 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 a.s.semblies. 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 princ.i.p.al economic inst.i.tutions 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 Jose 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 professors.h.i.+p of philosophy and history in the University of Havana. He was a member of the Committee which was to undertake the reform of the Munic.i.p.al 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 doc.u.ments, 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 a.s.siduous 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 Inst.i.tute 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 Nunez.

Secretary of Justice, Cristobal de la Guardia.

Secretary of Agriculture, Emilio Nunez.

Secretary of Public Works, Jose Villalon.

Secretary of Education, Ezequiel Garcia.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Amba.s.sador to the foremost courts of Europe, as Secretary to the Presidency, and in other distinguished capacities at home and abroad, forms a brilliant pa.s.sage elsewhere in this History of Cuba.]

The spirit in which the new President began his work, and the spirit which animated his a.s.sociates 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Was.h.i.+ngton in 1916.]