The History of Cuba Volume IV Part 19

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 const.i.tutional 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 const.i.tutional convention, an election shall be held of the public functionaries provided by the Const.i.tution, 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 Const.i.tution shall continue to be observed, in so far as they do not conflict with the said Const.i.tution, until legally revoked or amended.

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

The Const.i.tutional Convention, acting in conformity with the order of the Military Governor of the island, of July 25, 1900, by which it was called to a.s.semble, resolves to attach, and does hereby attach to the Const.i.tution 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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.suring 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 const.i.tutional boundaries of Cuba, the t.i.tle 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 a.s.surance, 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 Const.i.tution, 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 a.s.semblies 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 ma.s.s 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 partic.i.p.ation 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 a.s.suming the government of the island found so beneficent that they retained them unchanged. Another law on January 24 rearranged the munic.i.p.alities 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 munic.i.p.al 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 pa.s.s 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 princ.i.p.al 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 antic.i.p.atory 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 a.s.sume 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Const.i.tution 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.