The History of Cuba Volume IV Part 9

American occupation of Cuba, formal and complete, did not begin, as we have seen, until January 1, 1899, when the ceremonial transfer of sovereignty was effected at Havana. But nearly six months before that epochal date actual occupation and administration was begun on an extensive scale and in a most auspicious manner. With singular appropriateness this was effected at that city which nearly four centuries before had been the first capital and metropolis of the island, and in that Province which had been the scene of the first Spanish settlements in Cuba and which had been more perhaps than all the rest of the island the scene and the base of operations of the revolution for independence.

The surrender of Santiago by General Toral on July 17, 1898, made the American army master of that city and practically of the Province of Oriente. Having the power and authority of government, the Americans had necessarily to a.s.sume the full responsibility of it; and this was promptly done. Even in advance of the date named, on July 13, the day after negotiations for the capitulation began, in antic.i.p.ation of what was to occur President McKinley decreed that, pending further orders, existing Spanish laws should be maintained in the occupied territory. As soon as the protocol was signed on August 12, General Henry W. Lawton was appointed Military Governor of the Province of Oriente and commander in chief of the American forces. This was an honor due to that gallant officer, because of his leaders.h.i.+p in the act of invasion and conquest.

But Lawton was a soldier rather than an administrator, and his services were indispensable in the field. Accordingly, after brief but most honorable occupancy of the governors.h.i.+p, he was succeeded on September 24 by a man who combined the qualities of soldier and administrator in a uniquely successful and triumphant degree, and whose advent in Cuba was auspicious of inestimable advantage to that country and to its relations with the United States and with the world. Indeed, though the fact was unrecognized at the time, it is not too much to say that Leonard Wood bore in his hand and mind and heart the destinies of Cuba. There might, it is true, have been found some other man who as a soldier would have pacified the island and would have held it firmly in the grasp of peace.

There might have been found a sanitarian and physician who would free the island of pestilence. There were financiers who might have placed its fiscal interests upon a sound basis. There were jurists who could have revised its laws. There were statesmen who could have supervised and directed its general governmental affairs, both domestic and foreign. But there was need that all these qualities should be combined in and all these activities should be performed by one man.

Leonard Wood was at this time still a young man, scarcely thirty-eight years of age. Born at Winchester, New Hamps.h.i.+re, the son of an eminent physician and a descendant of a Mayflower Pilgrim, he had in boyhood engaged in seafaring pursuits, and then had been thoroughly trained for the medical profession at Harvard University. Obeying the promptings of patriotism, perhaps with some unrecognized pre-intimation of the vast services which he was destined to render to his country and to the world, he turned away from prospects of professional preferment and profit to undertake the arduous and often thankless tasks of an army surgeon. He was appointed to that duty from the state of Ma.s.sachusetts on January 5, 1886, as an a.s.sistant Surgeon, and five years later was promoted to the rank of Captain. The nominal rank is, however, a slight indication of the merit of his services, for in the very first year of his army life he was credited with "distinguished conduct in campaign against Apache Indians while serving as medical and line officer of Captain Lawton's expedition"; for which he was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

At the beginning of American intervention in the Cuban War of Independence, Theodore Roosevelt resigned the office of a.s.sistant Secretary of the Navy, which he had filled with distinction and to the great profit of the country, in order to organize from among the cowboys and frontiersmen of the West his famous regiment of "Rough Riders." But he would not himself accept the supreme command of it. His unerring judgment of men led him to select Leonard Wood for the Colonelcy, under whom he was himself glad to serve as Lieutenant-Colonel. So it was that Wood first went to Cuba, as Colonel of the First Regiment of United States Cavalry Volunteers. There soon followed the achievements at Guasimas and at San Juan Hill, to which reference has already been made, in recognition of his services in which on July 8, 1898, he was promoted to be Brigadier General, and on December 7 following to be Major General of Volunteers. It may be added that he was promoted to these same ranks in the regular army respectively on February 4, 1901 and August 8, 1903.

With these antecedents, on September 24 he entered upon the task of governing Santiago and the Province of Oriente. It was a position of unique responsibility and power. The President's order made it inc.u.mbent upon him to administer the existing munic.i.p.al laws so far as in his own judgment they were properly applicable to the new state of affairs. That was all. Otherwise he was thrown absolutely upon his own resources, with no treaty obligations or government promises to bind him. He was simply a "benevolent despot," intent upon tranquillizing and rehabilitating that vast eastern province of Cuba by methods of his own devising. It was a region at once the most unruly and the most impoverished in Cuba, and it had for its capital a plague-smitten city.

For six months he labored there, and in that short period he so far advanced the work of reconstruction that thereafter Oriente served as an example and a model for all the other provinces of Cuba. Sympathetic, alert, untiring, frank, without vanity or ostentation, resolute, diplomatic, and always supremely just, General Wood's personality stood to the people of Cuba for qualities seldom if ever before a.s.sociated with the occupant of the governor's palace, while his energy in fighting disease, relieving distress, reviving industry and maintaining order revealed to them as the Spanish regime never had done the beneficence of enlightened government. It would be impossible to estimate too highly the value of his services during those few months at Santiago, in commending to Cubans the benevolent purposes and att.i.tude of the Americans toward them and in disclosing to them the vast material and moral benefits which would accrue to them through self-government wisely administered.

He began his work at Santiago in gruesome circ.u.mstances. An epidemic of smallpox and yellow fever was raging, and clouds of smoke hung over the city from the funeral pyres where were being burned many of the bodies for which burial was impossible. The city was reeking with filth. Half the people were threatened with starvation. Lawlessness and complaints of grievances were rife. He had to be at once sanitarian, steward and judge. He labored heroically at all three tasks, and performed them so well that in a few weeks Santiago seemed like a new city. Of course there was much to do in other places in the province. In Holguin there were three thousand cases of smallpox, of which he treated 1,200 in hospitals. He sent thither as nurses 600 thoroughly vaccinated immunes, not one of whom contracted the disease. Hundreds of infected buildings, of flimsy construction, were burned, while all others were thoroughly disinfected, and the epidemic was conquered.

Early the next year General Wood sought a well earned rest in a brief visit to his former home in Boston, leaving, as he thought, affairs in Santiago in a securely satisfactory condition. But he was compelled to hasten back in July, 1899, to deal with another outbreak of disease. On his arrival he found both the city and his own army camp in the grip of malignant yellow fever. It was a time for heroic action, and that was what he performed. In a day he removed his troops to healthful places on the adjacent hills, and then subjected the city to such a cleansing and scientific sanitation as neither it nor any other Cuban city had ever known. The island and the world looked on with interest, to see if thus he could cope with and suppress the epidemic.

He succeeded. Not yet had the theory of Dr. Carlos J. Finlay, that mosquitoes were the sole propagators of the disease, been practically tested and applied, though it had been propounded by that eminent Cuban physician many years before. That immortal achievement was postponed for Messrs. Reed, Carroll, Agramonte and Lazear to effect, under General Wood's subsequent administration at Havana. But even without it, by means of strenuous sanitation, the epidemic of July, 1899, was conquered, and Santiago was made clean and sound.

Another achievement of General Wood's at Santiago in the latter part of 1898 proved highly successful and was soon afterward extended to the other provinces of the island. This was the organization of the Rural Guards, a force which became invaluable for the policing of the rural portions of the island; just as Pennsylvania and some others of the United States are cared for by State Police. General Wood selected for this service officers and soldiers of the Cuban Army in the War of Independence who were recommended for their good character and efficiency. By the end of the year 1898 he had about 300 of these troopers patrolling the roads of Oriente, in the districts where such guardians.h.i.+p was most needed, with admirable results. The value of this service was observed and appreciated by the officers of the other provinces, and at the beginning of 1899 the system was introduced into all the provinces excepting Matanzas, where the same purpose was served by a mounted police force maintained by the larger munic.i.p.alities. In the city of Havana the Military Governor, General Ludlow, held a conference with General Mario G. Menocal, of the Cuban Army, who had been invited to become Chief of Police in that city under the American administration, and with him worked out the details of the organization of Rural Guards in the suburbs of the capital and the rural portions of Havana Province. They formed a force of 350 men for service there, and thus quickly made all that region, even in the more or less disturbed period immediately following the war, noteworthy for its security and orderliness. When at the end of the American occupation the Rural Guards were transferred to the Cuban Government, they comprised 15 bodies, numbering 1,605 officers and men, stationed at 247 different posts.

Meantime American occupation and administration were established throughout the island. Immediately upon the transfer of sovereignty on January 1, 1899, John R. Brooke, Major General commanding the Division of Cuba, and Military Governor, issued a proclamation to the people of the island. He told them that he came as the representative of the President, to give protection to the people and security to persons and property, to restore confidence, to build up waste plantations, to resume commercial traffic, and to afford full protection in the exercise of all civil and religious rights. To the attainment of those ends, all the efforts of the United States would be directed, in the interest and for the benefit of all the people of Cuba. The legal codes of the Spanish sovereignty were to be retained in force, with such changes and modifications as might from time to time be found necessary in the interest of good government. The people of Cuba, without regard to previous affiliations, were invited and urged to cooperate in these objects by the exercise of moderation, conciliation and good-will toward one another.

The island was divided for administrative purposes into seven departments, corresponding with the provinces and with the city of Havana forming the seventh. The commanders of these departments, under General Brooke, were: Havana City, Gen. William Ludlow; Havana Province, Gen. Fitzhugh Lee; Pinar del Rio, Gen. George W. Davis; Matanzas, Gen.

James H. Wilson; Santa Clara, Gen. John C. Bates; Camaguey, Gen. L. H.

Carpenter; Oriente, Gen. Leonard Wood. A civil government was organized on January 12, by the appointment of the following Cubans as Ministers of State: Secretary of the Department of State and Government, Domingo Mendez Capote; Secretary of Finance, Pablo Desvernine; Secretary of Justice and Public Instruction, Jose Antonio Gonzalez Lanuza; Secretary of Agriculture, Commerce, Industries and Public Works, Adolfo Saenz Yanez. Later in the spring of that year the provinces of Havana and Pinar del Rio were united in one department, as were Matanzas and Santa Clara, and Camaguey and Oriente.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GONZALEZ LANUZA

A distinguished jurist, penologist, and man of letters, Gonzalez Lanuza, was born in Havana on July 17, 1865. He rose to eminence at the bar and on the bench, became professor of penal law in the University of Havana, and was the author of several important works on jurisprudence. He was an agent of the revolution in Havana in 1895, and Secretary of the Cuban Delegation in New York. During General Brooke's Governors.h.i.+p he was Secretary of Justice and Public Instruction, and during President Menocal's first term was Speaker of the House of Representatives. He was a delegate to the Pan-American Congress at Rio de Janeiro in 1906.]

The problems which confronted the American military administrators and their Cuban colleagues of the civil government were manifold and grave.

There was the work of sanitation, which was undertaken on lines similar to those which General Wood had pursued in Santiago. The city of Havana had the advantage of the services of General Ludlow, an expert engineer and sanitarian. Then there was the work of feeding a starving population. So vast had been the ravages of war, so great had been the destruction of resources, that one of the most fertile and productive countries in the world was unable for a time to provide food for its own inhabitants, although their numbers had been diminished by one-fourth by the horrors of war. In these circ.u.mstances the American government was compelled to establish a system of food distribution, on very liberal lines. In Havana alone more than 20,000 persons were dependent upon it to save them from actual starvation. So well was the system administered, however, and so vigorously did the Cubans themselves apply themselves to self-help that within five months it was found possible to abolish the general system of food supply, and to restrict such work to such cases of special need as are liable to occur in any community.

In thus redeeming the island from threatened if not actual famine, the American government undoubtedly did much, but the Cuban people themselves did far more. Self-help and mutual aid were the order of the day. All who could do so hastened to secure employment, either upon their own property or on the land or in the establishments of others.

Planters whose fields had been ravaged and whose buildings had been destroyed borrowed money wherever they could, when necessary, for rehabilitation. If they could not raise money to pay their employes, they pledged them an interest in the proceeds of the coming harvest. The small farmers, who had lost all their implements and had no money to buy others to replace them, worked almost without tools, or borrowed and loaned among themselves so that a single plow would serve for half a dozen, and even hoes and spades were similarly pa.s.sed from garden to garden. In the absence of horses and mules, plows were actually drawn by teams of four or six men, in such cases doing, perhaps, little more than to scratch the surface of the soil, though even this was sufficient to enable the planting of seed.

Reference has been made to the borrowing of money by the planters for the rehabilitation of their estates. This was no easy task, because of the extent to which they were already overburdened with debts. Nearly all the land in Cuba was mortgaged, for a large percentage of its value.

The census which was taken by the American authorities in 1899 showed a total real estate valuation in the entire island of only $323,641,895.

These amazingly low figures were due, of course, to the depreciation of values through the ravages of war. But upon that valuation there was an aggregate mortgage indebtedness of no less than $247,915,494; or more than 76 per cent. Obviously, the borrowing capacity of Cuban real estate had been exhausted. During the war, with the impairment of industry which then prevailed, it was impossible for farmers to pay off their mortgages, and accordingly the Spanish government, in May, 1896, decreed that all mortgages then maturing should be extended for a year, during which time all legal steps for collection of them should be halted. In Oriente and Camaguey, however, the grace thus granted was for only a month. Successive extensions of the grace carried it to April, 1899, when the American administration was in control. A final extension was then granted, to April, 1901.

Still another problem, and one which proved peculiarly embarra.s.sing, was that of local or munic.i.p.al government. The island was divided into six provinces, thirty-one judicial districts, and one hundred and thirty-two munic.i.p.alities, and these last named were each divided into sub-districts and these again into wards. These all had their local officials and local systems of finance, and these latter were found by the Americans to be in serious confusion. It was necessary to reform them, but in the doing of this almost endless friction arose. Such matters so closely touched the Cuban people that they were naturally jealous and resentful of alien interference and dictation. At the same time the Americans considered it necessary to supervise the reorganization of local government as a basis for satisfactory general government. Each side became more or less irritated against the other, with unfortunate results.

An interesting personal factor at this time, whose influence was on the whole helpful to the American government, was found in General Maximo Gomez. There is no question that he felt himself somewhat ill-treated by the Americans, as Calixto Garcia had felt at the surrender of Santiago.

During the first month of the American rule at the capital he held aloof, remaining at his home at Remedios. But in February he came to Havana and had such a reception as probably no other man in Cuban history had ever enjoyed. From Remedios to Havana he proceeded through an almost unbroken series of popular demonstrations of the most enthusiastic kind, and at the capital he was greeted as a conquering hero and as the unrivalled idol of the people whose independence he had won. The only discordant note came from a small body of politicians identified with that a.s.sembly which both Gomez and the American government had declined to recognize, and which Gomez had strongly antagonized in the matter of paying off and demobilizing the Cuban army.

But that opposition to him did not lessen the affection and reverence with which the great ma.s.s of the Cuban people regarded the grim and grey old champion of their wars. It is to be recorded, too, that while he was thus being received by the people, his own att.i.tude toward them was no less significant. At every place through which he pa.s.sed on his journey to Havana, and at every gathering at which he was entertained in that city, he spoke to the people, tersely and vigorously, as became a soldier; exhorting them to forget the differences of the past, even their righteous wrath against the Spaniards, and to unite and work together harmoniously and efficiently to complete in peace the great task for Cuba's welfare which had so far been advanced in war.

The result, at least for a time, was marvellous. Cuban and Spaniard, Revolutionist, Autonomist and Const.i.tutionalist, for a time joined hands. At one of the chief public receptions given to Gomez in Havana, the flags of Cuba, of the United States, and of Spain were equally displayed, and were all three greeted with applause. That spirit did not, it is true, always thereafter prevail. But it was of incalculable profit to Cuba to have it so strongly aroused and manifested at that crucial period in her history.

During the administration of General Brooke the police force of Havana was completely reorganized, with the a.s.sistance of John B. McCullagh, formerly Superintendent of Police in New York. This was done as promptly as possible after the installation of American rule, and by the beginning of March, 1899, the peace and security of the Cuban capital were safeguarded by an admirable uniformed force of about a thousand men. Under the command of General Mario G. Menocal as Chief this body of men rendered Havana as efficient service, probably, as that in any American city of similar size. Police work in Havana, it should be understood, differs considerably from that in cities of the United States, for the reason that drunkenness and its attendant disorder and petty brawls are substantially unknown in the Cuban metropolis, and therefore one of the most prolific causes of arrests in American cities is there non-existent.

When the American administration took charge of Cuban affairs it found the insular treasury quite empty. The departing Spaniards had seen to that. But a careful, honest and thrifty management of finances soon provided the island with a good working income. By the first of September, 1899, fully $10,000,000 had been received in revenue from different sources. Major E. F. Ladd of the United States army was made Treasurer and Disbursing Officer of the customs service, and a little later he was appointed Auditor and then Treasurer of the island. In those capacities he showed admirable efficiency and greatly ingratiated himself with the people; ranking as one of the most successful members of the American governing staff. His administration was the more appreciated by Cubans because of the welcome reform of the taxation system which was at that time effected. The old Spanish tax system had been abominable, and that of the short-lived Autonomist regime of 1897-1898 changed it chiefly with the result of adding to the confusion.

Early in 1899, therefore, radical reforms were undertaken. An order was issued on February 10 remitting all taxes due under the old Spanish law which had remained unpaid on January 1, with the exception of taxes on pa.s.sengers and freight which had according to custom been collected and were held by the railroad companies. All taxes on the princ.i.p.al articles of food and fuel were abolished, as were also all munic.i.p.al taxes on imports and exports. These taxes had formerly been very burden-some and were a source of much grievance and irritation, and their abolition was very gratifying to the Cuban people, who began to appreciate what it meant to have a government whose prime object was to serve them and not to plunder them.

One tax was greatly increased, namely, the excise tax upon all alcoholic liquors, and this was made a part of the revenue of the munic.i.p.alities instead of the state, thus compensating the munic.i.p.alities for the loss of the tax on merchandise. Despite the temperate habits of the Cuban people, the very general consumption of some form of alcoholic drink made this impost amount to a considerable sum.

A matter which urgently needed reform, but which unfortunately was reformed with more zeal than diplomacy, caused much dissension in that first year of American administration. That was the marriage law. Under Spanish government marriage was held to be exclusively a function, indeed, a sacrament, of the Roman Catholic church, and could not legally be performed by any other authority; though in later years there had been made a provision for the civil marriage of non-Catholics. But since to resort to the latter meant to incur a certain social reproach, few couples ever availed themselves of it. Of course loyal members of the church could not do so, the religious ceremony being imperative for them.

With the departure of the Spanish government from the island a complete separation of church and state occurred, and it was held imperative to provide a new law of marriage. The old system had become odious, it may be explained, because of the large fees which many ecclesiastics charged for performance of the ceremony, and because, on account of those fees, many couples among the poorer elements of the population, decided to dispense with the marriage ceremony altogether; a practice not conducive to social order, and frequently causing serious embarra.s.sment and litigation over the inheritance of property. Unfortunately in trying to reform the system the new government went too far toward the opposite extreme. The author of the new law was Senor Jose Antonio Gonzalez Lanuza, the Secretary of Justice, and it made civil marriage compulsory, though it permitted a supplementary religious ceremony at the pleasure of the parties. "Hereafter," it said, "only civil marriages shall be legally valid." It fixed the legal fee for marriages at one dollar.

The intention of the law was doubtless good, and it might be argued that it should not have caused offence, since it did not interfere with religious marriage ceremonies. There is no doubt that it was very strongly favored by a large part of the Cuban nation. When it was proposed to repeal or to modify it materially the vast majority of munic.i.p.al governments in the island, all of the judges of the Supreme Court, a majority of the judges of first instance, and half of the Provincial Governors, urged its retention unchanged. The clergy of the Roman Catholic church, however, opposed it vigorously and persistently, and it was finally deemed desirable to modify it so as to make either civil or religious marriage valid. The objection to it had been, of course, that by invalidating religious marriages it cast a certain slur upon the church. It is interesting to recall, however, that the law in its objectionable form was the work of a Cuban jurist, while in its amended and acceptable form it was the work of an American and conformed with the law in the United States, where civil and religious marriage ceremonies are equally legal and valid.

In order to protect the island against undue exploitation by American speculators and "promoters," a law of the American Congress in February, 1899, forbade the granting of franchises or concessions of any kind during the period of American occupation and control. It was not pretended that there was no need of any such grants, but it was prudently contended that they should wait until the Cubans themselves had full control of the insular government. The wisdom of this was apparent, and the law was generally approved, even by those who most clearly saw the desirability of developing the resources and industries of the island by the building of railroads, tramways, telegraph lines, etc. It was better for these to wait for a year or two than to incur the suspicion that an American administration had granted Cuban franchises to American promoters on terms which a Cuban government would not have approved.

A most important enterprise during the Brooke administration was the taking of a thorough census of the island. This was ordered by President McKinley on August 17, 1899, and was taken early in the ensuing fall.

The island was divided into 1,607 enumeration districts, and the work of canva.s.sing was given chiefly to Cubans. Among the canva.s.sers were 142 women; the first women ever employed in government work in Cuba. The census was not a mere enumeration, but comprised a multiplicity of details concerning the age, nativity, citizens.h.i.+p, conjugal condition, literacy, etc., of the people, and also concerning agriculture and the other occupations in which they were engaged. The populations of the provinces were as follows, compared with the figures of the census of 1887:

Provinces 1899 1887

Pinar del Rio 173,082 225,891 Havana 424,811 451,928 Matanzas 202,462 259,578 Santa Clara 356,537 354,122 Camaguey 88,237 67,789 Oriente 327,716 272,379 -------- ------- Totals 1,572,845 1,631,687

These figures are significant. There should, of course, have been a considerable increase in population in those twelve years. Instead, there was a considerable decrease. The entire number of normal increase, plus the 58,842 actual decrease, may be taken as representing the loss through the war. It will also be observed that the loss of population was in the three western provinces, where the Spanish most held sway during the war, and that there was no loss but a considerable increase in the three eastern provinces, which were largely controlled by the Cubans. The population by s.e.xes and race was as follows:

Male 815,205 Female 757,592

Native white 910,299 Foreign white 142,098

Negro 234,738 Mixed 270,805

Chinese 14,857

The report of citizens.h.i.+p was:

Cuban 1,296,367 Spanish 20,478 In suspense 175,811 Other aliens 79,525 Unknown 616

The total number of illegitimate children, of all ages, was 185,030; a discreditably high number, attributed largely to the former expensive marriage system. The statistics of education were distressing. The number of children under ten years of age who were attending or had attended school was only 40,559, and the number who had not attended was 316,428. The number of persons ten years old and over who could read and write was only 443,670; those who could neither read nor write were 690,565--an appalling proportion of illiteracy, reflecting most discreditably upon the Spanish government of the island. The number of persons of "superior education" in the whole island was only 19,158.

Nor were the statistics of industry much more satisfactory. The following were the totals for the island:

Agriculture, fisheries and mining 299,197 Trade and transportation 79,427 Manufactures and mechanics 93,074 Professional 8,736 Domestic and personal 141,936 No gainful occupation 950,467

Another supremely important measure which was adopted during the closing weeks of General Brooke's administration, though its complete working out was reserved for his successor, was suggested by some of the census figures which we have just quoted. It was realized that the need of education was of all Cuban popular needs the most urgent. Accordingly on November 2, 1899, General Brooke ordered the organization of a new bureau in the Department of Justice and Public Instruction, at the head of which should be a Superintendent of Schools. The first inc.u.mbent of that office was Alexis E. Frye, who drafted another order, promulgated by General Brooke on December 6 and practically const.i.tuting a new school law for Cuba. It provided for the formation of Boards of Education and the opening of primary and grammar schools in all communities by December 11, 1899, or as soon thereafter as possible.

That was the beginning of the popular education of the Cuban people.

After these things, General Brooke was on December 20 relieved of his command in Cuba. He issued a brief farewell proclamation to the people, calling attention to the progress which had been made in good government, and toward complete self-government and independence; every word of which was amply justified by facts. He was a soldier rather than an administrator, and he was nearing the age of retirement from active service. His administration had been beset with difficulties; it had made some mistakes, and it had done much good work. He was charged by some with having entrusted the powers of government too largely to his Cuban Secretaries; while others commended him for that very circ.u.mstance. His inclination was toward a bureaucracy, but it was a Cuban and not an alien bureaucracy. It cannot be denied that he laid much of the foundation of subsequent achievements and of successful Cuban government. It was under his governors.h.i.+p that General Ludlow cleansed the city of Havana, that the Customs service and the treasury were reorganized, and that provision was made for a comprehensive system of public schools.

CHAPTER X