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 assume 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 anticipation 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 leadership 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 governorship, 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 Hampshire, 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 Massachusetts
on January 5, 1886, as an Assistant 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 Assistant
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
incumbent upon him to administer the existing municipal 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 associated
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 régime 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 attitude 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 circumstances. 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
guardianship 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 municipalities. 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.
[Illustration: 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 Governorship 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 circumstances 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 passed 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 embarrassing, was
that of local or municipal government. The island was divided into six
provinces, thirty-one judicial districts, and one hundred and thirty-two
municipalities, 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 Assembly 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 mass 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 attitude toward them was no
less significant. At every place through which he passed 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 Constitutionalist, 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 assistance 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
passengers and freight which had according to custom been collected and
were held by the railroad companies. All taxes on the principal articles
of food and fuel were abolished, as were also all municipal 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 municipalities
instead of the state, thus compensating the municipalities 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 embarrassment 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
municipal 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
canvassing was given chiefly to Cubans. Among the canvassers 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, citizenship, 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 sexes 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 citizenship 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 incumbent of
that office was Alexis E. Frye, who drafted another order, promulgated
by General Brooke on December 6 and practically constituting 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
circumstance. 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 governorship 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.