Jose Miguel Gomez became President and Alfredo Zayas became
Vice-President of the Republic of Cuba on January 28, 1909. With a
substantial majority in Congress ready to do his will, and with the
immeasurable prestige of success, first over the Palma Administration
and later in the contest at the polls, the President was almost
all-powerful to adopt and to execute whatever designs he had, either for
the assumed welfare of Cuba or for the strengthening of his own
political position. He selected a Cabinet of his own supporters, as
follows:
Secretary of State, Senor Garcia Velez.
Secretary of Justice, Senor Divino.
Secretary of Government, Senor Lopez Leiva.
Secretary of the Treasury, Senor Diaz de Villegas.
Secretary of Public Works, Senor Chalons.
Secretary of Agriculture, Commerce and Labor, Senor Foyo.
Secretary of Public Instruction and Arts, Senor Meza.
Secretary of Sanitation and Charity, Senor Duque.
Secretary to the President, Senor Damaso Pasalodos.
Not many of these men had hitherto been conspicuous in the affairs of
the island, in either peace or war, and their capacity for service was
untried. It cannot be said that they were regarded with any large degree
of enthusiastic confidence by the nation at large. Yet there was
indubitably a general purpose, even among the most resolute
Conservatives, to give them a fair trial and to wish them success. Men
who had the welfare of Cuba at heart cherished that welfare far above
any mere personal or partisan ambitions.
[Illustration: JOSE MIGUEL GOMEZ]
It would not be easy to imagine a man much more different from the first
President of Cuba than his successor, the second President; though
indeed the latter was a man of no mean record, especially in war. Jose
Miguel Gomez was born in Sancti Spiritus on July 6, 1858. He there
obtained his earlier education, which he continued at the Institute of
Havana, taking his degree of Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in 1875. He
joined the revolutionary forces shortly before the end of the Ten Years'
War. When, after the Zanjon Peace, the struggle broke out afresh, in the
Little War, Gomez took once more to the field and attained the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel. This outbreak having failed, he returned to his home
and devoted himself to managing his father's estate in Sancti Spiritus.
When once more the Cuban patriots resumed their struggle for the cause
of independence in 1895, he again answered the call to arms. The action
of Manajato won for him the rank of Colonel and the command of the
Sancti Spiritus brigade. He was subsequently promoted to Brigadier
General and then to the rank of Division General, after the battle of
Santa Teresa where he was wounded. By the year 1898 he was at the head
of the first division of the Fourth Army Corps which operated in Santa
Clara Province. In this command he figured in most of the battles fought
in that section at the time. The capture of the supposedly impregnable
ingenio Canambo in the Trinidad Valley was one of the feats of this
campaign. Also the attack and capture of Jibaro, a town defended by a
strong contingent, and the operation of strategical importance conducted
against Arroyo Blanco, are to the General's credit in this campaign, in
which he was effectively assisted by a remarkable staff of young men,
who won a reputation for their capability and courage. When the Santa
Cruz del Sur Assembly met, at the close of the war against Spain,
General Gomez was elected to represent Santa Clara. Shortly after, he
formed part of a delegation which was sent to Washington on a diplomatic
mission. On his return to Cuba he was appointed Civil Governor of the
Province of Santa Clara on March 14, 1899; which position he held until
September 27, 1905, when he resigned, having been nominated as the
candidate of the Liberal party for the Presidency. His years of office
as Governor of Santa Clara were interrupted by his attending the
sessions of the Constitutional Convention at Havana, as a delegate from
Santa Clara. When General Gomez was defeated by President Estrada Palma,
who ran for re-election, conspiracies and agitations were organized
which culminated in the revolt of August, 1906, against Estrada Palma's
administration. Of this conspiracy and agitation Gomez was the organizer
and leader. The Palma Government having proved its inability to quench
the uprising, the American authorities intervened, and at the close of
that intervention, on January 28, 1909, Gomez was installed as President
of Cuba.
Of different type entirely, yet not unsuited to work with Jose Miguel
Gomez whenever their mutual interests made cooperation desirable, was
the new Vice-President, Dr. Alfredo Zayas. He too was a man of
conspicuous record, in the War of Independence and afterward, though it
had not been made on the field of battle.
Alfredo Zayas was born on February 21, 1861, and took his degree of
licentiate in administrative law in 1882 at the University of Havana,
and the following year in civil and canonic law. He soon acquired a
reputation as a lawyer and in the world of letters. During the War of
Independence he was the delegate in Havana of the revolutionary party.
His activities in this connection having been discovered, he was
imprisoned in September, 1896, and was sent to Spain and incarcerated at
several of the prisons of the Spanish Government in Africa. After the
War of Independence, Dr. Zayas led an active political life. He was the
founder and Secretary of the Patriotic Committee, was a prominent member
of the Constituent Convention, of which he acted as Secretary, and was
foremost in organizing and leading the activities of the National,
Liberal-National and Liberal parties. He served as Senator from the
Province of Havana. He was one of the jurists who formed the
Consultative Committee, appointed to draw up the organic laws of the
executive and judicial powers, as well as the laws relating to the
provincial and municipal institutions. At different times he occupied
the posts of prosecuting attorney, municipal judge, and sub-secretary of
Justice. During the revolutionary movement which took place in 1906
against the Estrada Palma administration, Dr. Zayas was president of the
revolutionary committee. After the provisional administration which
followed the fall of President Palma, he was elected to the
Vice-Presidency of the Republic.
[Illustration: DR. ALFREDO ZAYAS]
Dr. Zayas's life in the world of letters is no less interesting. From
1890-93 he published various periodicals and collaborated in others. He
has written several books on Cuban history and studies on the language
of the primitive inhabitants of the Island, on bibliography, on
questions relating to law and political economy, etc. He is a member of
the Academy of History and for eleven years was President of the
Sociedad Economica.
The armed forces of the American government were of course withdrawn
from Cuba on January 28, 1909, at the same time with the retirement of
Governor Magoon and the second Government of Intervention, and the
maintenance of order was left for a time entirely with the Rural Guard.
That body of men had been very efficient during the American
intervention and was considered by many to be quite ample for all the
military purposes of the island. During 1909, however, President Gomez
decided to organize a permanent Cuban army. To the chief command of this
he appointed his friend Pino Guerra. The organization consisted of a
general staff, a brigade of two regiments of infantry of three
battalions each, amounting to about 2,500 officers and men; two
batteries of light field artillery and four batteries of mounted
artillery, amounting to about 800 officers and men; a machine gun corps
of four companies comprising 500 officers and men; and a corps of coast
artillery comprising 1,000 officers and men. This force was trained and
equipped under the direction of officers of the United States army who
were borrowed for the purpose by the Cuban government.
The administration of President Gomez was marked with the enactment of
many new laws, and of the undertaking of a number of enterprises. One
law granted amnesty to all persons excepting those who had been
convicted of certain peculiarly odious offenses. Another suspended the
duty on the export of sugar, tobacco and liquors which had been imposed
by the former Palma administration. On the other hand an additional tax
was imposed upon all imports. Early in the administration a perpetual
franchise was granted for telephone service throughout the entire
Island, an act which was severely criticized on the ground that the
President himself was believed to derive pecuniary profit from it. Laws
were also enacted in 1909, legalizing cock fighting and establishing the
national lottery.
In 1910, the second year of this administration, President Gomez began
to manifest marked sensitiveness toward the criticisms which were made
of his administration, and on February 3, two editors were convicted of
libelling him, because they had accused him of deriving profit from
governmental activities, and they were sentenced to terms of
imprisonment. In April, he appointed to a place in his cabinet Senor
Morua, a negro, and the first member of that race to hold cabinet office
in Cuba. In July an insurrection occurred in Oriente near the town of El
Caney, which was suppressed by the Rural Guards with little difficulty.
The active participation of government officers in party politics led to
a disturbing incident at the beginning of August. At that time the
Secretary of the Treasury, Senor Villegas, attended a convention of the
Liberal party where he became involved in a violent quarrel. In
consequence, the president ordered that thereafter no member of the
Cabinet should be permitted to attend political meetings, or engage in
active political work; whereupon Villegas resigned his place in the
Cabinet.
In November, congressional elections were held to elect half of the
members of the House of Representatives. During the campaign the former
quarrel in the Liberal party became acute. One faction started a violent
agitation for the suppression of all religious orders in the Island, for
the abolition of trusts in business, and for the prohibition of the
holding of property in Cuba by foreign corporations. The other faction
took for the chief plank in its platform the repudiation of the Platt
Amendment. An attempt was also made by the negro members of the party to
organize a third faction, comprising exclusively the members of their
race. Because of these dissensions in the Liberal party the
Conservatives made a somewhat better showing at the election than they
had done in 1908, but the Liberals were generally successful and secured
a majority in Congress.
At the opening of the session, President Gomez urged revision of the
tariff in order to provide fuller protection for certain manufacturing
industries; the building of a new Palace of Justice; and the
establishment at state expense of public libraries in the chief cities.
During this year an attempt was made to assassinate General Pino Guerra,
but it was unsuccessful. The would-be assassin was arrested and Guerra
professed to recognize in him an officer of the police who had had some
grudge against him. Alfredo Zayas and Frank Steinhart, the former United
States Consul General, also made public complaints of attempts to
assassinate them, and reported the matter to the Supreme Court, but that
tribunal declined to investigate their charges. An attempt was made to
connect the attempted assassination of General Guerra with a bill
pending before Congress, which provided that the head of the army should
not be removed excepting for cause. It was said that this bill was
strongly opposed by the Commander of the Rural Guards, and that he had
in consequence incited the attempt to assassinate Guerra. There was
much public discussion and agitation of this matter, but nothing
practical resulted from it.
Charges continued to be made increasingly of the profligacy and
corruption of the Gomez administration. It was charged, doubtless with
much truth, that the number of public offices and office holders had
been unnecessarily multiplied to a scandalous extent for the sake of
giving profitable jobs to the friends of Liberal leaders. It was also
intimated that the Government had subsidized the press to suppress the
truth concerning these and other charges, and thus to avoid an open
scandal which might result in a third American intervention. Taxation
was declared to be excessive and oppressive, amounting in some cases to
as much as 30 per cent. of the value of the property. Other charges were
that public offices, executive, legislative and even judicial, were
practically sold to the highest bidder for cash; that concessions for
public utilities were similarly disposed of for the profit not of the
public but of members of the Government, and that then extortionate
prices were charged to the public for the service rendered; that the
natural resources of Cuba were thus being parceled out to speculators
for cash; that a bill purporting to be for the improvement of the ports
had increased four-fold the expenses of those ports, for the enrichment
of a speculative company, and that in general the functions of the
government were being perverted to the uses and the personal enrichment
of a ring of Liberal politicians.
As the date of the electoral campaign of 1912 drew near, the conduct of
the administration became such as to incur the menace of another
intervention. In January of that year an arbitrary attempt was made by
President Gomez to thwart the activities and impair the influence of the
Veterans' Association, by forbidding army officers and members of the
Rural Guard to attend any of its meetings, on the pretended ground that
they were engaged in factional political agitation. As the organization
was in no sense a partisan affair, but was composed of men of varying
shades of political opinion who had the good of Cuba at heart, and who
strove to avert the danger of further intervention by making and keeping
the Cuban government above reproach, this decree of the President's was
sharply resented and was openly disobeyed by many army officers. When on
the evening of Sunday, January 14, 1912, many officers and Rural Guards
attended a meeting of the National Council of the Veterans' Association,
and were received with much enthusiasm, the situation caused so much
disquiet that the United States government felt constrained to send a
note of warning to President Gomez, stating that it was much concerned
over the state of affairs in Cuba; that the laws must be enforced and
order maintained; and that the President of the United States looked to
the President and government of Cuba to see to it that there was no need
of a third intervention.
This note evoked from President Gomez the declaration that matters in
Cuba were not in as bad a state as had been reported, and that he had
the whole situation well in hand. General Emilio Nunez, the head of the
Veterans' Association, declared that that organization would remain firm
in its object to guarantee peace, to moralize the Administration, and to
spread patriotism in the hearts of the people; and that it protested
against that which might be a menace to the freedom and independence of
Cuba, with confidence that the people of the United States would never
regard its unselfish and patriotic campaign as an excuse for unwarranted
intervention. He added that the Association had not sought to annul the
law against participation in politics by the army, but resented the
charge in the Presidents' decree that it was "playing politics."
"Patriotically we shall make every sacrifice, but we shall never resign
ourselves to be miserable slaves dominated by irresponsible power
untrammelled by laws or principles."
The leaders of the Liberal party were by no means a unit in attitude
toward the crisis, the antagonism already mentioned between President
Gomez and Vice-President Zayas flaming up anew. The newspaper organ of
the Zayista faction openly declared: "We are on the brink of an abyss,
whither we have been brought by the stubborn stupidity of a portion of
the administration and by flagrant contempt for Congress and its
enactments. These things have brought on all our existing ills." Orestes
Ferrara, Speaker of the House of Representatives, much alarmed at the
menace of intervention which might on this occasion have been as
disastrous to the Liberals as the former intervention had been to the
administration of Estrada Palma, declared that party differences must be
dropped and that "We must resign our passions and ambitions to save Cuba
from another shameful foreign domination."
Meantime the masses of thoughtful, patriotic citizens, disgusted with
what they regarded as governmental extravagance and corruption, held
themselves in admirable restraint, hoping that the peril of intervention
would be in some way avoided until they could have an opportunity of
permanently averting it through the election of a government which would
give the United States no further cause for anxiety or for even a
thought of resuming control of Cuban affairs. The crisis was thus
fortunately passed, and the settlement of the Cuban people with the
administration of Jose Miguel Gomez was postponed, as was fitting, until
the fall elections.
There followed a little later another ominous incident, for which
President Gomez was largely responsible, but which he repudiated and
dealt with in an energetic and efficient manner. The attempt, already
referred to, at the organization of a negro party in the election
campaign of 1910 was followed in May, 1912, by the outbreak of what
seemed to be a formidable negro revolt. The leaders of this movement
were two negro friends of Gomez, General Estenoz and General Ivonnet.
They had been officers in the War of Independence, and it was said that
Gomez had promised them and their negro followers great rewards if they
would support him in his campaign for the presidency. When these
promises were unfulfilled, these two men went through the Island urging
the negroes to organize a political party of their own, which would
probably hold the balance of power between the Conservatives and
Liberals. Because of their violent agitation to this end they were
arrested and imprisoned for a time. Then they were released and treated
with much consideration. Indeed, they were offered appointment to
offices, which, however, they declined. Instead, they renewed their
agitation, and on May 22 an open revolt under their leadership occurred.
So serious did the situation appear that an appeal was made to the
United States Government, and preparations were actually made to send a
naval and military expedition to protect the lives and property of
Americans in the Island. President Gomez, however, rallied his military
forces with much energy, and on June 14 completely routed the main body
of the insurgents, capturing all their supplies of ammunition and
provisions. This practically ended the trouble. Estenoz was killed in
the fighting, and Ivonnet was captured and then killed; "in an attempt
to escape."
Another embarrassment for the passing administration occurred in August,
1912, when the United States government called upon President Gomez to
make prompt settlement of certain claims which had been pending for two
years, amounting to more than $500,000, and growing out of contracts for
the waterworks and sanitation of the city of Cienfuegos. President Gomez
protested that the Cuban treasury was without funds for the purpose, and
that it would be necessary to wait until Congress could make a special
appropriation. This reply was not convincing, seeing that payment of
these identical claims had been made in a loan of $10,000,000 which the
Cuban government had made in New York with the approval of the United
States; and it was naturally assumed at Washington either that the money
had been spent for other purposes or that it was being purposely
withheld by President Gomez on some technicality or for some ulterior
motive.
As an incident of this controversy, in the closing days of August, the
Liberal press of Havana conducted a campaign of vilification against
Hugh S. Gibson, the American Chargé d'Affaires in Cuba, which culminated
in a personal assault upon that gentleman by Enrique Maza, a member of
the staff of one of the papers. This outrage provoked a sharp protest
from the Washington government, in terms which implied a menace of
action if reparation were not made. This alarmed President Gomez, and
caused him to make at least a show of punishing the offender, and to
write a long message of apology and pleading to President Taft, in which
he promised to deal with Maza and with the newspapers which had been
slandering Mr. Gibson, to the full extent of the law, and begged for a
reassuring statement of friendship from the United States government.
Ultimately Maza was punished by imprisonment, and the penalty of the law
was also applied to Senor Soto, the responsible editor of one of the
papers which had most libelled the American Charge d'Affaires. The
Cienfuegos claim was also paid; but because of it an attempt was made to
enact a law excluding all foreign contractors from participation in
Cuban public works!
The Presidential election occurred on November 1, and resulted, as we
shall hereafter see, in assurance that the Liberal party would be
retired from power in May of the following year, and that the government
of the island would be confided to the hands of those who had striven to
uphold the wise and patriotic administration of Estrada Palma. In the
few remaining months of his administration President Gomez pursued
substantially the same policy that had marked the preceding years. In
March, 1913, Congress enacted an Amnesty bill which would have meant a
general jail delivery throughout the Island, and which President Gomez
was strongly inclined to sign. He was restrained at the last moment from
doing so, however, by the energetic protests of the United States
government, which indeed were tantamount to an ultimatum; and instead
returned the measure to Congress with his veto, and with a
recommendation that it be revised so as to avoid the objections of the
United States--though he did not directly mention the United States--and
then repassed. This was done and the modified bill became a law at the
middle of April.
In addition to the general extravagance of the Gomez administration, the
overcrowding of all government offices with superfluous and incompetent
placeholders, and the expenditure of more than $140,000,000 within two
and a half years, there were several specific performances which
provoked severe censure. One of these was the installation of the
National Lottery, which was done by vote of Congress at the dictation of
the President. The pretext given for this was that Cubans loved to
gamble, and that if they had no lottery of their own they would send
their money to Madrid, for chances in the lottery there; and it was
better to keep their money in Cuba than to have it sent to Spain.
Another act of the administration which incurred strong censure and
which was ultimately repealed by the government of President Menocal,
with the approval of the courts, was what was commonly known as the
"Dragado deal." This was the granting to a speculative corporation
composed chiefly of Liberal politicians and called the Ports Improvement
Company of Cuba, of an omnibus concession for the dredging of harbors,
reclaiming of coastal swamp lands, and similar works; for which the
corporation was authorized to collect port fees, including a heavy
surtax on imported merchandise, of which a small proportion would go to
the government and the remainder to the coffers of the corporation. This
concession was granted by President Gomez in 1911, against the advice of
the United States government, and against strong and widespread protests
from the people and press of Cuba, by whom it was regarded as a
monstrous piece of corrupt jobbery. While it was in force, this
concession paid millions of dollars a year to its holders, with an
almost undiscernible minimum of advantage to the nation.
Following this came a bargain with the railroads centering in Havana, by
which the arsenal grounds belonging to the Republic and comprising a
large and valuable tract lying immediately on the Bay of Havana were
given to those companies in exchange for two comparatively small plots
which had been occupied by them as a terminal station and warehouse. In
addition the railroad companies agreed to build, or to provide the money
for building, a new Presidential Palace, which President Gomez hoped to
have finished in time for his own occupancy. This exchange was, in
itself, undoubtedly a good thing. It gave the railroads an admirable
site for the great terminal which they needed and which is now one of
the valuable assets of Havana and indeed of Cuba. But the manner in
which the bargain was made, the exercise of political influence, and the
strong and unrefuted suspicion of the corrupt employment of pecuniary
considerations, brought upon the transaction strong reprobation. An
ironic sequel was that the work which was done on the proposed new
palace was so bad that it presently had all to be torn down.
Fortunately there was no relaxation in the maintenance of sanitary
measures for the prevention of epidemics, and while there was little or
no road building or other such public works those already constructed
were generally well maintained. The judgment of thoughtful and impartial
men upon the administration of José Miguel Gomez was therefore that it
had contained some good and much evil, and that even the good had been
done too often in an unworthy if not an actually evil way. It had been
the administration of an astute and not over-scrupulous politician, who
sought to serve first his own interests, next those of his party and
friends, and last those of the nation, and not that of an enlightened
and patriotic statesman, seeking solely to promote the welfare of the
people who had chosen him to be their chief executive.