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THE

NOVEMBER, 1906

VOLUME XIII

NUMBER 1

T

The March of Events

HERE was nothing less that we could do than intervene in Cuba. When we gave the Cubans their liberty, we wisely and necessarily reserved the right to restore order if they failed to keep it, and they gave explicit assent to this right. Such an insurrection had arisen as forced President Palma to ask for our intervention.

He revealed

a disappointing inefficiency as executive, and his partisan enemies resorted to the Cuban method of protest-an insurrection.

The whole incident is a deep disappointment; for it shows that the Cubans, who were on trial before all the world, are yet children of Spanish and not of American governmental nurture. Puerile and pathetic the whole story is how even for the great boon of free government they could not rid themselves of little jealousies about little "honors," of small grudges about small injuries, of offences against "dignity"these hot-tempered, short-sighted little men, nurtured in oppression and revolution.

The prompt and sober way in which, after due warning, our intervention was ordered by the President and carried into effect by Secretary Taft, was of a piece with all our actions touching Cuba. The manner of our doing it was as proper as the deed itself was necessary necessary for the Cubans, for us, and for the peace of our hemisphere.

ANNEXATION ONLY AFTER HOPELESS FAILURE

DISAPPOINTING ISAPPOINTING as this Cuban breakdown of popular government is, it is yet too soon to despair of the Republic. The habit of revolution is a hard habit to shake

off. But it may turn out that this experience will enable the Cuban President who shall come in after an election under American direction, to show the fairness and the firmness that President Palma lacked. One breakdown may not prove fatal.

But

Of course, there is a party in Cuba and there are many men in the United States that favor annexation, and they will gain strength with every Cuban political misadventure. You may hear men say in either country that annexation is inevitable, soon or late. As a rule, the influence of the increasing American investments in the island will be in favor of it. all this does not make it wise for us to encourage this feeling. If the Cubans cannot govern themselves, it will be more or less troublesome for us to govern them. Every breakdown they have ought to make us less and not more willing to annex them. Moreover, annexation would be regarded by many as a half-way house to statehood. Once a part of the United States, the Cubans and the Americans in Cuba would not be content to remain in a colonial or a Territorial relation. They would clamor for admission to the Union; and he is either a most hopeful patriot or a lost guide who could see help for us in two Senators from Cuba.

The only satisfactory status of Cuba-satisfactory alike to the best Cuban and to the best American opinion-is that it should yet work out its career as an independent republic under the protection of the United States when it needs protection. Agitation that runs counter to this aspiration is misguided or revolutionary

at least under present conditions. Annex

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