"Called by the confidence of the Holy Father to a larger and more difficult field of action, I feel the duty before leaving Cuba to express to your Excellency my sentiment of friendship and gratitude, not only for the kindness shown to me, but for the fair treatment of the questions with the Government of the Island, especially the Marriage and Church Property questions. The equity and justice which inspired your decisions will devolve before all fair-minded people to the honor, not {154} only of you personally, but also to the Government you so worthily represent. I am gratified to tell you that I have already expressed the same sentiment to the Holy Father in writing and I will tell him orally on my visit to Rome. Yours very respectfully, X. Donatus, Bishop of Havana."
An interesting result of this work of Wood's in regard to the settlement of the religious questions of the Island came later on when he was starting on his way to take up his work in the Philippines in the form of a delegation of Church authorities headed by Archbishop Jones. This delegation came to General Wood to say that its members proposed to approach the President of the United States and suggest that Wood be given the same authority to represent church matters in the Philippines as he had had in Cuba. They added that if this were done, they would give him full power to represent the Catholic Church as a referee and confer upon him the power not only to recommend action in all matters, but to settle all matters for the Church himself.
It is very doubtful if such authority has many times in history been given to a Protestant by the {155} Church of Rome, and it marks the extraordinary height to which Wood's ability had lifted him in the world at large.
It is hardly to be wondered at that Theodore Roosevelt wrote at the time: "Leonard Wood four years ago went down to Cuba, has served there ever since, has rendered services to that country of the kind which if performed three thousand years ago would have made him a hero mixed up with the sun god in various ways; a man who devoted his whole life through those four years, who thought of nothing else, did nothing else, save to try to bring up the standard of political and social life in that Island, to teach the people after four centuries of misrule that there were such things as governmental righteousness and honesty and fair play for all men on their merits as men." [Footnote: Harvard Graduates' Magazine.]
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THE STATESMAN
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