CHAPTER III
POLITICAL FUTURE OF CUBA
THE political future of Cuba is a matter of much speculation and interest. Considerable will hereafter be said in this volume on the economic and industrial future of this wonderfully productive Island, and little doubt can be entertained that with an honest effort and stable government the commercial future of Cuba will be full of promise. What of the political future? The industrial independence of the Island attained, what, if any, steps are likely to be taken for the political independence? At the present moment, it is difficult to discern any nucleus around which is likely to crystallise sentiment strong enough to form, with any degree of unanimity, a cohesive, independent government. The strongest and uppermost sentiment in the Island, as I have found it since the close of the war, is for peace and reconstruction under the guidance of the United States. Those who have made the greatest sacrifice for independence are apparently willing to rest for a while and enjoy the glorious results of industrial and commercial independence and a release for ever from Spanish misrule. Let the future shape its own political policy, is the desire of all intelligent Cubans. In commercial and business circles (and it must be remembered that the author has, in the course of his inquiries, been very largely thrown in contact with business people), the desire for ultimate absorption or annexation by the United States is almost unanimous. Those who have property, those engaged in industrial pursuits, those carrying on commerce, those interested in affairs, regardless of nationality, see the greatest future for Cuba in ultimate annexation to the United States, and openly advocate that policy. There are others who advocate annexation on grounds of sentiment, and who take the stand that the degree of real freedom enjoyed by a State of the Republic is greater, and the advantages far in excess of those likely to accrue to the mixed population of Cuba by the establishment of any sort of independent government. This is not a matter for surprise when it is recalled that a large proportion of the most enlightened Cubans have been educated in the United States, while no inconsiderable number of the most active participants in the war for Cuban freedom carried individually, alike into battle and into conference, the grandest badge of freedom so far vouchsafed to mankind—United States citizenship.
These ideas are admirably set forth in a pamphlet just written by Fran Figueras, who makes an eloquent plea for the annexation of Cuba to the United States. The title of the little book—for it is more than a pamphlet—suggests the line of argument: Cuba Libre—Independence or Annexation. Exactly! Cuba is free to-day! Liberty came when Spanish sovereignty ended. Adapting the lines of Kipling, the Cubans may truthfully say:
“If blood be the price of liberty,
Lord God, we ha’ bought it fair.”
Liberty, therefore, has been won and paid for. By the very nature of things there can be no forcible annexation to the nation representing the absolute liberties of the people. If Cuba becomes part of the United States, it will be because the Cubans, having won their liberty, shall so decree. Intelligent Cubans understand this perfectly well and none better than the author referred to above.
After reviewing the state of public opinion in Spain late in 1896 and the sentiments predominating in Cuba among the native population in regard to the mutual relations with the mother country, Mr. Figueras analyses the present situation, and considers that public opinion in Cuba is divided into three classes. Those wanting:
| 1. | Immediate and absolute independence. |
| 2. | Independence under American protectorate. |
| 3. | Annexation, more or less immediate. |
He allows independence to be the ideal of all peoples, but considers Cuban independence to be still in embryo, and compares the sudden liberation of the island from Spanish dominion to a premature birth, brought on by American intervention and subject to the dangers attending its early advent at an unexpected time. The author contends that to form a nation it is important that the inhabitants shall have some common interests, usually apparent in countries where one element predominates. He finds that in Cuba there are three races equally strong: the autochthonic or white Cuban (pure white), the Cuban with unmistakable and acknowledged signs of black descent, and the white Spaniard; the first of which by its number, the second by its greater acclimation, and the third by its wealth preserve the balance. The fact that these people do not live in different provinces but in the same places makes this adjustment all the more noticeable. Sometimes in one house you will see a patriarchal Spanish father with conservative ideas in the same room with his son of high-flown, Robespierre-like ideas, convinced that a country progresses more in a year of revolution than in a century of peaceful campaigning; while in a dark corner the negro servant, a slave only yesterday, to-day free and taking an interest by no means meagre in the revolutionary legend, curses his colour but does not fail to realise how better fitted he is for rough work than his white neighbours.
“And in the present situation which, pray, of these elements,” the author asks, “is victorious? Which has conquered and is ready to take under its protecting ægis the other two? Is it perchance the revolutionary party that has had its work crowned with success and that can therefore force its criterion of independence on all the inhabitants? Facts answer this question negatively and it would be sheer madness to constitute one nation out of such heterogeneous elements.”
The author establishes comparisons with the other southern republics, contends that Cuba will be in a chronic state of revolution if left to herself, calls attention to the handicap to Cuban sugar, tobacco, and coffee industries by the annexation of Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and asks if it is to be expected that the United States understands that her interest in Cuba’s welfare is to justify damaging that of the new colonies for Cuba’s exclusive benefit.