It is not with ambition for conquest or for political ascendancy that Cuba exults in that proud position, but[{364}] merely that she may in the words of her President "show herself worthy of the favors which God has lavished upon her," and make herself a joy unto herself and a convenience and a benefaction to the peaceful world.
It is into such an estate that she has now found the sure way to enter, and is indeed confidently and triumphantly entering, through achievements which, though embraced in only half a dozen years, are worthy of a generation of progress and are auspicious of immeasurable generations of progress yet to come; achievements toward which[{365}] her present Chief of State has greatly and indispensably contributed.
The story of Cuba is from Velasquez to Menocal. That is the story which we have tried to tell. But that is by no means the whole history of Cuba. Even of that portion of it we have been able here to give only an outline of the essential facts. But surely the span of four hundred and seven years must not be reckoned as a finality. It is only the beginning of the annals of a land and a people whose place among the nations of the world in honorable perpetuity is now assured as far as it can be assured by human purpose and achievement.
These pages are, then, in fact, merely the prologue to records of progress and attainment which shall honor the name of Cuba and adorn the story of the world, "far on, in summers that we shall not see."
From Velasquez to Menocal. The span is tremendous, in character as well as in lapse of time. It is a span from the fanatical and ruthless conqueror seeking only his own and his country's advantage, selfish and sordid, to the broad-minded and altruistic statesman and philanthropist, seeking the advantage and the advancement of his fellow men. It is a span, in brief, from the Sixteenth Century age of force to the Twentieth Century age of law.
Nevertheless, the span and the contrast involve a certain analogy. It was the work of Velasquez, masterful man of vision that he was, to begin the transformation of a land of aboriginal barbarians into at least a semblance of civilization; the transformation from the primitive, scarcely more than animal, existence of the Cuban autochthones, to the strenuous if sophisticated life of Spain. It has been and is the work of President Menocal and his accomplished and patriotic colleagues to induct the land[{366}] and people from the discredited remnants of a false colonial system into the clearer light, the fuller life and the immeasurably more spacious and elevated opportunities of a free and independent people who "comprehend the responsibilities incumbent upon the founders of nations."