The History of Cuba, vol. 4

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

We have said that at the opening session, immediately after his introductory address, the American Military Governor left the hall. He did not revisit it, and neither he nor any American officer was ever present at any meeting of the Convention; nor was any American representative present at the closing function of the signing of the Constitution. The purpose of that abstention was obvious. It was to avoid so much as the appearance or the suspicion of American meddling or dictation in the work of the Convention. General Wood had told the Convention that it had nothing to do with his government of the island. Conversely he wished to show that he and his government had nothing to do with the work of the Convention.

The Constitution thus auspiciously brought into existence declares Cuba to be a sovereign republic. The powers of government are much more centralized than those in the United States. The six Provinces have no such rights as have the states of America, though they have a liberal measure of local governmental power. They are not states or provinces, however, but mere departments—fractions of the whole instead of integral units. Each has a Governor and an elected Assembly. So each city and town has a mayor and a council. Municipalities have the power to levy taxes for local needs. The control of railroads and telegraphs is a national function, and the judicial system is also national. There[{194}] is freedom of speech, of press and of worship. No prisoner may be held longer than twenty-four hours without judicial process. Congress consists of a Senate and a House of Representatives. There are six Senators from each department, elected by the municipalities for six years, one third retiring every two years. Representatives are elected from districts by the people for four years, there being one member to every 25,000 inhabitants. Senators and Representatives must be twenty-five years old, and if not native citizens must have been naturalized eight years. The President and Vice-President are elected for four years by the people through electoral colleges, with a provision for minority representation, each citizen voting for only two-thirds of the number of electors to which his district is entitled. Justices of the Supreme Court are appointed for life by the President with the ratification of the Senate. The civil law and constitutional guarantees can be suspended in case of emergency only by Congress when it is in session, but by the President when Congress is not in session. The House of Representatives may impeach the President, when the Senate may suspend him from office, try him, and upon conviction remove him permanently. Amendments of the Constitution must be voted by two-thirds of both Houses and ratified by a popular convention specially called for the purpose.

There can be no question that this was a highly creditable production, and one which amply merited the qualified approval which was given to it by Elihu Root, Secretary of War of the United States, when he said: "I do not fully agree with the wisdom of some of the provisions of this Constitution. But it provides for a republican form of government; it was adopted after long and patient consideration and discussion; it represents[{195}] the views of the delegates elected by the people of Cuba; and it contains no features which would justify the assertion that a government organized under it will not be one to which the United States may properly transfer the obligations for the protection of life and property under international law, assumed in the Treaty of Paris."

The first part of the Convention's work was thus done. There remained the second part, the expression of Cuban opinion as to what ought to be the relations between that island and the United States. Over this a most unfortunate controversy arose, chiefly provoked and fomented, however, not by Cubans but by the partisan enemies of the President of the United States and of his policy, who did not scruple to intrigue against him in the affairs of foreign lands. It will be recalled that this hatred of him, provoked largely because of his insistence on fulfilling the pledge of Cuban freedom instead of seeking to serve certain sordid interests by forcibly annexing the island, culminated in the assassination of President McKinley at the incitement of his political foes. The opposition to him and to his policy in Cuba was continued unabated against his successor, President Roosevelt; and it was most unfortunate for both countries that the establishment of Cuban self-government and the determination of her relations to her northern neighbor, had to be effected in such circumstances.

The United States government had to deal on the one hand with those who insisted that it should have no more special relations with Cuba than any other country had; and on the other with those who demanded the repudiation of the Congressional pledge and the forcible annexation of the island. In those circumstances it was not strange that many Cubans were disinclined to make any such arrangement as had been required in the call for[{196}] the Convention. They recalled that the United States had declared that "Cuba is of right and ought to be free and independent," and they were not disposed to look beyond that declaration.

Three considerations were too much overlooked on both sides, save by the thoughtful American and Cuban statesmen who finally solved the problem. One was that the United States had for nearly a century exercised a certain degree of protection or supervision over Cuba. It had repeatedly forbidden European powers to meddle with the island, and had for many years guaranteed and protected Spain in her possession of it. It was held to be only reasonable that a similar degree of interest should be maintained in the island in its independent status. The second point was that in the Treaty of Paris in 1898 the United States had incurred a certain moral if not a legal responsibility for the future of Cuba. The third was the much less specific yet by no means negligible consideration that the United States had intervened in Cuba to put an end to conditions which had become intolerably offensive to it, and it was therefore equitably entitled to take all proper precautions against a recurrence of such conditions.

In pursuance of the requirements of the call for the Convention, then, immediately after the signing of the Constitution, a committee was appointed to draft a project concerning relations with the United States. It consisted of Diego Tamayo, Gonzalo de Quesada, Juan Gualberto Gomez, Enrique Villuendas, and Manuel Ramon Silva. These gentlemen conferred with General Wood, to learn the wishes of President McKinley, and then drafted a scheme which they presented to the Convention and which that body adopted on February 27. Unfortunately between the President's wishes and the[{197}] committee's project there were radical differences. The President, through his Secretary of War, Elihu Root, had on February 9 expressed with much circumstance and detail and a wealth of argument the relationship which the United States government regarded as essential. It amounted to this: That the Cuban government should never make any treaty or engagement which would impair its independence, nor make any special agreement with any foreign power without the consent of the United States; that it should contract no public debt in excess of the capacity of the ordinary revenues of the island; that the United States should have the right of intervention for the preservation of Cuban independence and the maintenance of a stable government; that all the acts of the American Military Administration should be validated; and that the United States should be permitted to acquire and to hold naval stations in Cuba at certain points.

The Committee of the Convention reported that in its judgment some of these conditions were unacceptable, inasmuch as they impaired the independence of Cuba. So it proposed and the Convention adopted proposals to this effect: That Cuba should never impair her independence by any agreement with any power, not excepting the United States; that she should never permit her territory to be used as a base or war against the United States; that she accepted the obligations expressed and implied in the Treaty of Paris; that she should validate the acts of the Military Government "for the good government of Cuba"; and that the United States and Cuba should regulate their commercial relations by means of a reciprocity treaty.

Obviously, there was a wide divergence between the two schemes. It was unfortunate that the American[{198}] Congress was about to adjourn, on March 4, and was reluctant to reassemble in special session, and also that the political passions to which we have referred were raging at so high a pitch. In more favorable circumstances the matter would have been settled diplomatically without friction or ill-feeling. There was, indeed, a very considerable conservative party in Cuba, probably comprising a majority of the substantial, well informed and orderly inhabitants, who favored some such scheme of American supervision and control as that which had been proposed, and if there had been a little more time for calm deliberation they would probably have won the Convention and the whole island to their point of view. Unhappily the government at Washington determined to finish the matter up before Congress adjourned on March 4, and in the short time which intervened the passionate voice of faction was much more in evidence man the thoughtful and measured voice of patriotic counsel.

Senator Orville H. Platt, of Connecticut, one of the ablest and fairest-minded men in that body, was the Chairman of the Committee on Relations with Cuba. It was probably he who suggested the modification which was made in the instructions to the Convention. He now declared that—which was perfectly true—the United States Congress had no power to approve, reject, or in any way amend or modify the Cuban Constitution. Cuba was entitled to establish her own government without let or hindrance. But he also held that by virtue of the grounds of its intervention in Cuban affairs the United States possessed certain rights and privileges in that island above those of other powers, and that it was in duty bound, for the sake of both Cuba and itself, to provide in some assured way for the permanent safe-[{199}]guarding of those special interests. These views were approved by the best thought of both countries, and ultimately prevailed.