The History of Cuba, vol. 4

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

The foremost director of that war, its organizer and inspirer, was José Marti; one of those rare geniuses who have appeared occasionally in the history of the world to be the incarnation of great ideals of justice and human right. He was indeed many times a genius: Organizer, economist, historian, poet, statesman, tribune of the people, apostle of freedom, above all, Man. In himself he united the virtues, the enthusiasm and the energising vitality[{10}] which his countrymen needed to have aroused in themselves. To his disorganized and disheartened country he brought a magic personality which won all hearts and inspired them all with his own irrepressible and indestructible ideal, National Independence.

Marti was a native Cuban, born in Havana on January 28, 1853. In his mere boyhood he became an eloquent and inspiring advocate of the ideal to which he devoted his life and which he did so much to realize; and at the outbreak of the Ten Years' War, when he was scarcely yet sixteen years old, the Spanish government recognized in him one of its most formidable foes and one of the most efficient propagandists of Cuban independence. For that reason, before he had a chance to enter the ranks of the patriot army, he was deported from the island and doomed to exile. He made his way to Mexico, thence to Guatemala, and there, a lad still in his teens, became Professor of Literature in the National University of that country—a striking testimonial to his erudition and culture. After the Treaty of Zanjon he was permitted to return to Cuba, but he was one of those whom the Spanish government most feared, and he was therefore kept under the closest of surveillance by the police. It was not in his nature to dissemble, or to be afraid. He quickly came before the public in a series of memorable orations, memorable alike for their sonorous eloquence, their cultured erudition, and their intense patriotism; in which he set forth the deplorable state in which Cuba still lay, after her ten years' struggle for better things, and the need that the work which had been so bravely undertaken by Cespedes and his associates should be again undertaken and pressed to a successful conclusion. His orations seemed to have the effect attributed to Demosthenes in his Philippics: They made[{11}] his hearers want to take up arms and fight against their oppressors.

This of course brought upon him the wrath of Spain. He was arrested, and since he was altogether too dangerous a person to be set free in exile, he was carried a close prisoner to Spain. But he quickly made his escape and found asylum in the United States of America; and there his greatest work for Cuba was achieved. Porfirio Diaz had invited him to make his home in Mexico, where he might have risen to almost any eminence in the state, but he declined. "I must go," he said, "to the country where I can accomplish most for the freedom of Cuba from Spain. I am going to the United States." In New York City, where he made his home, he engaged in literary work, and was for some time a member of the staff of the New York Sun. But above all he devoted his time, thought, strength and means to organizing the Cuban revolution.

He gathered together in the Cuban Revolutionary Party all the surviving veterans of the Ten Years' War, Cuban political exiles—like himself—the remnants of Merchan's old "Laborers' Associations," and welded them into a harmonious and resolute whole. He also traveled about the United States, in Mexico and Central America, and in Jamaica and Santo Domingo, wherever Cubans were to be found, rousing them to patriotic zeal and organizing them into clubs tributary to the central Junta in New York. In Cuba itself many such clubs were organized, in secret, which maintained surreptitious correspondence with the New York headquarters.

We have already mentioned some of those with whom he surrounded himself: Tomas Estrada Palma, the President of the Junta; Gonzalo de Quesada, its Secretary, who lived to see the Republic established and to become[{12}] its Minister to Germany, where he died; Benjamin F. Guerra, its Treasurer; and Horatio Rubens, its Counsel, who had been trained in the law office of Elihu Root. Others of that memorable and devoted company were General Emilio Nunez, afterward Vice-President of the Cuban Republic; and Dr. Joaquin Castillo Duany, formerly an eminent physician in the United States Navy, who had distinguished himself in the relief of the famous Jeannette Arctic expedition. These two had charge of the filibustering or supply expeditions which were surreptitiously dispatched from the United States to Cuba. At first General Nunez had charge of all, but when Dr. Duany came from Cuba the work was divided, and the former devoted himself to the coast from Norfolk to the Rio Grande, while the latter supervised that from Norfolk to Eastport, Maine. Dr. Duany and his brother had been prominent citizens and officials in Santiago de Cuba. As soon as the War of Independence began they joined the patriot forces, and Dr. Duany was made Assistant Secretary of War in the Provisional Government. As such, he ran the Spanish blockade of the island, in company with Mr. George Reno, another ardent patriot, and bore to New York authority from the Provisional Government for the issuing of $3,000,000 of Cuban bonds. He also carried with him in a little satchel $90,000 in cash, which had been contributed by various patriotic residents of Cuba.

Another of Marti's associates in New York was Dr. Lincoln de Zayas, a brilliant orator, afterward Secretary of Public Instruction of the Cuban Republic; a man greatly loved by all who knew him. Dr. Enrique Agramonte, brother of that gallant Ignacio Agramonte who was a leader in the Ten Years' War and was killed in that conflict, was a member of the Junta in New York,[{13}] who inspected and selected all the men who were to go on filibustering expeditions; a keen judge of the physical, mental and moral fitness of all the candidates who presented themselves before him. Colonel José Ramon Villalon was also active in the Junta; and he has since been Secretary of Public Works at Havana under President Mario G. Menocal. Nor must Ponce de Leon, a publisher and bookseller, of No. 32 Broadway, New York, be forgotten. His office was frequently the meeting place of the conspirators, if so we may call the patriots, and he and his two sons—one a physician, the other in charge of the archives of the Cuban government—were among the most earnest and efficient workers for the cause of independence.

JOSE RAMON VILLALON

José Ramon Villalon, Secretary of Public Works, was born at Santiago in 1864. He was sent to Barcelona to be educated and later studied at the Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa., where he graduated as civil engineer in 1899. On the outbreak of the war he accompanied General Antonio Maceo on his famous raid in Pinar del Rio province, and was present at the engagements of Artemisa, Ceja del Negro, Montezuelo, attaining the rank of lieutenant-colonel of engineers. While serving under Maceo he designed and constructed the first field dynamite gun, now in the National Museum in Havana. After the war he was made Secretary of Public Works under the military government of General Leonard Wood. Col. Villalon is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Mining Engineers, the Academy of Sciences (Havana), and the Cuban Society of Engineers.

The ideal of Marti and these associates was unequivocally that of Cuban independence. They had no thought of accepting or even considering mere autonomy under Spanish sovereignty, or any promises of reforms in the insular government. They might not have been inexorably opposed to annexation to the United States, had opportunity for that been offered. They might have accepted[{14}] it, in fact, for the sake of getting entirely away from Spain; for that would at least have meant independence from Spain. But as a matter of fact, annexation was not considered. It was never discussed. It formed no part of the programme, not even as an alternative.