The History of Cuba, vol. 4

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

The red, white and blue flag of Cuba, though then first raised in unchallenged sovereignty, was then by no means a new thing. It was already more than half a century old, and had been the guidon of brave men in three bloody wars. It was designed by the first great Cuban revolutionist, Narciso Lopez, and by his comrade, Miguel Teurbe Tolon, of Matanzas, a gifted poet and ardent patriot, and it was first displayed by Lopez in his raid upon and capture of the city of Cardenas, on May 19, 1850. The five bars, alternately blue and white, represented the five provinces into which the island was at that time divided; the red triangle represented the blood of patriots which was being shed in the cause of liberty; and the white star was the star of Cuba's hope. After the death of Lopez the flag disappeared. But when the Ten[{251}] Years' War began many flags of that same design were made, the workroom being in a house on Warren Street in the City of New York, and thereafter it remained familiar to every Cuban patriot.

The coat of arms of the Republic of Cuba displays the colors of the flag, and by their side the Royal Palm, perhaps the most notable of the trees in Cuba. The tree springs from a grassy plain, at the back of which is a mountain range; agriculture and mining being thus typified. Across the top of the shield extends a landscape-seascape, representing the ocean, with Florida at one side and Yucatan at the other, while between them lies the Key, Cuba. From the far horizon rises the sun. Above all is the Cap of Liberty, while around the shield are twined branches of oak and laurel.

No more just and fitting estimate of the great work of intervention which thus, on May 20, 1902, was consummated, has ever been made than that which was uttered only a few weeks later by President Roosevelt, in speaking before a distinguished audience at Harvard University. He said:

"Four years ago Leonard Wood went down to Cuba,[{252}] has served there ever since, has rendered her literally invaluable service; a man who through these four years thought of nothing else, did nothing else, save to try to bring up the standard of political and social life in that island, to clean it physically and morally, to make justice even and fair in it, to found a school system which should be akin to our own, to teach the people after four centuries of misrule that there were such things as government righteousness and honesty and fair play for all men on their merits as men."

That was the work which Leonard Wood did in Cuba; that was the work which the United States government did by and through him; the consummation of which was denoted in that unique act of withdrawing the American flag and raising the Cuban flag in its place. Fortunate was it, however, that the results of that work, the teachings of the American occupation, the meaning of the American flag, were not and could not be withdrawn when the Stars and Stripes came down. Just as the colors and indeed the essential pattern of the flag remained, in different arrangement, so the essential spirit of American republicanism remained, to be manifested not any longer by American interveners but by the Cuban people themselves.

It was a marvellous achievement, that of those four years. It was such as the world had not seen equalled, at any other time or in any other place. It was creditable in the highest degree to the Cuban people themselves. It was creditable to the United States, for its intervention at its own great cost and for its scrupulous keeping of its faith. It was creditable to many individual actors in the great drama, both insular and continental, who displayed unsurpassed fidelity, self-sacrifice and heroism in the cause of Cuban liberation. But[{253}] the simple truth and justice of history would be impaired if the chief credit were not given, primus inter pares, to the great American administrator, conquering soldier and constructive statesman, who from first to last was the guiding genius of Cuban rehabilitation.

The works of Durham in Canada, and of Cromer in Egypt, form splendid passages in the history of benevolent colonial administration. But there was a more difficult work performed not for a dependent colony which would return compensation to the Mother Country or to the suzerain power but for an alien land and people, presently to become entirely independent of their benefactor. He found the Pearl of the Antilles war-ravaged and faction-rent; her fields desolated, her industries destroyed; her women widowed and her children orphaned; her treasury empty and her debts heavy and pressing; her government abolished and her laws inadequate; with famine, pestilence and hopelessness stalking throughout the land. It was his work to heal the wounds of war and to unite the people of all classes and parties for the common good; to assist the revival of agriculture and the rebuilding of industry; to care for the widowed and the orphaned; to replenish the public treasury and to discharge the debt of honor to the veterans of the War of Independence; to organize efficient government and out of his own constructive genius to conceive and to promulgate needed and beneficent laws; to feed the hungry until they could feed themselves, to banish pestilence until a lazar-house became a health resort, and to inspire with hope and faith triumphant a people who for a generation had striven with the demons of despair.

With such a labor successfully achieved, through the exercise of a tact, a perseverance, a resourcefulness and an administrative genius not surpassed in his day and[{254}] generation, we may not wonder that he was universally beloved by all the Cuban people regardless of class, of previous condition or of political predilections; that the only cloud resting upon the brilliance of the consummation of Cuban independence proceeded from the fact of his departure from the island and the people he had so greatly served; and that, not waiting for the slow tributes of remote posterity, the Cuban people of his own day hold in their supremest confidence, gratitude, respect and enduring affection the name, the memory and the vital personality of Leonard Wood.

President Palma had already selected the members of his Cabinet on May 17, three days before the transfer. It contained six members, chosen without regard to party, for the President was not a partisan. As a matter of fact, however, it contained representatives of all three of the old parties, which were at this time in course of dissolution and reorganization into the two which have since divided the Cuban people between them. Diego Tamayo was the Secretary of Government, having charge of the postal service, the signal service, sanitation, and the Rural Guard. Carlos Zaldo was Secretary of State and of Justice. Emilio Terry was Secretary of Agriculture. Manual Luciano Diaz was Secretary of Public Works; Eduardo Yero was Secretary of Public Instruction; and Garcia Montes was Secretary of Finance.