And State Papers 81 



Leonard Wood four years ago went down to 

 Cuba, has served there ever since, has rendered her 

 literally invaluable service; a man who through 

 those four years thought of nothing else, did noth 

 ing else, save to try to bring up the standard of polit 

 ical and social life in that island, to clean it physi 

 cally 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 govern 

 mental righteousness and honesty and fair play for 

 all men on their merits as men. He did all this. 

 He is a man of slender means. He did this on his 

 pay as an army officer. As Governor of the island 

 sixty millions of dollars passed through his hands, 

 and he came out having been obliged to draw on his 

 slender capital in order that he might come out 

 even when he left the island. Credit to him ? Yes, 

 in a way. In another, no particular credit, because 

 he was built so that he could do nothing else. He 

 devoted himself as disinterestedly to the good of the 

 Cuban people in all their relations as man could. 

 He has come back here, and has been attacked, for 

 sooth, by people who are not merely unworthy of 

 having their names coupled with his but who are 

 incapable of understanding the motives that have 

 spurred him on to bring honor to this republic. 



And Taft, Judge Taft, Governor Taft, who has 

 been the head of the Philippine Commission, and 

 who has gone back there Taft, the most brilliant 

 graduate of his year at Yale, the youngest Yale man 



