CUBA. 



237 



United States Government which the action of 

 Gen. Shatter in excluding Gen. Calixto Garcia 

 from sharing in the triumph >at Santiago had 

 first awakened and the course of the United 

 States military commission for the evacuation 

 of Cuba had intensified. The committee of the 

 Cuban Assembly passed a resolution recommend- 

 ing the soldiers to accept employment. The 

 American forces in Cuba at the time of the Span- 

 ish evacuation numbered 32,458 men and 1,456 

 officers. In Havana province 16,914 were sta- 

 tioned; in Matanzas, 3,654; in Santiago, 7,405. 

 Gen. Gomez toward the end of January ordered 

 the Cuban officers to rejoin their commands and 

 to concentrate the forces in the province of Santa 

 Clara. Thence he marched to the province of 

 Havana, where the United States authorities 

 gave him the palace of the Governor General 

 outside the city as quarters for him and his staff. 

 He made a request that the United States ad- 

 vance $60,000,000 to be distributed among the 

 officers and men of the Cuban army to pay them 

 for their services and compensate. them for losses 

 incurred in the war of independence. The United 

 States Government refused to advance this or 

 any sum for the payment of the Cuban soldiers, 

 but offered to advance $3,000,000 to induce them 

 to give up their arms and enable them to return 

 to their homes arid resume peaceful occupations. 

 Robert Porter, the United States special com- 

 missioner, made it plain to the Cuban commander 

 in chief that no larger sum would be given. 

 When he saw that it was useless to dispute 

 longer about the amount, Gen. Gomez objected 

 to the surrender of the Cuban arms to the United 

 States authorities. He thought that the soldiers 

 ought to retain their arms, that it was compat- 

 ible with peace to have an army Avith arms re- 

 served to defend Cuba against her enemies. The 

 majority of the Cuban officers, objecting to the 

 negotiations being carried on for the payment 

 of the army on the basis of $3,000,000, denied 

 the authority of Gen. Gomez to treat with the 

 United States Government in the name of the 

 army. They held that only the Cuban Assem- 

 bly could accept or decline such a proposal. He 

 declared that he would observe the rulings of 

 the Assembly so far as he considered them bene- 

 ficial to Cuba. When Gen. Gomez consented to 

 accept the amount offered, and the gold was 

 shipped from New York, the Assembly came to- 

 gether, and on March 12 impeached Gen. Gomez 

 by 26 votes to 4 and dismissed him from the post 

 of general in chief on a charge of failure in his 

 military duties and disobedience to the Assem- 

 bly. He still continued the negotiations with 

 Gen. Brooke, and had the approval of most of 

 the Cuban people. The army lists presented by 

 the Cuban officers showed nearly 40,000 men; but 

 as none were to receive a share of the $3,000,000 

 who had not borne arms previous to the middle 

 of 1898, the United States officers insisted that 

 the lists be revised. The Cuban Assembly was 

 reconvened, and the disputes that arose as to 

 who were entitled to receive pay caused a delay, 

 and drove Gen. Gomez to decline to take part 

 in the distribution. The question about what 

 was to be done with the arms and how they 

 should be surrendered was made a point of honor 

 by Gen. Gomez. The instructions from W T ash- 

 ington were that the arms should be surrendered 

 to United States officers. Gen. Gomez would not 

 accede to this, and proposed, if they could not 

 be kept in armories for the future use of the 

 Cuban army, that they be deposited with the 

 alcaldes of the towns, to be preserved in muse- 

 ums as souvenirs of the war of independence. 



Gen. Brooke finally compromised the matter, 

 agreeing that they should be surrendered to al- 

 caldes in the presence of United States officers, 

 turned over to the joint care of these and of 

 representatives of the Cuban army, shipped under 

 guard to Havana and Santiago, and there placed 

 in United States armories under the immediate 

 charge of armorers appointed by Gen. Gomez, to 

 be exhibited as relics of the insurrection and the 

 Spanish-American War. The money was to be 

 distributed by American and Cuban' commission- 

 ers. Every Cuban soldier who was in the service 

 before July 17, 1898, and was not in receipt of 

 a salary from a Government or municipal office, 

 received upon identification by his company offi- 

 cers and the delivery of his arms and equipments 

 the sum of $75 in United States currency. The 

 Cuban commissioners, influenced by the Assem- 

 bly, would not at first fall in with the arrange- 

 ment made between Gen. Brooke and Gen. Gomez, 

 but the soldiers, following the advice of their 

 general in chief, gave up their arms and dis- 

 banded. 



When Gen. Bates retired from the governorship 

 of Santa Clara province his command was merged 

 with that of Matanzas, and taken over by Gen. 

 Wilson, who abolished the rural police created 

 by his predecessor and maintained order with 

 a municipal police. Gov.-Gen. Brooke and the 

 military governors of the provinces surrounded 

 themselves with civilian subordinates, officers of 

 the Cuban army, and other Cubans and Span- 

 iards. The island became perfectly peaceful under 

 their conciliatory administration, and the people 

 turned to the reconstruction of the industries of 

 the island where this was possible. So much 

 had been destroyed that without foreign capital 

 the wheels of industry could not be set moving 

 again. American capitalists were not so ready 

 to avail themselves of the opportunities for in- 

 vestment as English arid German capitalists, 

 who acquired many properties that were in the 

 market at low prices, but without proceeding im- 

 mediately to utilize them and thus furnish work 

 to the people. English agents acquired much of 

 the railroad stock that Spanish holders wished 

 to get rid of. The sugar plantations had been 

 so devastated that the principal industry of the 

 island could not be revived without replacing 

 buildings and machinery at enormous expense, 

 which the depressed condition of the cane-sugar 

 cultivation did not warrant. The conditions of 

 the Cuban tobacco trade, on the other hand, were 

 more inviting than they had ever been. No suit- 

 able substitute had been found for good grades 

 of Havana tobacco during the time that the 

 Cuban insurrection and the war had kept them 

 out of the market. The soldiers of Gomez and 

 other Cubans who wanted work consequently 

 found employment in the tobacco fields, and 

 raised the largest crop that the island ever pro- 

 duced. 



Cubans who had political aspirations and found 

 no employment under the American administra- 

 tion stirred up an agitation concerning the 

 continued military occupation, and threatened 

 to raise a revolt against American rule, which 

 seemed to them to grow more fixed and perma- 

 nent. These were the members and friends of 

 the Cuban military assembly that had endeav- 

 ored in the beginning to obtain recognition and 

 power as- the native governing body. Gen. 

 Gomez, who exerted his influence at that time 

 to prevent these malcontents from making mis- 

 chief, assured the Cuban people once more of his 

 complete faith in the honor of the Americans and 

 the fidelity of the United States Government to 



