Latin-American Constitutions — Revolutions 175 



with Chile because of its disturbed con- 

 dition and the enmity engendered by 

 the action of our Government. We have 

 commerce with all these countries, many 

 of our citizens have invested capital 

 therein, and these interests cannot fail 

 to be injured by the civil disorder occa- 

 sioned by the strife of ambitious men. 

 Does any one believe that our Govern- 

 ment could look on with indifference if 

 our next door neighbor, Mexico, should 

 again fall into anarchy, as at frequent 

 interv^als in the past, and the millions 

 of American capital which has been at- 

 tracted thither by the beneficent rule of 

 Diaz should become the prey of revo- 

 lutionists and rival aspirants for the 

 presidency ? 



Third. The Spanish war has made the 

 subject a practical problem for us. The 

 territory which we took from Mexico 

 was soon overrun by Americans, and its 

 government was readily adapted to our 

 system. But Porto Rico is already 

 densely populated with people educated 

 in Spanish-American methods of gov- 

 ernment. We have already had an ex- 

 hibition of the embarrassments to be 

 overcome. In the first election held 

 under the territorial organization pro- 

 vided b}^ Congress a practice was- re- 

 sorted to very common in the Latin- 

 American republics — when one party 

 finds itself outnumbered or outwitted 

 in the campaign, it abstains in a bod}^ 

 from the election, and then cries fraud 

 or force. We read that in the late elec- 

 tion in Porto Rico for the territorial 

 legislature and other offices, one party, 

 the Federals, refused to go to the polls, 

 and the Republicans, as a consequence, 

 elected all their candidates ; but in cele- 

 brating the victory they were attacked 

 by the Federals, and several were killed 

 and wounded in the affray. 



We have by act of Congress become 

 responsible for the establishment and 

 maintenance of a stable government in 

 Cuba. The history of their brethren 

 of the same race in Central and South 

 America does not give much assurance 

 that the Cubans will soon attain the 

 position required by Congress. One of 

 the first steps in that direction which is 

 foreshadowed, the election to the presi- 

 dency of a professional revolutionist, 

 born and educated in San Domingo, 

 does not argue well for the future. In 

 the election held to choose delegates to 

 the convention to frame a constitution, 

 only a minority of the qualified electors 

 took part, and I have good authority 

 for the statement that fully 95 per cent 

 of the electors representing the property 

 interests of the island abstained from the 

 election. 



And 3'et it appears that this minority 

 of the people of Cuba are to frame its 

 organic code, to set the machinery of 

 the new government in motion, and to 

 determine the relations which are to 

 exist between the new government and 

 the United States. 



This review, it must be confessed, does 

 not present a cheerful outlook for the 

 friends and admirers of republican gov- 

 ernment , but for the citizens of the United 

 States at least it suggests a solace. It 

 is a consolation to us to know that the 

 men who laid the foundations of our 

 Government and have thus far con- 

 ducted its affairs have appreciated the 

 value of peace and the superior merits 

 of the ballot over the bayonet ; that ew 

 had a Washington, not a Bolivar nor an 

 Iturbide, to put the Government in mo- 

 tion, and that the Constitution has been 

 held as too sacred an instrument to be 

 made the sport of ambitious rivals for 

 the presidenc^^ 



