National Altruism 



431 



able them to disband and return to peace- 

 ful emplo3'ment. To facilitate this, $75 

 apiece was paid to each Cuban soldier on 

 his bringing in and depositing his arms. 

 In this way $2,550,000 were paid out of 

 the United States Treasury, and upon 

 the payment being completed, the Cuban 

 army separated and ceased to exist. 



NUMBER OF PUPILS AT SCHOOL INCREASED 

 500 PER CENT IN 5 YEARS 



The subject of sanitation of the island, 

 from one end to the other, and especially 

 in the towns left in a filthy condition, 

 was taken up with the thoroughness of 

 the army surgeons, and in the course of 

 this effort one of the greatest and most 

 useful discoveries known to medical 

 science, to wit, the transmission of dis- 

 ease by the mosquitoes, was added to the 

 sum of human knowledge. For four 

 years this sanitation went on, and under 

 American occupation the amount ex- 

 pended for this out of the Cuban treasury 

 reached the large sum of $10,000,000. 



Cuba, an island 44,000 square miles in 

 area, with a population of 1,600,000, had 

 enrolled in her public schools under 

 Spanish control 36,306 pupils. There 

 were practically no separate school build- 

 ings. The pupils were collected in the 

 residences of the teachers. There were 

 few books, and no maps, blackboards, 

 desks, or other school apparatus. The 

 teaching was of the most primitive char- 

 acter and was carried on under a fee 

 system which excluded altogether the 

 children of the poor. At the end of the 

 first six months of American occupation 

 the public school enrollment of the island 

 numbered 143,000, and this was increas- 

 ing until the island was turned over, in 

 May, 1903, when it had reached 200,000. 



The prisons, the squalor and misery of 

 which it is hard to exaggerate, were thor- 

 oughly cleansed and put upon the basis 

 of modern requirements. 



The controversy between the church 

 and the government over church property 

 was settled by arbitration, and an agree- 

 ment satisfactory to both sides was 

 reached. 



The restoration of industry in the 

 island was necessarily slow, but in this 

 regard especially did the government and 

 the people of the United States show 

 their earnest desire to aid by a generous 

 policy the people for whose freedom they 

 had spent, so much money and so many 

 lives. In pleading for a reduction of 

 duty upon Cuban tobacco and sugar. 

 President Roosevelt said to Congress : 



"We are a wealthy and powerful na- 

 tion ; Cuba is a young republic, still 

 weak, who owes to us her birth, whose 

 whole future, whose very life, must de- 

 pend on our attitude toward her. I ask 

 that we help her as she struggles upward 

 along the painful and difficult road of 

 self-governing independence. I ask this 

 aid for her because she is weak, because 

 she needs it, because we have already 

 aided her. I ask that open-handed help, 

 of a kind which a self-respecting people 

 can accept, be given to Cuba, for the very 

 reason that we have given her such help 

 in the past. Our soldiers fought to give 

 her freedom ; and for three years our 

 representatives, civil and military, have 

 toiled unceasingly, facing disease of a 

 peculiarly sinister and fatal type with 

 patient and uncomplaining fortitude, to 

 teach her how to use aright her new free- 

 dom. Never in history has any alien 

 country been thus administered with such 

 high integrity of purpose, such wise judg- 

 ment, and such single-minded devotion 

 to the country's interests. Now I ask 

 that the Cubans be given all possible 

 chance to use to the best advantage the 

 freedom of which Americans have such 

 right to be proud and for which 50 many 

 American lives have been sacrificed." 



In accordance with this recommenda- 

 tion, a treaty was made between the 

 United States and the Republic of Cuba, 

 whereby provision was made that 

 products of Cuba coming into the United 

 States should receive the benefit of re- 

 ductions in the tariff ranging from 20 to 

 40 per cent of the regular duties on such 

 products. Under the beneficent influence 

 of this favorable discrimination in tariff 

 rates, the prosperity of Cuba increased, 



