14 



THE CUBA REVIEW. 



FROM UNITED STATES NEWSPAPERS. 



American Ideas Resented. 



In Cuba tlic race yucsliun u; compli- 

 cated by the fact that the negroes played 

 an active and really important part in 

 t!.e war with Spain, supplying in its 

 later years not only a majority of the 

 men, lighting in the ranks of the rebel 

 army, but not a few of its ablest officers. 

 It IS not unnatural or without reason, 

 therefore, that the black Cubans and 

 those of mixed blood should be partic- 

 ularly sensitive to any denial of com- 

 plete equality, social as well as political, 

 with their white neighbors, and that they 

 should bitterly resent any attempt to 

 establish in the island racial distinctions 

 of the kind which exist in this countrj-. 

 As a Government organ in Havana puts 

 it, "the Americans must be taught by the 

 strong arm of the law that thev will not 

 be permitted to introduce into Cuba the 

 anti-negro sentiments prevailing in the 

 United States," and the same paper in- 

 sists that black and white stand on the 

 same plane in Cuba. 



That is very noble, from some points 

 of view, but the Cubans might as well 

 realize that there will be certain disad- 

 vantages connected with the acceptance 



of this announcement as true by the out- 

 side world. Such acceptance would be 

 more apt to lower the white Cubans in 

 general esteem than to rise the black 

 ones, and it would also tend to conlirm 

 the unkind, but rather widespread notion 

 that the white Cubans lack some of the 

 cjualities requisite for successful self-gov- 

 ernment. 



The dilemma in which the Cubans find 

 themselves is therefore a peculiarly diffi- 

 cult one, and there is a very serious side 

 to the riot caused this week in Havana 

 by the refusal at a hotel kept by and for 

 Americans to sell drinks to two negro 

 Congressmen. The incident ended for 

 the moment in the infliction of a ten- 

 dollar tine on the barkeeper who had 

 thus affronted the l^lack statesmen. The 

 Havana shopkeepers would not be happy 

 if the city were to become one in which 

 the free-spending .American tourist can- 

 not be comfortable, and it looks as if 

 the island would have to decide some 

 daj- whether it is to be a black or a 

 white rei)ublic. Unfortunately for its 

 convenience, a mixture is not half way 

 between the two, but out-and-out black, 

 as strangers will view it. — X. ^'. Times. 



Workingmen's houses Iniilt of the hollow brick manufactured at the "Simpatia" factory near 

 Cienfuegos. The men like the houses as being far more comfortable than the wooden palm 

 thatched huts they have been accustomed to live in for centuries. The houses are easily and 

 cheaply constructed, are waterproof and dry, cool in summer and warm in winter, when the cool 

 nights occasionally register, as it did on Jan. 28th last, 46 degrees 



