THE CUBA REVIEW 



UNITED STATES NEWSPAPER OPINION 



TROUBLES ONLY POLITICAL ONES CUBA OF TO-DAY IN ADVANCE OF 



CUBA OF YESTERDAY 



When your Cuban patriot is disap- 

 pointed in his ambition to range forth and 

 grab an office or a contract, or a bespan- 

 gled uniform, he begins lignring at once 

 on the end of the world and how to bring 

 it about quick)}" and with excessive 

 violence. 



He decides to pull down the pillars of 

 the temple — bang — just like that. What 

 cares he whether or not he is carried 

 along in the wreckage and mussed up? 

 Will he not have the satisfaction of know- 

 ing in the hour of his national death that 

 his hated political opponents have received 

 theirs? 



There are two parties here — the leading 

 one at present being the Liberal (the 

 ruling party), and the Conservative, which 

 appears from all superficial indications to 

 be misnamed. 



The new paper El Dia is conducted by 

 two Cuban congressmen. Under the Cu- 

 ban law a congressman is immune from 

 arrest. He can do anj^thing he wants to. 

 Wherefore El Dia screamingly asserts day 

 after day that President Jose ^Miguel 

 Gomez is a purple parallelogram — that he 

 is a perfectly impossible person — that he 

 is things that no American newspaper 

 would print. 



The assertions made by the local antis 

 and agitators became so pointed and were 

 so manifestly and outrageously false that 

 United States Alinister Jackson found it 

 necessary to inform Washington and to 

 secure authority to deny officially that 

 there was any intention on the part of the 

 United States government to intervene in 

 Cuba. 



And yet no unbiased man can fail to 

 recognize that Havana has blossomed as 

 the rose — that Cuba is to-day 1.000 per cent 

 in advance of the Cuba of yesterday. 

 Everywhere on the island that one goes 

 the plethoric prosperity of the country 

 literally overwhelms him. But that 



doesn't get the offices. Sabe? — Shane 

 Gordon in the Memphis (Tenn.) Coiuiuer- 

 cial Appeal. 



It will be better for both the United 

 States and Cuba if the United States at- 

 tends strictly to its own affairs and lets 

 the Cubans attend to their own. says the 

 New York U^orld. The schemes of 

 annexationists with commercial interests 

 to serve are full of pitfalls for any ad- 

 ministration in Cuban politics. 



There is no cause for alarm in these 

 Cuban troubles. The Chicago Inter-Ocean 

 believes that, "Unless we are greatly mis- 

 taken, for a Cuban general to take to the 

 woods with a few followers is about 

 equivalent to a motion to adjourn in the 

 House of Representatives — that is, in the 

 opinion of the electorate of that fertile 

 little island. 



'Tt is certainly no more emphatic than 

 a motion to reconsider or to postpone in- 

 definitely or to lay on the table or to 

 amend in an essential particular in this 

 country. 



"So long as we persist in interpreting 

 events in Cuba and other Latin-American 

 countries without reference to the distinct 

 standards which obtain therein we shall 

 always be in danger of getting excited 

 about nothing. 



"But the moment we get the native point 

 of view w-e generally see that nothing 

 except the regular order of the day is in 

 progress." 



Although the outbreak was a "flash in 

 the pan," the Philadelphia Ledger voiced 

 general opinion wdien it said editorially: 



"It was because of the universal belief 

 of every one familiar w'ith conditions in 

 Cuba that the act of General Acevedo and 

 his adherents was liable to spread into an 

 insurrection of alarming proportions, and 

 of the prevalent skepticism as to the ability 

 of the government to cope with the 

 emergency, that an incident so trivial in 

 its beginnings was watched with anxiety 

 in this country." 



It utters an old warning in a new way 

 when it says further : 



"It would be unreasonable to exact too 

 high a standard of political intelligence, 

 or even of official probity, in a case of 

 Cuba, but the contrast between the con- 

 ditions in that island and the progress of 

 Porto Rico from the moment of the 

 American occupation is so striking that it 

 would be well for Cuba to consider it." 



Referring to the recent uprising by 

 Acevedo and his companions, the St. Jo- 

 seph (]\Io.) Xezcs Press says: 



"The only apparent reasons for this 

 outbreak are political ones. The island 

 has been prosperous : its exports and im- 

 ports have steadily increased and its 

 revenues have exceeded its expenditures. 



