Seventh. All laws, decrees, regulations, orders and other provisions which may be in force at the time of the promulgation of this Constitution shall continue to be observed, in so far as they do not conflict with the said Constitution, until legally revoked or amended.

Hall of sessions of the Constitutional Convention, Havana, February twenty-first, nineteen hundred and one. The Constitutional Convention, acting in conformity with the order of the Military Governor of the island, of July 25, 1900, by which it was called to assemble, resolves to attach, and does hereby attach to the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba adopted on February twenty-first ultimo, the following.

APPENDIX

ARTICLE I. The Government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or other compact with any foreign power or powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba, nor in any way authorize or permit any foreign power or powers to obtain by colonization or for military or naval purposes, or otherwise, lodgment in or control over any portion of said island.

ART. II. That said Government shall not assume or contract any public debt to pay the interest upon which, and to make reasonable sinking-fund provision for the ultimate discharge of which, the ordinary revenues of the island, after defraying the current expenses of Government, shall be inadequate.

ART. III. That the Government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the Treaty of

Peace on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the Government of Cuba.

ART. IV. That all acts of the United States in Cuba during its military occupancy thereof are ratified and validated, and all lawful rights acquired thereunder shall be maintained and protected.

ART. V. That the Government of Cuba will execute, and, as far as necessary, extend the plans already devised, or other plans to be mutually agreed upon, for the sanitation of the cities of the island, to the end that a recurrence of epidemic and infectious diseases may be prevented, thereby assuring protection to the people and commerce of Cuba, as well as to the commerce of the southern ports of the United States and the people residing therein.

ART. VI. That the Isle of Pines shall be omitted from the proposed constitutional boundaries of Cuba, the title thereto being left to future adjustment by treaty.

ART. VII. That to enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defence, the Government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations, at certain specified points, to be agreed upon with the President of the United States.

ART. VIII. That, by way of further assurance, the Government of Cuba will embody the foregoing provisions in a permanent treaty with the United States.

Hall of sessions, June twelfth, nineteen hundred and

one.

CHAPTER XIII

AFTER the Constitution, the Government. On October 14, 1901, General Wood as Military Governor of Cuba issued an order for the holding of a general election throughout the island on December 31, that day to be a legal holiday. At that election there were to be chosen Presidential and Senatorial Electors, Members of the House of Representatives, Governors of Provinces or Departments, and members of Provincial Assemblies or Councils. At the same time it was announced that the election of President, Vice-President and Senators, by the electoral colleges, would take place on February 24, 1902. A provisional election law was also promulgated at that time.

This order brought acutely to the fore the question of Presidential candidates. There were several of them, but none of them could be regarded as a party candidate for the reason that there were then practically no parties. The three which had existed had gradually dissolved, merged into each other, and left the Cuban people free to follow purely individual leaders again.

Maximo Gomez was naturally looked to as the foremost candidate for the Presidency, and despite the bitterness of some politicians against him there is little doubt that if he had consented to be a candidate he would have stood alone and been elected practically without opposition. No man deserved the honor more than he. But it was more than an honor. It was a tremendously serious responsibility. Now Gomez was not the man to

shirk responsibility. But he was not a man, either, to accept it rashly. He knew his own limitations. He knew, too, the requirements of the place. There was needed a scholar and statesman, rather than a "rough and ready" bushwhacking soldier. So he would not even consider the offer of the nomination. "I was never intended," he said, "to become the President of any country. I think too much of Cuba to become her President.'

Calixto Garcia, who after the death of Antonio Maceo stood second to Gomez as a commander, and who was General-in-Chief of the eastern half of the island, had won a splendid reputation for efficient work in Oriente and Camaguey, and was a man of great force and ability, and of much popularity among the Cuban people. But he died at Washington of pneumonia soon after the close of the war.

With these two great chieftains of Cuba's wars thus out of the running, the choice by common consent fell upon Tomas Estrada Palma; and a better choice could not have been made. We have already seen something of his work as the head of the Cuban Junta in New York. He was now past the prime of life, having been born at Bayamo in 1837, but he was in full mastery of his ripe intellectual and physical powers. The son of a rich and distinguished family, he was sent in his youth to Seville to study law, and for a time practised it with much success in Cuba. But he was a patriot, and when the Ten Years' War began he entered the Cuban ranks and had a distinguished career in the field, as also in the councils of the Republic in the field. Unfortunately he was captured by the enemy and was sent to Spain, where he was a prisoner until the end of the war. Then he went to Honduras, became Postmaster-General of that country, and married the accomplished daughter of President Guardiola.

Thence he went to the United States and for some years was the head of an admirable private school for boys at Central Valley, New York; most of his pupils being from Cuba and other Latin-American countries.

At the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1895 the veteran patriot promptly offered himself for any service that he could perform. Though nearing the age of three score, he would gladly have taken up his rifle again and gone into the field. But there was more important and more profitable work for Cuba to be done than that would have been, and he entered upon it with zeal, as the head of the Cuban Junta in New York. Especially after the death of Marti, he was the guiding spirit of that organization, and as such, at least in the eyes of America and of the world at large, he was the actual head of the Cuban revolution, even more than the President of the Provisional Government in the patriot stronghold in the mountains of Cubitas. He was not merely the very active head of the working organization of the Junta, which supplied the Cuban army with the sinews of war, but he was the diplomatic representative of Cuba, though only informally recognized, at Washington. He was at this time still in the United States, and was making no effort whatever to secure the Presidential nomination. Doubtless he would have been quite content not to receive it, and would have given his heartiest and most efficient support to any other man who might have been chosen. there was a spontaneous turning of all Cuban eyes and minds and hearts toward him as the man of all best fitted to inaugurate the independent republican sovereignty of the insular state as its first President. He was the choice of no party-parties were yet inchoate-but of the Cuban people.

But

In similar fashion General Bartolome Maso was put