tributions and Red Cross work, with equally gratifying results. In both of these activities a leading and most efficient part was taken by the women of Cuba. In subscribing to the loans they were most generous; in canvassing for subscriptions from others and in collecting and working for the Red Cross they were indefatigable and irresistible. They made it a point of patriotic honor, and almost a condition of social acceptability, to respond in the fullest possible manner to every such call of the war. In Cuba's domestic struggles, the women had suffered cruelly, and their sympathies sprang spontaneously and generously toward the lands of Europe where womanhood was suffering a thousand martyrdoms. Thus as the manhood of Cuba with a unanimity which the few exceptions only emphasized rallied to the call of the President to throw the material and militant might of the Republic on the side of law, of civilization and of democracy, the womanhood of Cuba, with no less unanimity and zeal, followed Señora Menocal in the equally necessary and grateful tasks of the campaign which women even better than men could perform.

No tribute could be too high to render to these devoted women, who were always ready to make personal sacrifices of time, of strength, of money, of work, for the cause of humanity. Amid all its historic fiestas and pageants, Havana has seen no fairer or more inspiring spectacle than that of the Red Cross women, Senora Menocal at their head, marching in stately procession through her streets to manifest their devotion to the cause and to arouse others to equal earnestness. The magnitude of the sums raised by the women of Cuba for the war loans and for the Red Cross, and for Cuban hospital units at the front, and the amount of bandages and other hospital supplies and clothing prepared by them

for the armies "over there," made proud items in Cuban statistics of the Great War.

Thitherto Cuba had often been engaged in war, but it was always in what may be termed selfish war, for her own defence against an alien enemy or for her own liberation from oppressors who, at first kin, had become alien. Now for the first time it was her privilege to engage in a greater struggle than any before, and one which was for her own interests only to the extent to which those interests were involved with and were practically identical with the interests of all civilized nations and of world-wide humanity. Said Thomas Jefferson on a memorable occasion, referring to the relations between America and Great Britain:

"Nothing would more tend to knit our affections than to be fighting once more, side by side, in the same cause." Thus we must reckon that affection and confidence between Cuba and the United States were greatly strengthened and confirmed by the fact that they were at least potentially and indeed to some degree actually fighting side by side in the same cause, and that cause not exclusively their own but that of the whole world. Nor was the event without a comparable effect upon Cuba's relations to the world at large. Her sympathies were broadened; her recognition by other powers was extended; and as once she had been a mere pawn in the international game, now she became a vital and potent factor in international affairs.

CHAPTER XX

"A REVOLUTION which comprehends the responsibilities incumbent upon the founders of nations." Those were almost the last words of José Marti, epigrammatically expressive of his purpose in fomenting the ultimate and triumphant revolution of 1895-1898, and of the purpose of those devoted men who caught the standard of liberty from his dying hand and through labors and perils and tragedies incommensurable bore it on to victory. How well that purpose has been served in these scarcely twenty years of the independent Republic of Cuba, how true to Marti's transcendent ideal his successors in Cuban leadership have been, the record which we have briefly rehearsed must tell. On the whole, the answer to the implied interrogatory is gratifying and reassuring.

The real leaders of the Cuban nation have comprehended the responsibilities, unspeakably profound and weighty, that rest upon the founders of a nation, and no less upon those who direct the affairs of a nation after its foundation, to the last chapter in its age-long annals. We should go far, very far, before we could find a statesman more appreciative of that responsibility than Tomas Estrada Palma, or one who more manfully strove to discharge its every duty with scrupulous fidelity and with all the discretion and wisdom with which he had himself been plenteously endowed and which he could summon to his council board from among his loyal compatriots.

We must regard it as the supreme reproach of José Miguel Gomez that, with all his ability and energy, he lacked that supreme quality, the sense of civic responsibility, which Marti prescribed for Cuba and for Cubans. His shameful and unpardonable treason—a double treason, to his own party partner as well as to the government of his country-was not inspired by the genius of Marti. It did not comprehend the gigantic responsibilities which it so lightly sought to assume, but was marked with the irresponsibility which has characterized so many revolutions in other Latin American countries, and which has brought upon those lands disaster and measureless reproach.

Under the third Presidency which Cuba has enjoyed that responsibility is happily comprehended in complete degree. Not even Estrada Palma possessed a higher sense of duty to the state and to the world than Mario G. Menocal, nor gave to it more tangible and efficient exposition. Nor shall we incur reproach of lack of reverence for a great name if we perceive that in certain essential and potent particulars Cuba's third President is even more capable of discharging that responsibility than was the first. The younger, alert, practical man of affairs, expert in the duties of both peace and war, has the advantage over the elder sage whose life for many years had been cloistered in academic calm.

We might not inappropriately gauge the extent of Cuba's discharge of her responsibilities as a sovereign nation by the measure of her progress in various paths of human welfare. This is not the place for a comprehensive census of the island, or for a conspectus of its statistics. Ex pede Herculem. From a few items we may estimate the whole. In the days of unembarrassed Spanish rule, before that sovereignty was challenged by rev

olutions, the island had a population of a million souls. It had between two hundred and three hundred teachers, and-in 1841-9,082 children enrolled in schools. That was one schoolchild in every 110 of the population. To-day the island has a population of 2,700,000, and it has 350,000 children enrolled in its schools. That is one child in every eight of the population. The contrast between one-eighth and one-one hundred and tenth is one valid and expressive measure of Cuba's discharge of her responsibility.

Under the administration of President Menocal the annual appropriation for pub

lic education is more than $10,000,000. There are six great normal schools to train the 5,500 teachers who are needed to care for the 350,000 pupils; and as the national government conducts all the schools there is no discrimination between poor places and wealthy communities, but an equal grade of teaching is maintained in all. Nor does the state stop with primary education, but provides practically free secondary and university education for all who desire it.

Shall we take public health as another measure of progress? In the half dozen years just before the War of Independence the death rate in Havana was 33 to the 1,000. By 1902 it was reduced to 22, or only a little more than in New York. To-day, under President Menocal, the death rate for all Cuba is only 11.2. In the registration area of the United States it is 14. In the United Kingdom it is 14.2, and Britain vaunts her