be done they have done them. Certainly, one would have to be an optimist to believe that he had his full lawful percentage of chance for a prize when he bought a ticket. And yet, though the excess of cost above the face value has declined, the lottery is far from a moribund institution. People buy tickets, perhaps, in hopes that the lottery officials will let a few prizes slip through their hands. Possibly even they are too optimistic.11

"The lottery laws are to be found in various sections of the published documents of the republic, for example, in the following: the Gaceta, or official Gazette; República de Cuba, Leyes y decretos de la república; and Diarios de sesiones, or journals of Congress, with each house having its own set. The last-named item is particularly interesting for the earlier period, as it gives a detailed account of the debates. Lately, the "surprise vote" method of leg

islation has cut down the record of speeches. Important laws are often published separately in pamphlet form, and a number of publications of lottery laws have appeared. It would not be difficult to accumulate a volume of items dealing with discussions of the lottery. The very great majority contain denunciations on the score of its corruption, while a much smaller number object to the institution itself.

CHAPTER XXIV

CUBAN ELECTION EVILS

THE legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the Cuban government are notoriously corrupt or inefficient, usually both, and this is a condition of affairs that is generally recognized and deplored, except by the political class, which profits from it. If this is so, why then do not the people make a clean sweep of their rulers through use of the ballot? This is a question that might be asked seriously outside of Cuba, but hardly in that republic itself. The people do not overturn the politicians, because the latter will give them no chance to do so. All the people may do, at the best, is to choose among candidates that are perhaps equally bad, and sometimes not even this much of a privilege is accorded them.

Social and economic conditions in Cuba make political life very different from what it is in the United States.1 As in most Hispanic lands, so too in Cuba, the native-born "better class" elements have had but indifferent success in competing with foreigners in business, although, indeed, there are some noteworthy exceptions. So the great majority of the educated Cubans feel that they have no alternative but to go into one of the professions (law, medicine, teaching, arms, literature, journalism, engineering, architecture) or into politics. Often, indeed, they combine the two, the better to make both ends meet. To some extent this springs

1

1A moderately extensive survey of social and economic conditions is

given infra in chapters XXV and XXVI.

from necessity, as the pickings in the professions are not great enough to enable all who are in them to live on a moderately good scale. It is a "necessity," for there is a wide separation of classes in Cuba, with very little of the middle-class element that is the backbone of a country like the United States. The well-born Cuban would on no account engage in manual labor. He has reached a stage where he will consider a good business position but even that has not yet attained to a very high place in the social scale. Certainly, the humdrum life in the lower ranks of business, with its slow progress toward a remotely possible affluence, has nothing in it for the Cuban to compare with politics, not even with the light-paying, but highly respected small government job. The game of politics, with all its risks,-even risk of death in troubled times,-appeals to the Hispanic love of adventure. And for the more fortunate it points the royal road to wealth, a wealth that may run far into the millions, on a financial capital of less than a "shoestring." To be sure, riches can be obtained only through utilizing one's opportunities for corruption, but so firmly rooted is the Spanish colonial practice of "government for the sake of the office-holders" that almost no social stigma is involved in graft, and there is hardly any need for concealment. It is the traditionally expected thing, and merely evidences the fact that the man who engages in it is "not a fool."

The successful politician has more than himself and his own immediate family to look out for, however. He must do what he can to see that all his relatives and his wife's relatives get jobs that will at least yield them a living wage, or better than that, if possible. This comes about through the curse of family influence, an evil of Hispanic life that is comparatively unknown in the United States. In Cuba it has frequently happened that a President has appointed,

not one, but several of his relatives to some of the highest posts of government. Zayas was especially notorious for this. Other politicians do what they can in proportion to their opportunities. And father, brother, son, uncle, nephew, cousin to the nth degree, and various "in-laws" are all members of "the family" in Cuba. Besides, one may also help a friend by feeding him at the public crib. The thing is criticized, but it is doubtful if those who object the loudest would do anything else themselves. Thousands upon thousands of government employes make nothing more than a bare living out of their positions, but there are other thousands from all ranks of society who want similar posts. In consequence there is a constant tendency to multiply jobs, while the competition for the more profitable places is lessened momentarily only as these, too, are increased in number. In fine, there has developed a "political class,' which, as one writer has put it, takes the place of the middle class (non-existent in Cuba) that a republic needs to have. It is, indeed, a parasite class, which has made "politics our only industry and administrative fraud the only open road to fortune for our compatriots." This writer went on to describe it as an industry stronger than sugar, more lucrative than railways, and surer than banking, shipping, and commerce. It brought many ills in its train, such as upsets of public order, lowering of social and moral standards, and a retarding of individual betterment, but was inevitable under the peculiar social conditions of Cuba.2

A detailed story of the different Cuban elections has already been given. So far as presidential elections go, the following comment hits the mark:

Carrión, Miguel de, El desenvol- poránea, v. XXVII, pp. 6-27, 19-20; vimiento social de Cuba en los últi- Sept., 1921. mos veinte años, in Cuba contem

"In the history of Cuba no Candidate for the presidency has ever lost an election who was backed by the government. [Estrada] Palma reëlected himself to be ousted by a revolution; Gomez, leader of the revolution, who was favored by the intervention government, became president; Menocal was supported by Gomez with the rural guard and defeated Zayas, and four years later he reëlected himself, and in the following election threw the support of the government to Zayas who was declared president by a decision of the supreme court."

In like manner Zayas supported Machado, who was elected in 1924. The evil is one that has grown progressively worse. A first period of increasingly bad conditions reached its culmination in 1905, resulting in the revolution of 1906, followed by the United States intervention of 1906-1909. During the intervention a law of elections was promulgated which was primarily the work of the then Colonel Crowder, as head of the Advisory Law Commission. This was an outgrowth of a careful taking of the census, and contained a number of excellent features, including the following: public registration of voters; the holding of elections on a single day; district electoral boards containing representatives of all parties; official tickets; proportional representation in the House and in provincial and municipal councils; the secret ballot; a first scrutiny of the vote by the officials of the district electoral board; municipal, provincial, and national electoral boards for the hearing of cases on infractions of the law; and an appeal from them to the law courts. No objection could be found with the elections of 1908, and those of 1910, 1912, and 1914 were in the main not badly conducted. In 1916 fraud on a great scale made its appearance, however, and it became worse in ensuing years. As the present writer set forth on another occasion:

"The buying of votes and voting of dead men are within an American's ken, but in Cuba the latter, at least, is indulged in to a degree that "A Sage," in Havana Post, July 15, 1924