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succeed in quelling the electoral enthusiasms of his all too zealous Fighting Cabinet.

The Moderates were not alone to blame. The violence of the Liberals justified the Moderates to some extent in preparing to meet them. The island ran riot with incendiary speechmaking on the part of the Liberals. In Congress they not only lashed the government with their oratory, but also prevented a quorum in the House, so that the budget could not be passed. When the President thereupon issued a decree putting into effect the previous estimates until Congress should resolve the matter, they freely reminded him of the fate of Charles I of England and of President Balmaceda of Chile. Talk of revolution in case the Liberals should be "robbed" of victory-and defeat was taken as the equivalent of robbery-was everywhere in the air. The Liberal candidate himself gave voice to this threat on more than one occasion. The Liberals had organizations, , too, certainly in Santa Clara and possibly in Pinar del Río, that were prepared to use force in gaining votes. On April 14, 1905, six congressmen stole a file of papers which formed. the basis of charges that had been brought against some of the councillors of the ayuntamiento, or municipal council, of Havana. They published an open letter proclaiming their act, and defending it on the grounds of their profound conviction that the Fighting Cabinet was riding roughshod over the laws. A little later, on July 22, 1905, the local government building at San Antonio de las Vueltas was burned by Liberals in course of a riot. Obviously there was need for some display of the iron hand on the part of the government, even if it had not gone beyond the bounds of propriety. The turbulence was not all on one side, but on both.

As the day for the preliminary elections, September 23,

approached, acts of violence followed one after another until there was something like a reign of terror. The government was prepared to use the police and the rural guards, ostensibly to keep order and prevent electoral frauds, but really to hinder the Liberals, many of whom were arrested. The most shocking incident took place at Cienfuegos, which was the principal fighting ground in Santa Clara, the most bitterly contested of the six provinces. Representative Enrique Villuendas, who was the principal Liberal leader in that city, had publicly charged the Moderates with all manner of crimes in and near Cienfuegos, including a number of shootings and the pardon of two murderers, one of whom had been added to the police force of Cienfuegos and the other to the rural guards! On September 22 he sent a letter to Gómez in which he asserted that there were plots against his life. A few hours later he was dead. Reams of paper have been covered in writings on this incident, with the idea of fixing responsibility for it on the Moderates or the Liberals, as the case may be. It seems that a meeting of Liberal leaders had been called that day in Villuendas's room at the Hotel Suiza, to see whether they should send their followers out "to be killed" at the election next day. The gathering was interrupted by a visit of the police, under Chief Illance, who had come with an authorization to search for arms and bombs. Exactly what followed cannot be stated with certainty, but when it was over both Villuendas and Illance had been killed, besides two others, while several persons were wounded. The whole country was stirred up over the incident. The Moderates were impressed by the murder of the chief of police in course of an authorized search,15 while the Liberals looked on the death of Villuendas

"For example, see message of Es- 1905, in Mensajes presidenciales, I, trada Palma to Congress, Nov. 6, 139.

as a case of deliberate assassination and raised up the young congressman to the category of a martyr to their cause.16

It will be observed that nothing has been said of issues in this campaign. That is because there were none worthy of the name. The Liberals, as the party out of power, did indeed declare for the immediate abrogation of the Platt Amendment, while the Moderates, with the disadvantage of being the government party, could do no more than advocate eventual abrogation,17 but, obviously, this was nothing but the familiar loud-noise "issue" of Hispanic American politics, with its appeal to patriotism through an arraignment of the United States. The nearest thing to a real issue was the record of the government. On this score, in an interview of September 4, 1905, Estrada Palma is quoted as making the following statement about his platform:

"What better or more eloquent platform can there be than deeds themselves? The past is a guarantee and sure pledge of the future." "

The President then went on to tell of the financial achievements of the administration, and of the prosperity of the country. The Liberals could not well meet Estrada Palma on this ground, as the assertions of the President were, certainly in the main, true. So it may safely be said that there were "no issues worthy of the name." It was a battle of personalities, and of violence.

The day of the preliminary elections, September 23, 1905, was filled with political "electricity," and it was evident from the first that a Moderate victory, by force if neces

"The most ample and most violent of reviews, v. XXXIV, pp. 424-430, discussion of this incident is to be at 426; Oct., 1906. found in Collazo, Cuba intervenida, 29-84.

"Brownell, Atherton, The Cuban republic on trial, in American review

18

España, Gabriel Ricardo, Con el jefe del estado: oyendo a Estrada Palma, in Discusión, Sept. 5, 1905, quoted in Velasco, 34-35.

sary, had been provided for in advance. So the Liberal leaders called off their followers shortly after noon. Naturally, the Moderates were overwhelmingly successful. In many districts their candidates got more votes than there were inhabitants. The electoral boards that had been chosen then proceeded to draw up the lists of voters for the final election, to be held on December 1st. They were so zealous in the performance of their duties that they made up a total registry of 432,313 voters, of whom at least 150,000 were mere fraudulent names. Their action was denounced even by La Discusión, a leading Moderate journal, which pointed out that the list of voters added up to approximately a third of the population of the republic, "a monstrosity, the paternity of which should be denied by its various perpetrators, because it gives them the title of idiots." In the same article La Discusión expressed its views as follows:

"The election leaders have shown such little brains in conducting their schemes that they have made themselves ridiculous and foolish. The schemes referred to were nothing more than to gain a victory at all hazard, which could have been gained without going beyond the limits of probability."

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Freyre himself, when questioned later by Taft about the surplus 150,000 names, admitted that it was "possibly true" that they were fraudulent, adding that it was "impossible to hold an election in Cuba without fraud," and suggesting that the extra names were put on the lists by Moderate registrars "merely out of a spirit of mischief" when they heard that the Liberals were not going to register or to vote. Of course, the Moderates had a walk-over in the elections of December 1st. The Liberals did not go to the polls, and all Moderate candidates were elected.

19

Quoted in Taft and Bacon, Re- (1906-1907), ser. no. 5105, House port, in U. S., 59th Cong., 2d sess. Docs., 500.

The Liberals had not withdrawn with any idea of yielding the plums of office. Their abstention from voting was a familiar Hispanic American maneuver indicative of an intention to organize a revolution, and it was so understood in Cuba. Months before the end of 1905 plots were being formed, and there were several minor outbreaks. Between November 21 and 27 there were armed uprisings in the province of Havana at Alquízar, La Salud, and Batabanó, and at San Juan and Martínez in Pinar del Río. These moves were premature. Many who had intended to join in them "thought better of it" when the moment came. So the government, by a slight show of force and an offer to forgive the insurrectionists, was able to restore order. A little later, however, on the night of February 24-25, 1906, a band of thirty or more broke into the barracks of the rural guards at Guanabacoa (a considerable town in the outskirts of Havana), killed two of the guards and wounded several others, and made away with a number of horses and a quantity of arms. They expected that their audacious act would be the forerunner of an insurrection, but the country did not rise. The band was scattered, and most of the men were captured and the stolen properties recovered. Estrada Palma described the participants in this affair as "men of a very low stamp, mostly illiterates, "20 but back of them were a number of prominent Liberals, as also in the other outbreaks that had taken place. In this particular instance Senator Morúa Delgado was probably the instigator.

Meanwhile, plots to overthrow the Moderates were being formed, even though the methods to be employed were as yet uncertain. Some Liberals favored an intervention by the United States as the guarantor of new elections. Among

"Message to Congress of Apr. 2, 155. 1906, in Mensajes presidenciales, I,

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