from taxation many large areas and valuable properties from which owners, often men of large wealth, were deriving no immediate income, and imposed a burden upon many who were struggling for livelihood. There was also gross misuse of such funds as were made available by the system adopted. In the official report of the insular Secretary of the Treasury, Señor Cancio, published in the fall of 1900, it was shown that the municipal revenues for the whole Island were $1,188,333.31. Of this sum $838,968.50 was spent for official salaries and office materials, and $349,364.81 for public improvements of all kinds. This is a most discreditable showing for the officials, though it is indicative of nothing so much as of the effect of Spanish influence and political example. The problem is now being worked out, and its full solution will be facilitated and hastened by a reasonable measure of industrial prosperity in the Island.

Early attention was paid to the condition of Cuba's penal institutions. These places were not only in a condition of disgusting and horrible filthiness, but they were as well crowded with prisoners, some serving sentences, some awaiting trial, and some held for no ascertainable reason. Many of them were political prisoners. An American officer was assigned to investigate the cases as rapidly as possible, and for a time a very considerable jail delivery was effected. The process continued as time was found for investigation, and the end of the year found no great number of people in jail who did not properly belong there.

The gradual dissolution of the Cuban Army of Liberation had been in process ever since the termination of hostilities at Santiago. Its definite disbandment began in November, 1898. A Licencia, or furlough, was granted to all who could obtain work or who desired to return to their

homes. A notable part of the army, however, held together and so remained during the opening months of 1899. This body constituted a disturbing element in the community. It was a menace to peace although a considerable portion of it was definitely engaged, under American authority, in maintaining peace, in the capacity of a Rural Guard. As an army, its recognition was impossible, though its existence was not to be denied. Its actual dissolution, as an organization, was highly desirable. Aside from the limited number whose services were of advantage as a rural police, it did no work, and it had to eat. It remained as a body of non-producers in a land whose welfare depended upon production. Those who should have been burden-bearers became a burden. There was no reason why the greater number of them should not wield a hoe in place of carrying a gun, and there was every reason why they should do so.

A point of personal dignity, or something of that kind, stood in the way of an adjustment for several weeks. The mountain would not go to Mahomet, neither would Mahomet go to the mountain. Maximo Gomez stood upon his dignity, and General Brooke upon his. To some of us who were in the Island at the time, it did not appear that any special strain of either dignity or diplomacy was required for these two leaders to get together in furtherance of the interests and the welfare of both countries. Gomez was the recognized leader of his people, and particularly of the Cuban army, whose return to productive industry was most desirable. He was in the field, near Remedios, and refused to become a suppliant. General Brooke was in Havana, occupied with important affairs, and declined to make any overtures to the stubborn and somewhat erratic old gentlemen out in the woods. No serious trouble resulted, it is true, but there

remains a possibility that much good might have resulted from a cordial understanding between these two leaders.

An arrangement was finally effected through Mr. Robert P. Porter, who arrived in Havana about the end of January. Mr. Porter secured a conference with General Gomez and obtained a verbal agreement by which the army was to be disbanded upon the distribution of $3,000,000, a sum which the authorities at Washington had tentatively allotted for the purpose. There was much discussion whether this sum constituted a gift or a loan to the Island, and the authority for the appropriation was called in question. The sum was a part of the remaining balance of the congressional appropriation of $50,000,000, which was placed at the disposal of President McKinley in the earlier days of the war. The object of the allotment was to aid the soldiers of the Cuban Army to return to their homes, and, so far as was possible, to resume their wonted occupations. Its return was not required. The conditions were that the beneficiaries should prove their connection with the army, and turn in a gun. A tedious delay followed, although the money was sent and held on board a war-ship in the harbor of Havana.

The "Cuban Assembly," claiming to be the qualified representative of the army, was greatly incensed at the action of General Gomez, and promptly deposed him from his position as Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban forces. This act served no purpose save the increased confusion of an anomalous situation. The people and the army generally stood by Gomez, with whom the United States had made the arrangement, and who would doubtless be further recognized in the distribution of the funds. To the Asamblea, the United States had definitely and distinctly refused any sort of recognition. But the Asamblea held the rolls of the

army, and, for a time, declined to produce them. These were essential in determining the service qualification. They were at last released by the dissolution of the Asamblea. They included the names of some 48,000 men, a number which many competent Cuban authorities declared to be absurdly in excess of all possible enrollment in the Cuban army. It included the names of many who could not be found, and failed to include many who, by other evidence, proved the fact of service beyond any reasonable doubt. It included the names of many who had seen no fighting and no military service, but who had acted in some official or clerical position in connection with the quasi Cuban Republic.

The allotment had been made on the basis of a payment of $100 per man to an estimated force of 30,000. Several months were consumed in effort to adjust the matter. It was finally determined by the elimination of officers and those who had served only in civil or semi-civil capacities. Seventy-five dollars per man was awarded to 33,930 men, and the balance, $455,250, was returned to Washington. With the exception of those who were retained as a rural police, the Army of Liberation passed into history and into organizations of Veterans of the Cuban Army. Some used the money which they thus received in the commendable fashion of home establishment. Some disposed of their share in more expeditious but less laudable manner.

CHAPTER VIII

FIRST YEAR OF OCCUPATION - Continued

ONE of the interesting features of the year was the somewhat problematic position of Gen. Maximo Gomez. He had been a notable leader in the Ten Years' War, although he was not a Cuban. It was he who effected the termination of that war by the Treaty of Zanjon. That accomplished, he returned to his home in Santo Domingo, where he remained until, on the personal solicitation of José Marti, the idealist to whose efforts, more than to those of any other, the revolution of 1895 was due, he returned to Cuba to assume the military leadership of the new insurrection. His methods of fighting were those of the guerilla rather than those of the soldier, but it was to his skill in that style of warfare, and to his tenacity of purpose, that Cuba's insurrection was brought to a practical deadlock which might have continued almost indefinitely had it not been for the intervention of the United States. While neither Gomez nor his companions, either in the field or in the government, asked for that intervention, it is not to be doubted that he looked for the time when the United States would be virtually forced to interfere in some more effective manner than that of diplomatic negotiation.

The developments of that interference left General Gomez on one side. Gen. Calixto Garcia was the commander of the department of Santiago, and it was with him that the United States transacted the necessary business which