KEEPING THE MATCH FROM THE POWDER IN CUBA from the platform day after day and the silence of Mr. Hearst and his newspaper on this point day after day, was the first sensational development of Mr. Hughes's campaign. "Who could have supposed," remarked The Evening Post, New York, "that Mr. Hughes would so soon reduce the Hearst batteries to silence . . . This is one of the most complete extinguishers ever clapped upon noise." 487 quelly speeding eastward. Only some half-dozen of the statesman's most intimate friends både trim a hasty farewell in his private apartments at the palace. A little group of idlers in the square outside impassively witnessed the descent of the marble staircase for the last time by the aged gentleman in the high silk hat, whose going left the Cuban republic a derelict. Not until Señor Palma with his wife and six children had got well away from Havana did any Cuban crowd assemble or raise a cheer. He faded into private life near his old home at Bayamo, Province of Santiago, with cries of "Long live the honorable man!" ringing in his ears as he waved his high silk hat from the car of his departing train and let the tears course down his cheek. Notwithstanding his years and the agitations through which he has passed since he went over to Havana from his sum mer cottage near Cabanas fortress last August, Señor Palma did not seem to be in broken health. Of his poverty, after years of high office, his partizans profess little doubt. A vin dictive man and a stubborn, with some lack of: virility in his character, he had yet so sincere a love for Cuba in his heart that Washington might have seen him through his troubles. But Palma would not have it so. THE HE relations between Hearst and Murphy, the Tammany leader, in this campaign are another fruitful source of picturesque ridicule, and have furnished the dominant note of the campaign cartoons. The delegates which Murphy controlled at the State convention, together with the votes pledged to Hearst from other counties, controlled the convention when passing on the cases of contesting delegations. The way in which this power was used has been fiercely characterized as stealing the convention. When all the Hearst contestants had been seated, his nomination was made by a large majority. But Hearst's followers could not have obtained control had it not been for Murphy's assistance. Yet less than one year ago Hearst's papers pictured Murphy in a convict's garb, declaring that every honest citizen of New York wished to see him in such clothing. Despite Hearst's denial of any deal with Murphy, and despite his public statement that "Murphy may be for Hearst, but Hearst is not for Murphy," the alleged existence of a working alliance between the two is made one of the chief features of the campaign against Hearst. The union of the Independence League and Tammany Hall upon a judicial ticket in New York City, composed of six men picked by Tammany and four picked by the League, is accepted as another evidence of such an alliance, and Hearst's slogan against bosses is accordingly discredited in the columns of the hostile press. PALMA'S policy, once he divined that the insurrection would be too strong for him, can be stated in a word-intervention. Rather than grant the principal demand of the insurgents for new elections, he would, in his own phrase, place the Queen of the Antilles under the wings of the American eagle. His government denied in September that it was asking Washington for field-guns and men to put down the rising. The statement was technically true. But in the week preceding, Presi. dent Palma had been imploring President Roosevelt to send a warship to Havana and another to Cienfuegos. The Havana administration was confessing to the Washington. administration an incapacity to protect life and. property. "It must be kept secret and confidential," cabled the United States Consul General, "that Palma asked for vessels." It was-until Secretary of State Root got back from SouthAmerica. Meantime two ships were sent. ButPresident Palma was informed that Washing-. ton could not intervene just yet. The Cuban. Government must first exhaust every means of putting down the rising. If these meansproved inadequate, it would become President. Palma to come to a working agreement with. his rebels. Until then, President Roosevelt's Government would not be prepared to con HROWING her arms around the neck of Cuba's first President, his wife, a daughter of the assassinated President Guardiola of Guatemala, had implored hef husband to 'quit the Queen of the Antilles forever and take refuge in the United States cruiser at anchor off the port of Havana. In another three weeks the fallen President was leaving the executive palace and his country's capital in haste so inglorious that most of his fellow citizens never realized the circumstance until Señor Palma's train was 58 7 350 AN EMBARRASSING POSITION U. S.-"What's one to do in a case of this kind?" -Bartholomew in Minneapolis Journal. THE BIG STICK IN CUBA sider the question of intervention at all. These outbursts of confidence by cable were fraught with the additional secret that the Havana President was "worried" and awaited naval units impatiently. He had applied public funds to public works and public education. Muniments of war were left for insurgents to buy. IN N JUST forty-eight hours President Palma was asking in his own name for "American intervention," using those very words. He begged President Roosevelt to send to Havana, "with the greatest secrecy and rapidity," two or three thousand men. The force was not.to be employed against the rebels in the field. .It would merely protect the capital from catastrophe. The despatch of the troops was to, be withheld from general knowledge until they were actually in Havana. A day's delay, ran the entreaty, might entail a massacre in the city. There were about eight thousand insurgent troops within a few hours' march of the presidential palace, where Señor Palma was now holding secret conferences with his Secretary of State and his Secretary of War. The trio could agree on nothing beyond a series of despatches couched in the language of panic and transmitted to Washington in cipher .by the American Consul-General. Sugar plantations were burning. American property had been destroyed. Cienfuegos was at the mercy of the rebels. Assistant Secretary of State Bacon was bombarded with such particles of information. Next he was told that President Palma had "irrevocably resolved" to resign. The perturbed occupant of the palace would deliver the Government of Cuba to whomsoever the President of the United States might designate. This last intimation disturbed the councils of the Roosevelt administration. It seems a fair inference that in this early stage of the crisis-for not the vaguest hint that this exciting correspondence was in progress had yet been put forth-President Palma was already undergoing pressure to remain. Even had the present disturbance ceased then and there, according to the next link in the chain of his clandestine messages, he would not continue at the head of the government. Judge Charles E. Magoon is now at the head of the provisional government in Cuba, with plenary powers. His first act will, it is announced, be to institute a thoro investigation into the more or less vague charges that the administration of the late President Palma was corrupt. sense of the practical statesman, the responsibilities of the crisis were devolved by President Roosevelt. Accompanied by the official to whom the rise and progress of panic in the soul of Palma had been so stealthily imparted, namely Assistant Secretary of State Bacon, Mr. Taft arrived in Havana at last. Of any effective Cuban Government every trace had fed. Pent up in his capital like another King Priam in Troy, President Palma had gathered his Congress about him. "General" Pino Guerra's insurgent force of over five thousand was advancing into the Province of Havana, in a mood for one of the world's decisive battles. To impose peace upon the other side was beyond the capacity of either. Now began those displays of Mr. Taft's aptitude for conciliation which makes his personality, in the estimation of the London Times, delightful. Such a general exodus from office would make it impossible for the Cuban Congress to assemble. There would be no proper person left to convoke it. A new President could not be elected. One huge constitutional vacuum must ensue in Cuba. Upon William Henry Taft, a Secretary of War who combines, in a wonderful degree, according to the London Standard, the qualities of the idealist with the common around. Mr. Taft was suffering from want of sleep, and his famous bulk had quantitatively depreciated when Cuba's Senate and Cuba's House sat down to smoke cigarettes, read the afternoon papers, be photographed, and at last send a deputation to President Palma with an appeal to withdraw his resignation. They had received it, says the Havana correspondent of the New York Evening Post, without a "ripple" of concern. Señor Palma received their THE BEST DISCIPLINED INSURGENTS IN RECENT TIMES The regiment of Cuban_insurrectionists here shown is about to be disarmed in accordance with the pacification arranged by Secretary Taft. He is quoted as complimenting the leaders upon the fact that they could disarm 15,000 men without a hitch. It is charged, however, that the insurgents did not surrender all their arms. He reminded them of the deputation with tears in his eyes. HE STROVE VAINLY TO BECOME as those attendant upon the candidacy of Señor Photograph by Underwood & Underwood New York THE MEN WHO MADE THE PLATT AMENDMENT EFFECTIVE Regulars of the United States arriving at Camp Colombia in Cuba. Prior to their arrival numbers of families had been evicted from the barracks to make room for the United States forces. Mr. Taft made himself popular in Havana by stopping these evictions on the ground that the American troops had not come to make Cubans homeless. |