Chaffee has the plan now before him with all the other plans, and it will be immediately considered and acted upon. In Puerto Principe the Cuban army has disbanded, law and order prevail, and the people are rapidly getting to work again. In Santiago General Leonard Wood and the Cuban General Castillo are masters of the situation. So great is General Gomez's confidence in General Wood that he expressed a hope to your Commissioner that General Wood would be in Havana at the conference of United States and Cuban officers, because he (General Gomez) wanted to consult him in relation to matters in that province. The situation may change, but the above represents the conditions at the present moment. Some of the leaders will object, for various reasons, some perhaps selfish ones, to the present attitude of General Gomez, but it is not likely that their views will prevail if once the United States and Cuban military leaders in each province can get together and meet around a table with General Brooke and General Gomez. If this can be brought about at an early date all outside opposition will surely disappear and the Cuban problem will be in a fair way of solution. The following message was sent to your Commissioner at Remedios, and was translated into Spanish and submitted to General Gomez: "Hon. Robert P. Porter, Havana : "The President sends his hearty congratulations and thanks for your despatch. Convey his cordial greetings to General Gomez and his grateful appreciation of the General's frank and friendly message. The co-operation of General Gomez in the pacification of Cuba will be of the greatest value for both peoples. "JOHN HAY, Secretary of State." It is respectfully suggested, in view of the facts above given, that the sum of money ($3,000,000) assigned by the President for the relief of the Cuban troops and to aid in the disbandment of the army be at once placed at the disposal of General Brooke, Governor-General in command of the United States forces in Cuba. All of which is respectfully submitted, ROBERT P. PORTER, Special Commissioner for the United This chapter may be fittingly concluded with a few words as to the personality of General Gomez, who in appearance is as absolutely unlike the photographs of him as his manner and action toward strangers are unlike the accounts we have so often heard of him. The photographs published-and there is nothing General Gomez dislikes so much as having his photograph taken—are invariably harsh and belligerent looking; whereas the man himself, while in manner and expression a soldier, has a sympathetic side to him which makes him altogether a different being to the one so often pictured. This side came out at the ball, to which reference was made in the foregoing pages, when he was talking to twenty or thirty children prettily dressed, who carried bouquets of flowers and walked around the room. He had something to say to all these little misses, and was most affable to them. General Gomez is very fond of dancing; in fact, it is his chief recreation. He dances well and with great agility, enjoying it fully. The people of Remedios, men and women, are very fond of him, and his social side, which can be studied to advantage there, gives quite a new light to his character. IN CHAPTER XXIX CONCLUSION-A LOOK AHEAD N the opening chapters of this volume we have seen Cuba as it is and speculated on what it should have presented to the world at the close of the present century. The past, it is to be hoped, is a closed book. The future is more hopeful, perhaps, but replete with difficult problems and many dangers. The war has emancipated the people of Cuba from Spain, made them a self-governing people protected by a great nation, the flag of which is a symbol of freedom and a guaranty of the fruits of individual endeavour. The fate of Cuba and the Cubans no longer rests in the hands of a small cabal of medieval and selfish statesmen at Madrid, intent only upon enriching the mother country. It rests with the people of the United States who are to-day actively and impartially discussing the future of the Island. The question is not how much the United States can make out of Cuba, but how best to make a prosperous, peaceful, and useful neighbour of an island within a hundred miles from the shores of the Great Republic. The people of Cuba must disabuse themselves of the idea that the future of their native land is in the hands of some one man or any set of men. They must comprehend, on the contrary, that it has been committed to the care of a liberty-loving people as jealous of popular rights as those Cuban patriots who, like Marti and Gomez and Maceo and Garcia and Quesada, risked their lives to make their country free. That the people of the United States will deal justly and fairly with the people of Cuba does not admit of doubt, and the closer the people of the two countries come together on a platform of mutual trust and confidence, the sooner a stable government will be established. It may be well for our Cuban friends to remember that a considerable number of the seventy-five millions in the American Republic have, themselves, exchanged for the Stars and Stripes flags that mean as much to them as the Cuban flag to the most patriotic Cuban, and around which cluster as tender memories as those which the flag of the Cuban Republic suggests. The great newspaper press of the United States is discussing all sides of the Cuban question as intelligently and vigorously, and as fairly and honestly towards Cuban interests, as it does our own important domestic questions, and no Cuban need for a moment fear that the conclusions reached will be other than for the best interests of all concerned. If, at the conclusion of military occupation, Cuba is made an independent republic, it will be because the people of Cuba and the people of the United States, acting jointly, so decide. If, on the contrary, the future of Cuba shall lie in the still greater independence of American Statehood, it will be by the mutual consent of the people of the two countries. There are no other possibilities in the final solution of the political future of Cuba. The more stable the government of Cuba, the more certain the industrial development. The closer and stronger the ties which bind Cuba to the United States, the greater the prosperity and the more rapid the reconstruction of the Island. To the outside world Cuba has become part of the United States, and the arrangements in respect of the government of the Cuban people a domestic affair. Whether the present government be termed Military Protectorate, Military Occupancy, or Statehood, the fact remains that the strength of Cuba to-day is in its close alliance with the United States. Commercially and industrially, as has been repeatedly shown in this volume, the two countries fit perfectly. The products Cuba produces can all find a market in the United States, while the needs of Cuba can all be sup plied by its continental neighbour. The Cubans have had a taste of the prosperity which followed reciprocal commercial relations with the United States. The golden possibilities of absolute free intercourse between Cuba and the United States must be apparent to the more intelligent Cubans. That sentiment for a flag and a country is natural and laudable cannot be denied, but in the final and mutual coming together of Cuba and the United States, the single Star becomes not less bright by reason of association or companionship with the other Stars, together making an harmonious whole and representing all that is best and most hopeful for mankind. A great change has already taken place in Cuba in the six weeks of United States occupancy. The author has had opportunity to study three stages in the recent history of Cuba. He visited the four western provinces soon after the signing of the Protocol of Peace and before the Spanish had relinquished control. He was in Santiago after six months of American occupancy, and in the chapter on that province has made note of the good work inaugurated by Major-General Leonard Wood, Governor of the province. Again after six weeks of American control he travelled over much the same ground as in September and October, and has noted in the preceding chapter the improved condition. A good deal of honest and intelligent work has already been done by the United States for Cuba. A new tariff has been framed and put in operation by the War Department, aided by experienced officers from the Treasury Department. The Post-Office Department has inaugurated an improved mail service. The telegraph lines are rapidly being put in order. The United States sanitary authorities are laying their plans for a vigorous campaign against epidemic disease this summer. The governors of cities are as rapidly as possible cleaning up the streets and preparing plans for modern sewerage and drainage. Under the direction of General Brooke and the immediate supervision of General Chaffee, a complete system for policing |