"THE CART-ROADS OF MISTER MAGOON" BY IRENE A. WRIGHT Cubans call the new macadamized highways built by the American Provisional Administration, which ended on January 28 with the inauguration of President Gomez, "the cart-roads of Mister Magoon," because formerly what made roads there were in Cuba were built for ox-carts and were therefore cart-roads, the name being synonymous with good roads, in which sense it is still employed. The building of these roads has not only been of vast commercial benefit to the island, but it has also disposed of a large treasury balance which might have been an incentive to revolution. It 1906, which made it necessary that the United States again assume control of Cuba's affairs, and the termination of intervention in the inauguration of President Gomez, the American Provisional Administration of the Republic rendered the island a commensurate service. met a demand for improved means of transportation in the provinces, as voiced in vain by the producing classes of Cuba through full two centuries. The system of macadamized highways planned, and pushed far toward completion, by his department of public works, is the preëminent service to be recalled on mention of the name of Judge Charles E. Magoon, provisional governor of Cuba. One of the greatest obstacles to the agricultural development of Cuba has been, ever since such development first began, the almost complete absence of improved roads. Maps of Cuba show a network of lines all over the country, which their legends assure the unwary are roads; in truth, these lines but indicate rights-of-way, which are hard enough in the dry season, November to May, to permit wheel traffic, but become nearly or quite impassable, sometimes even for pack animals, during the wet season, May to November. The immense detriment this situation works on the country will be somewhat appreciated when it is recalled that Cuba is entirely an agricultural community. For more than two hundred years preceding the final struggle between Spain and Cuba the people begged roads of successive régimes. Petitions were drawn up, especially through the Economic Society of Friends of the Country, a learned body vested with certain advisory privileges. Extensive plans were prepared - and pigeon-holed. When the Cuban congress came into existence the need of a definite program for road construction by the state was placed before it; the project met with the usual relegation to oblivion. Meanwhile, the Cuban countryman continued to produce bumper crops of sugar and the cream of the world's tobacco, amid conditions entailing heavy economic waste, and such delay and hard usage in transportation from field to shipping point that he was effectively prevented from exploiting any secondary crop on which to fall back in case of the failure of the two principal crops, both precarious. This restriction to two crops, both uncertain, has kept financial conditions in Cuba unstable. The road through this valley from Pinar del Rio City to Esperanza, fifty-two kilometers, was opened to traffic last November. It is one of the most beautiful drives in the world Before these roads were built no wheeled vehicle ventured to cross these wild wastes. The pack train, in the foreground, will soon be unnecessary Unstable financial conditions have had their direct effect upon the general temper of the people. It is a fact that every political disturbance of magnitude in Cuba has followed a failure of either the sugar or the tobacco crop. The Spanish considered low prices on sugar to be an infallible indication of impending revolution. When sugar sold low the income of the people of five provinces was reduced, sometimes below the margin of endurance. Poverty, frequently actual hunger, drove men to take up arms for their country, since patriots may forage with much impunity. There was no secon dary crop to which to resort when sugar failed, for no crop save sugar or tobacco could withstand transportation over such ways as Cuba has heretofore called roads. Therefore, it is obvious that road-building, in that it makes possible a variety of crops, is a step not only toward prosperity in Cuba, but toward peace, which to Cuba is vitally necessary to national existence. Frankly giving these as his reasons for so expending the millions then accumulated in the national treasury as surplus, Governor Magoon, on April 19, 1907, endorsed the plan of public improvements drawn up in the department of public ONE OF THE OLD ROADS It is worn carriage-deep below the surface of the land works, over which Colonel William M. Black, U. S. A., presided as adviser. This plan contemplates the making of a grand trunk highway running east and west from Santiago, at one end of Cuba, to La Fe at the other, connecting the principal cities; from this main line, branch roads north and south to at least one harbor on each coast, in each of the six provinces of the republic. Never was moment more opportune than that chosen for the commencement of such an undertaking. The entire country was unsettled. The government had just been overturned by armed revolution. President Palma had declared himself unable to protect the lives or property of foreigners even within Havana itself, and, forcing Americans to accept responsibilities, had fled from the palace. Credit was ruined, at home and abroad. In October, following the political upset of September, a cyclone swept the island. What bananas the victorious Constitutional Army had not devoured, the wind scattered; what sucking pigs they had not eaten, the flooding rivers drowned. The country people were desperate. The tobacco crop, owing to "the Little War," the big storm and disordered markets, was estimated to be a total failure. The sugar mills of the center and east had closed down, throwing thousands upon thousands of idle men into the vortex. Every omen portended an imminent crisis, far more grave than any overcome even during the withdrawal of the moderate administration and the substitution of impartial American supervision, in the face of armed Liberal hordes, checked on the very outskirts of the capital city of Havana. It had been intended to distribute the road work ratably throughout the country and to begin it in each province at about the same time. Instead, it was found desirable to give Pinar del Rio, the far western province, the preference. In the fastnesses of the western hills, Pino Guerra, who led the revolt against Palma, had recruited his followers and flitted hither and yon all through August and September, leading government forces a vain chase through uncharted wilderness beyond Pinar del Rio City. Into the West every idler in the republic hurried forthwith, bound to join the "picnickers" in their frolic. Secure in their belief that the weird limestone vales of the West and Northwest were impenetrable to military forces in formal array, it was from those two sections that certain disgruntled Liberals were heard to mutter threats to foment still further armed resistance, this time against American authority. the In May, 1907, work on the roads in the West commenced. The very idlers who had gone into Pinar del Rio looking for trouble, were attracted by the wages offered and accepted work on the government roads instead. They have laid wide. white, smooth boulevards through very heart of those regions they had proposed to make hot-beds of brigandage. disloyalty and defiance. The touring car is due shortly along the main streets of the towns into which Palma's regulars. under Avalos, misguided and weary, used to come stumbling, just as Pino Guerra. whom they sought, had taken horse inte The splendid scenery along a road like this dims appreciation of the fact that the road is primarily useful, its orna mentality being only a happy accident paratively safe diversion, but they have undermined the basic causes of discontent. Over the new highways the tobacco grower can get his crop to market more easily, therefore more cheaply than he could before; his profits are increased and with them his desire to labor peacefully. As time passes he will find that, mean abject misery to a whole province. The ruin of the tobacco crop need not bring starvation upon the veguero, from which the only appeal he knows is open revolt against everybody and everything. Following lines approved by Colonel Black, who adopted much from previous plans drawn up by Spanish and Cuban |