Arizona republican., 1901-10-04
ANSWER TO CUBANs
Will Be no Change in the
 United States Policy
General Wood Carries Back a Full Response to Doubters Who Feared for Immediate Independence. The Presidency.

Washington. Oct. 3.-General Wood has returned to Cuba to be met with q long line of question marks He IS ready to answer them all. That is one outcome of his visit to Washington. His answers will show that the Units d States government is in the front il: the movement for setting up the inde pendent Cuban government. If there be any tagging behind it will De the fault of the Cubans themselves.
 After the death of President McKin- ley a question was raised at once in the island whether the policy which he had matured and which was ripeninG was likely to be halted, or whether it would go on without change? When the Platt amendment was under discussion its enemies in the constitutional con vention claimed that while they might count on President McKinley's knowIs good will. they could not tell what would happen should there be a change in administration. That is, they ob- jccted that there was no certainty ot continuous American policy
 When they were voicing their objec- tions the Cuban radicals were thinking only of a change in the American ad- ministration through the natural course of political events. They did not dream of the tragedy which brought it so suddenly. Yet when it came they renewed the questions which had been asked dus ing the debate in the consti- tutional convention.
 General Wood gives them full an swer. No change will be made in the policy to which the Mckinley admin istration was pledged. President Roos- evelt is in full sympathy with that. ani General Wood has shown that the lih- eral reciprocity with Cuba to which President Mckinley was committed will be supported by his successor. General Wood while in Washington spoke privately of the criticism whicn his own declarations had met with ir some quarters of the United States.
 hut he stated that he felt the need Of education In thls country on the eco
 homie conditions in Cuba. As the mil itar governor and the representative oc the American authority. he did not think his full duty would be done by merely giving the Cubans good admin istration. He wants the people of the island to be travelling the high road t
 prosperity when the United States places the government in their own hands. He believes that if they are
 happy and co,tent they will get along better and feel more kindly 10 the
 United States than if they enter upon {
 trial distress due to hostile econom.c policy enforced by this country.
 With q deep sense of his own respon- sibility General Wood seeks to make : clear to the American congress and to i the American people what he believes
 is due to the island. Feeling as he does he is not likely to be turned aside by unfriendly comment or by criticism that he is going outside his sphere t ar which the Unitsd States should take ] in dealing with Cuba.
 It is a.s we'll settled now as anything
 can be settled that Estrada Palma will be the first president of the Cuban public. If political shrewdness is one
 of the tests of capacity for self govern lnent the way in which Palmas cam paign has been managed shows that
 the Cuban politicians are equal to the | test Nearly all of them felt that
 Palma was the man for the place and i for the hour.
 One parsonage alone was in the path. | This was Maximo Gomez. If the old | insurgent chief had wanted to be pres ident he could not have been beaten. l But he showed his own sincerity by re- i fusing to stand as a candidate and by ! indorsing Palma. After that the way was open for carrying out the plans
 that had been made months and months ago. One of the Cuhan off.cis:,s al
 who was in Washington this weei: told
 me how it was all done. They did not | want their first chief executive. and i possibly their only one. to be the choice of a party. So they managed to have
 supporters of Palma in all the political organizations.
 The nationals wanted to gain power and the offices for themselves by elect ! ing Maxine Gomez president and Palma vice president, but General Co- | meg repudiated their scheme and gave l them a sharp lecture besides. Then the Palma element among the nation als, which had been waiting its time. | came forward quietly and proposed 1 him for the first president. Meanwhile the radical republicans under the negro
 leader, Juan Gualberto Gomez. who
 had several candidates in mind, found ! themselves checkmatcd. because there ! were so many republicans who were for
 Palma and no one else. Then they
 tried to accept his candidacy on an
 anti-Platt amendment platform. hut i in this, too. they were beaten.
 | Among the union democrats or an-
 nexationists Palma was not very ;,op- ular, and was not liked by the ambi-
 tious leaders, especiall the old aut D.
 nomists But when they sought to
 dodge his candidacy and leave the way
 clearer for some one else they found
 that the former ins urgents, whom they had been welcoming into their ranks.
 were all for Palma So they have ac-
 cepted him. Even the populists, as the 1 shadowy workingmen's. or socialistic ! party. is called have had to indorsa Palma. Its membership, which is not
 crowded, is made up mostly of Cuban -r., .1t ts1,,f f--~
 and when the test came they, too, i wanted Palma. All this could not have happened unless a genuine and ! widespread sentiment existed among the people for Palma. yet the way his friends have managed to make all the