The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-09-27
TROOPS WILL LAND
IN CUBA SATURDAY
Continued From First Page.

none at all on land as land, but always
on the improvements. Consequently
land than any state or territory of the
union, many times over. 1t costs moth
ing to hold land, and for that reason il
is held. The: natural result is that
there Is an immense amount Of dissat
lsfaction as there must always be in 8
country where most Of the people have
no permanent anchor. ~
p" Then take the means of raising the
revenues by which the movement is
supported. First, they have the Gus
toms charges. Then the improvements
on property. Then tho licenses on the
industries. That covers it all and, as
bears upon the industries Of the PEG
pie and never in a single instance upon
what we in this country love to call
the unearned increment.
System Atrocious.
"The licensing system is particularly
atrocious. 1t follows the old Spanish
lines, and to illustrate: Suppose you
20 into the country and buy pig. You
get it for so cents and think you have
a bargain, but when you bring it home
they charge you IS cents for slaugh.
tering license, and your bargain is all
gone.
"Why, since the war the value of
land in the island has gone up from 200
to 300 per cent, and all because there
Is no equality of treatment there-be-
cause land is the one untaxed thing a
man can own.
Glands cannot be broken up into
small holdings, because for one thing,
it costs too much to make the trans
fers. All deeds go back to the original
grant from the crown.
81 have seen deed for piece of
land sold for 81 900 and the deed cost
as much as the land, there being hun
dreds of pages setting forth every
transfer from the beginning in detail
and all charged for by the notaries who
made it out, and who have the charg-
ing system down to fine point.
Don't Want Annexation.
$50, while the price has gone up,
because everybody thought indepen-
dence would bring great prosperity, the
were made were in most cases for large
tracts.
1.-The people do not want annexation
to the Unite d States-that is, the land
less people do not. They want some Of
the rosy prospects realized that were
held out to them when the war for in
dependence was in progress. The men
who own the property want annexation,
and so do the foreign owners Of lands
and railroads and mines and other con-
cessions. They want it for the reason
that they know there is no hope of bet
ter conditions under Cuban control.
"The sugar and tobacco planters
want it because practically all their
as it is, they pay every year into the
in customs which otherwise would re-
main in their pockets. The tobacco
trust also wants 1t because it would
save money on all tobacco brought
from Cuba, but the sugar trust does
not because if the duty on sugar were
to be removed it would all be refined in
Cuba before being shipped to this
country and sold directly from the Gu
ban refneries to the jobbers in this
country and the trust would not get a
chance to lay hand upon it. It
would be sold as the sugar from the
beet sugar factories is now sold in this
country.
Annexation Only Hope.
GAS the tariff now stands, refined
sugar has to pay such a heavy duty
that. it does not pay to import it. Hence
the trust, having all the refneries, gets
all that comes from abroad and refines
it in this country. If Cuba were to be
annexed the sugar trust would have no
raw sugar to refine except. that which
comes from Germany and other Euro
pean countries and that would not be
enough TO enable it to dominate the
market. {
"But it is perfectly apparent that
there is no ultimate hope for the island
except in annexation. With such a
population in such a dissatisfied condi-
tion there will be nothing but war as
long as the natives are left i'll control.
They want what they, thought they
were going to get when they were fight
ing against Spain, and as any man can
see they are not going to get it, or any
thing else, except chance to work at
small wages for the comparatively
small group that owns everything.
'Thls for them is exactly as it was
before the war with Spain, and there
fore in that climate it will always be
easier for men to bushwhack for liv-
ing than to submit to intolerable and
hopeless labor conditions. The only
real chance the island has lies in union
with the United States and American
laws that will enable an industrious
man to acquire home of his own.
Roosevelt Knows It.
"Mr. Roosevelt understands it and
while for political reasons he would
doubtless have preferred to refrain
from intervention, and he may still Try
to put off annexation by one expedient
or another, he knows that if he does
not intervene there will not be enough
property left in the island in a few
months to make note Of. Under the
Platt amendment that would mean that
the United States, by not stopping the
plundering and burning, becomes re-
sponsible for the damages and in any
court of international arbitration
would be made to pay.
So he has to intervene or run the
risk Of either paying big bills to for
eigners. owning property in Cuba or Of
war with some one or more foreign
powers over his altered wanton neglect
to protect that which we under the
Monroe doctrine. hold no foreign ma
ton may protect. It is not nice posi-
ton for the president to be in, but I
am satisfied that there is no wav out
except for the United States to take
full control Of everything in Cuba and
that is what I expect to see done.''