The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-09-13
UNITED STATES AND CUBA
WOULD I'VE BE JUSTIFIED IN
 INTERVENING IN AFFAIRS?

Liberals Claim They Constitute Large
 Majority of Qualified Voters of Cuba
 Powers of the United States
 Through Platt Amendment-PeonIe
 of Cuba Should Judge Whether Palma
 Government Could Be Improved Upon
 or Not.
 Whether the insurrection in Cuba against the Government headed by President Palma has acquired danger ous momentum or can be put down
 without much trouble or delay, it does not follow that other efforts to ovedthrow the Palma Government will not be made from time to time. That there have not been more of them is habitually for half century Cuban discontent has aken the form of insur- rection. By and by revolt may be successful, and then for the first time the question may become pertinent and urgent Under what circumstances would our Government be justified by the Platt Amendment to the Cuban Constitution in intervening in the is- lands affairs?
 Let us assume, for the sake of argu- ment, that the Liberals, the party name assumed by most of the present oppo- nents of the so-called Moderates who support President Palma's Government, should prove some day strong enough | to overthrow the existing administra- tion and install themselves in power, Whether they would have anything to dread from the interposition of the United States would depend entirely upon the use made of the powers thus Iacquired The Liberals claim that they constitute a large majority of the qualified voters of Cuba, and that the cdaim would be made good at the bal lot box if an election were conducted without fraud intimidation or seduc- tion They assert that at the least election they were the victims of or~ ganized violence and corruption. They go on to say that should they obtain ! by revolution the power which they were prevented from securing by con stitutional means the government which would establish would offer na- ives and foreigners all the guarantees of peace and order that are afforded by the regime over which Senor Palma presides Should this promise be car ried out what pretext would the Pratt Amendment give the United States for interference?
 The Platt Amendment empowers the United States to intervene in the af- | fairs of Cuba for the maintenance of a government adequate for the protec- tion of life, property and individual li- berty," Of the "adequateness" our Government would have to be the judge Of course, it does not follow that an | American Executive would arrogate 1 the right to assume beforehand that particular Cuban party would prove in practice incompetent to enforce law and tranquility. On the contrary, the competence of every Cuban government no matter how established would have to be tested by experience. If 1t turn ed out that under given regime, whether this were the outcome of a more or less fair election or of an in- surrection, the lives and property of Americans or other foreigners were en- dangered, 1t would be our right, and it might become our duty, under the Platt Amendment to interpose.
 No other Interpretation of our rights and duties under the Platt Amendment would be consonant with justice or expediency Not with justice, for the right to rebel, which we ourselves as- serted against Britain, is one inherent in the political freedom which We con- ferred upon the Cubans. Not with ex- pediency, for worse blunder could not be made than to give the mebers of a particular political party in Cuba groud for believing that It's opponents monop- olized the sympathies of the American Government and people. Alike by equity and by common sense, our Executive should be prompted to refrain most lhittlulty lIU even lliS dDDbdTdUtP of favoring one faction of the Cuban people as against another. We ought to be at least as wary in our attitude toward the upholders and the enemies of the present regime in Cuba as the Zimmerman Government showed itself the other day toward Russia, when it reconsidered its intention to let Brit ish squadron visit Cronstadt, lest it should seem to sympathize with the Czar as against his disaffected sub- jects.
 It is not for outsiders, however but for the people of Cuba to judge whether the Palma Government could not be improved upon and whether it is really the product of an honest and free ex- pression of Cuban opinion at the ballot box. Under it lives and property of American citizens and other foreigners have been safe; that is fact which nat urally wouly would prepossess us in it's favor. It would be extremely injudi- cious. however, for our Government to give a voice to such prepossessions or to act on the assumption that under a Cuban Government composed of Lib erals the lives and property of our citi- zens would not be equally assured of safety.
 When the Platt Amendment to the Cuban Constitution was first mooted the apprehension was expressed in Washington, as we'll as in Havana, that under it an American Executive might be tempted to become the spon- soy of o fraction in Cuban nolitirs and