Weekly Watertown leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1908-1909, 1908-11-06
CUBAN MARTYR,
PAL MP, IS DEAD
FIRST PRESIDENT OF REPUBLIC
PASSES AWAY IN RETIREMENT
ON ESTATE.
GAVE HIS LIFE FOR COUNTRY.
Served in Prison and Suffered Exile for
Seeking Freedom of Isle from
Spain.
HE ONCE LIVED IN NEW YORK.

SANTIAGO, Nov. 5.-Tomas Estrada
Palma, the first president of the Cuban
republic, died last night.
Studied Law in Spain.
Tomas Estrada Palma was born in
1885 in the province of Bayamo. where
his father was rich land owner and
cattle raiser. The boy had all the adj
vantages money could give him. He
studied under a private teacher at home
and finally was sent to Spain to enter
the university at Seville. There he was
graduated in the law, and it was his
intention to become a barrister in Cuba.
That he was never to achieve this
ambition was due to the spread of the
revolutionary fury. His return to the
island was followed by the mutterings
that preceded the long fight for liberty
Ills father died and it deyolved upon
me young man to manage the estate.
The war began. The Spaniards, besides
confscating his lands, captured his moth
ef and practically tortured her to death.
They tortured her in an effort TO eX-
tort from her information she did not
possess" he said, in describing his be-
feavement years afterward, and then
they left her half dead in the woods,
where. after wandering for days, she
was rescued. too late to save her life"
LlNeu WIN soldiers IN BUSH.
Casting his lot with the revolutionists,
giving them what ready money he could
raise and fighting with them whenever
the chance came, he quickly rose to lead
ership, was chosen a deputy, and finally
became president Of the provisional gov
eminent. This government was Il migra-
tory establishment moving its headquar-
ters as often as the enemy made it neces-
sary but it was recognized by the ma
tives none the less, and Cuba Libre con-
tinued to look upon Palma as its chief,
with Gen. Maxine Gomez as his secre-
tary of war
While on a march with few troops
Palma was captured by the Spanish cap
tain, MOzo ViejO. Having spent a few
days i'll MORO castle, Havana, he was
sent to Spain, where he spent ten
months in various prisons, his last stop
being in the fortress of EigueraS, in the
foothills of the Pyrenees. 1t was there
that he again proclaimed himself Presi-
dent of the republic.
Marries and Comes to United States.
When they let him go free, in 1873, the
ten years war was over, and Spain had
frightened her grip on the island to such
an extent that it was useless for him to
return. He went to Honduras, of WHICH
republic he became postmaster general.
There he married, and he and his bride
moved to Orange county, n. Y. They es-
tablished q school for the education of
boys from the South American republic
and conducted it for twenty years.
Palma did not consider it eXtraOr-
binary that he, country schoolmaster
of New York state, should be trans
formed suddenly into President of the
republic of Cuba.
In his own mind he had been the legal
possessor Of the high title nearly thirty
years before he was installed on May 20,
1902. Had not the revolutionists for
slirmishes with the Spanish tyrants in
the ten years war? To his peaceful
neighbors at Central Valley, N. Y, he
said little, but the few who knew his his
tory had heard how he persisted in
claiming the office, even i'll the midst
of captivity in the Spanish fortress
L am President of the Cuban repub-
lie" he had said to his guards, when
they demanded his Occupation" in the
course of a census at the battlemented
prison among the Pyrenees in 1873.
Rights Restored by Election
His election, therefore, after the Span
ish-American war, he looked upon mere
ly as q restoration of his rights With
no special citation, though with the mod
esty that has always characterized him.
he leaped out of enforced obscurity into
the Havana palace once occupied by the
gay-lived captains general of Spain
AS if he had been accustomed to the
new positions in all the decades of retire
ment. he went about the complex, task
of running a government with as much
apparent confidence as he had shown
when he established a private academy
in the United States to tide over his
punishment.