The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1908-06-18
IN CUBA

II NllSl ptiDlioliSb Oll -Idi III ~,
1908, in regard to reconstruction
in Cuba will elicit the sympathy of
al: Southerners. 1t is given as
observations of Lloyd Damron,
of a prominent insurance company,
ir the Rome (Ga.) Tribune, he
having recently spent some time in
Havana
That the spirit of the Kuklux,
who redeemed the Southern States
from the shadow of Africa forty
years ago, is not personifed by
clans in Cuba today is due perhaps
to temperamental differences of
the Anglo-Saxon and Latin ma
tons, but mainly to the unwelcome
intervention of the United States
government.
THE beautiful Prado, once the
JOY of Havana, harbors now an in
congruous assembly of people.
Once the dons and donnas were
out nightly, circling about the
Prado with the music of Spanish
and Cuban bands, enlivening the
paseo on gala occasions. The
great parades followed the course
of the Prado or boulevard, which
is the main street of the city, for
hours in the day and into the
morning hours. Recently, how
ever, the Prado has lost much of
its charm to the traveller or ma
tive who reveled in its joys during
the reign of the naughty Spaniard.
Then the don and the donna and
the caballero and the senorita
walked hand in hand in the affec-
tomato way of these romantic peo-
pie and SHE'D coquettish chances at
each other, oblivious to the inva-
sion and conquest of the beautiful
parks and boulevards that over
Swallowed them. The negro, whom
the Spanish grandees trained to
tread the narrow GALES, or streets,
now jostles along the quantity
narrow sidewalks, while perhaps
the proud dona keeps to the middle
Of the street to avoid measuring
rights with the negro, to whom
the amended Constitution of the
United States guarantees a form
OF social equality.
The ways of the races in Cuba
are reminiscent of local recon-
struction incidents, even up to the
characteristic inclination of the
overindulged black man to shunt
into the street white women whom
he meets on the narrow sidewalks.
"'You people in, the Southern
States, said native Cuban to me
the other day, understand the
proper control of the negro, and
/ am told that you exercise a very
good control in spite of this Con-
stitution of yours which we do
not yet understand perfectly. We
have the United States to thank
for Our present troubles with the
negro
This is pretty generally the
feeling in Cuba when one is asked
to fix a responsibility for the pre-
Cipitate change in social sonditions
which has driven the Spaniard and
the equally proud Cuban, through
whose veins courses the noblest
Castilian and Caucasian blood,
from the beautiful Prado, parks,
and boulevards, adorned more
than ever by the hand of the
American government of interven-
ton, back to the Malecon, the
boulevard by the sea, which the
negro has not yet captured in his
sweeping movement for recogni-
ton in Cuba.
There is some danger even of
electing a negro for Vice Presi-
dent in Cuba at the next election,
which takes place in October.
Whatever the result of the cleo
ton, riots will be imminent and
possibly revolution. The mailed
fist of Uncle Sam is the restrain
ing influence in the island today
without which the races would
clash. President Roosevelt is talk
ing of withdrawing many of Our