The weekly chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Craig County, Okla.) 1905-1913, 1911-05-26


publicist who is now in New Yorl
after sending several months in Cubs
in behalf of the London Times. Mr.
Brooks summarizes some of his i'm
pressions' of the island and its prob
lem as follows:
What most surprised me was tC
find Cuba one of the cleanest and
healthiest countries | have ever come
across. Its death rate is the lowest
but one in the world and it was al
most bewildering to be forced to re-
alize that Havana. with the terror of
whose name all Europe and America
have rung for three hundred years, is
now no longer a fever den but one
of the choicest and best patronized
health resorts and tourist resorts in
the West indies. American energy
and example and Cuban docility and
good sense are to be thanked for that.
If Americans had never done any
thing else for Cuba they would de-
serve her lasting gratitude for having
put the fear of dirt into the Cuban
people. II is not the Platt amend
ment that keeps the Cubans securing
and flushing their streets and install
ing water supplies and sewage sys-
tens. 1t is simply that they have
learned that such things pay for them
selves thousand times over Yellow
fever has become not merely absolete
but virtually impossible and do not
believe that any questions of santa
tion will ever again oblige the United
States to take an active interest in
Cuban affairs.
The island is prosperous and going
rapidly ahead Mr.. Bryce, the British
ambassador at Washington declared
few years ago that no better field for
the expenditure of capital could be
wished for and the statement is even
truer today than when it was first
made. Cuba is one of the most acces.
sible and potentially one of the rich
est spots on earth, yet at the same
time one of the least developed and
the most sparsely populated Only
about one-twentieth of its area is un- |
der any kind of cultivation and it's !
people number not more than two mil |
lions The eastern end of the island
especially, and it Is there that the agri-
cultural and industrial future of Cuba
lies-is storehouse OF natural wealth
clamoring for men, highways and cap
ital to unlock It, II is possible for any
well-organized concern to go into what
is now an uncleared wilderness. and
In hve or six years to build up a great
and prosperous industry in sugar, tim
ber and fruit. Sir William Van Horne
by driving his railroad through the
heart of the island has opened up dis
tricts that were previously as remote
from one another and as inaccessible
as though they had been separated by
continents instead of kilometers and 1
IL is only question of time before I
Nueritas and Anilla on the north ,
coast and Santiago on the south begin 9
TO dispute the aseendancy of Havana
The material future of Cuba, in I
short, | take to be thing assured.
There viii be moments of comparative Q
depression, of course-there is one r
now, due to short sugar crop. a long O
drouth and low prices-but on the "
whole nothing. not even politics. can II
stop the rapid upward movement of n
Cuban prosperity. Much on the other II
hand might be done to facilitate ii. 81
Men, railroads and highways are the u
,rying needs; a supply of cheap credit ii
S hardly less essential--the normal b,
ate of interest in Cuba today is ten GO
Ter cent; means should be found to tc
'reak up the unimproved estates that nj
i present do no good to anyone; titles b,
re by no means as clear as they might tb
e; the lottery. in my Judgment. is a II
ource of unmitigated evil, and the ra
ystem of indirect taxation falls. as th
sual, harder on those who are least tr
bic to bear it. The social and politi-
al reformer in fact, will find plenty a
keep him busy in Cuba for some W,
ears to come; but the material funda- no
ons of the islands welfare are not dh
lerely sound but indestructible, and alb
neither reforms come quickly or slow fol
7 will prove in the long run to be of Gu
tile consequence. ei,
"As for politics, the first thing to be pc
hid of Cuba today is that it is abso- stl
Itely tranquil The few men who in
ave it in their power to make trou. ag
e are too busy with their mills and WI
antations to thing of politics; and do
lose who would like to make trouble fec
ave not the power. The country is ca,
imirably policed; the fear of another
merican invention like that of 1906 VIII
,arafac