Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1922-10-23

! seuCer found CuDa sun odihAe
having the fiddler to whose strains
the whole country had whirled DUR
ing the dance of the millions wnen
war time sugar prices had resulted IN
q flood of gold, and both the govern
ment and the people had moved
from Easy Street to Profiteers' Row.
| The bottom had dropped out OF the
sugar market; the prosperity Dub
bic had burst under the noses OF
bankers, merchants. planters and
workers, and when the Zayas. admin
istration took Office on May 20. 1870,
Il found the national treasury re-
scmbled Mother Hubbards cupboard
and that the fiddler was still shy
$50, 900. 900 on his bill.
Confronted by u national crisis.
General Crowder first devoted his at
tention to decongesting the port:
preventing civil war by inducing the
rival factions to submit their case to
the courts and reducing the budget
about so percent. Then he sat back
and gave the administration a year
in which to show its metal, mean
while gathering information on the
various phases of the republics ac-
tivitics.
During eleven months of watchful
waiting, little was accomplished by
the new administration, which before
long became the target for such bit
ter popular criticism that the opposi-
ton press became almost REASONABLE
in its utterances. In view of this
state of affairs, the American ennis
sary began to manifest signs of Ia
tent activity and, drawing on the
store of facts he had painstaliingly
compiled. he sent a memorandum to
President Alfredo Zayas on April ),
suggesting reforms Memorandum
No. l was followed by eleven others
dozen were summarized on July u by
No. IS, which alone has been made
public.
The last note pointed out that tho
financial crisis through which the
Government of Cuba is passing is
fraught with unusual and unprcce-
denied dangers to the republic, and
unusual and unprecedented measures
must be adopted" dealt with brutal
frankness with charges of graft and
malfca sance in public Office, and left
little doubt in the minds of most
Cubans that intervention was right
around the corner unless they took
the reform cure without delay.
The unprecedented measures" the
general deemed necessary have just
been enacted by congress, but only
after seemingly endless jockcying and
warning, given Aug. 80, that he
would wait just ten days for the
, lawmakers to demonstrate their will
ingness to cope with the problems he
had presented. But the Crowder
Cure, one part financial and four
parts moral reform, finally was ac-
cepted.
Throughout the turmoil aroused
through partial and sometimes twist
cd versions of his recommendations,
and despite more than one anti
everything American campaign, the
. American representative has not
swerved a hairs breadth from the
program he laid out on his arrival.
Backed by the American govern
, ment's conception of its duty toward
Cuba, he has taken AS his motto a
paragraph from the instructions
given the Philippine Commission in
1900 by President Mckinley, which
said:
I'm all forms of government and
administrative provisions they are
authorized to prescribe, the commits
sion should bear in mind that the
government which they are cstab-
fishing is designed, not for our sat-
isfaction nor for the expression of
our theoretical views. but for the
happiness, peace and prosperity of
the people of the Philippine Islands,
and the measures adopted should be
made to conform to their customs.
their habits and even their prejudices
to the fullest extent consistent with
the accomplishment of the indis-
pensible requisites of just and eff
ficient government"
The ideal back of the lone man
intervention" is the development by
the Cubans themselves of the institu-
tional life OF the republic. The
practical working out of this ideal
was well demonstrated in General
Crowder's handling of the Zayas-
Gomez election feud. The executive
and legislative branches of the gov
eminent had failed to settle it and.
to prevent a recourse to arms, both
rivals agreed to lea-e the matter to
the courts. More than 400 disputed
election cases were consolidated and
the underlying issue was placed be-
fore the supreme court Both cand-
oates had accepted the tribunal as
absolutely unprecedented and, when
the decision fell in favor of Alfredo
Zayas. the verdict was final as far as
the United States was concerned.
In an authoritative study of the
election solution, Dr. Rafael Montoro,
former secretary OF state. pointed out
that the recourse to the supreme
court in the presidential contest was
a triumph Of law over revolution, and
that the courts action, forcstalling a
foreign verdict. was an important
step forward in the development of
the institutional life of the republic
!. In spite of all attempts from in
terested sources to create a despotic
Intervention out of the representative
of the president of the United States,
impartial observers in Cuba now de-
clare that public sentiment during
the last six months has shifted al
most completely to his side. and that
he is generally accepted at his own
valuation-that of friendly adviser
whose counsels are based on unas-
sailable facts and whose efforts have
been directed to encourage the de-