Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-12-18
HOOVER TO KEEP
HANDS Off CUBA
80 Year Policy of U. S. as
Laid Down by EIihu Root
Is to Be Maintained.
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

Hands off" will continue to be the
attitude of the Hoover administration
toward Cuba as long as there is gov
eminent at Havana capable of main
tanning law and order. Nothing has so
far transpired, in the view of the State
Department, to justify any departure
| from this policy. 1t is policy to which
the United States has consistently adj
hered for 80 years. In nutshell, Uncle
Sans position is that we are entitled
to intervene in Cuba in the event of
only two contingencies Cd that the re-
public's independence is threatened
from without and ca that the island
has fallen into a state of anarchy.
The proposal of Senator Walsh,
Democrat, of Massachusetts, that the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
should inquire into Cuban-American
relations, in light of charges that the
rights of Cuban citizens are being out
ragged by the Machado government,
finds no support in administration
quarters. President Hoover and Secre-
tary StimSon are being kept fully in
formed of developments in the island
by Ambassador Guggenheim, including
the fact that various groups of Cubans
are bringing pressure to bear at Havana
In the hope of forcing American inter
vention under the Plat amendment
The sum and substance of the State
Departments advices is that the Ma
chado regime is invulnerable to date
and is exercising the functions of gov
eminent all along the line.
The policy which has been the basis
OF our conduct toward Cuba was laid
down by Elihu Root, Secretary of War
in the Mckinley administration, at the
time the island was setting up a gov
eminent of its own. Writing to Gen.
Tor IF
April @ 1901, Secretary Root said:
You are authorized to state officially
that in the view of the President, the
intervention described in the third
clause of the Platt amendment (the one
giving the United States the right to
intervene under specified conditions) is
not synonymous with nter-meddling
or interference with the affairs of the
Cuban government, but with the formal
action of the Government of the United
States. based upon just and substantial
grounds for the preservation of Cuban
independence and the maintenance of
government adequate for the protec-
ton of life, property and individual
liberty, and for discharging the obi
cations with respect to Cuba imposed
by the treaty of Paris on the United
States"
Reduced to non-diplomatic English,
what the Root policy means Is that
the United States will religiously keep
its fingers out of the Cuban pie, no
matter how badly scrambled that pie
is in consequence of purely local con-
troversy. In other words, as long as
there is a government on the job at
Havana, capable through its own power
Of running the country, the United
States does not feel itself either called
upon or at liberty to interfere in
Cubas domestic affairs, no matter how
tumultuous they may become.
Washington may not like the way
any given Havana government COM
ports itself, or the methods to which it
resorts to maintain itself in authority.
But such a situation of itself, under
the Root policy" would not be held
sufficient to demand Intervention.
When the question of the Platt
amendment was before the Constituent