ions of the island; just as Pennsylvania and some others of the
United States are cared for by State Police. General Wood selected for
this service officers and soldiers of the Cuban Army in the War of
Independence who were recommended for their good character and
efficiency. By the end of the year 1898 he had about 300 of these
troopers patrolling the roads of Oriente, in the districts where such
guardianship was most needed, with admirable results. The value of this
service was observed and appreciated by the officers of the other
provinces, and at the beginning of 1899 the system was introduced into
all the provinces excepting Matanzas, where the same purpose was served
by a mounted police force maintained by the larger municipalities. In
the city of Havana the Military Governor, General Ludlow, held a
conference with General Mario G. Menocal, of the Cuban Army, who had
been invited to become Chief of Police in that city under the American
administration, and with him worked out the details of the organization
of Rural Guards in the suburbs of the capital and the rural portions of
Havana Province. They formed a force of 350 men for service there, and
thus quickly made all that region, even in the more or less disturbed
period immediately following the war, noteworthy for its security and
orderliness. When at the end of the American occupation the Rural Guards
were transferred to the Cuban Government, they comprised 15 bodies,
numbering 1,605 officers and men, stationed at 247 different posts.

Meantime American occupation and administration were established
throughout the island. Immediately upon the transfer of sovereignty on
January 1, 1899, John R. Brooke, Major General commanding the Division
of Cuba, and Military Governor, issued a proclamation to the people of
the island. He told them that he came as the representative of the
President, to give protection to the people and security to persons and
property, to restore confidence, to build up waste plantations, to
resume commercial traffic, and to afford full protection in the exercise
of all civil and religious rights. To the attainment of those ends, all
the efforts of the United States would be directed, in the interest and
for the benefit of all the people of Cuba. The legal codes of the
Spanish sovereignty were to be retained in force, with such changes and
modifications as might from time to time be found necessary in the
interest of good government. The peo