l who had voted for the measure, and some of
the former's remarks were so severe that their retraction was required.
The qualified acceptance of the Amendment was not, however, satisfactory
to the Washington government, and the Convention was promptly informed
of that fact. In consequence the matter was reopened, and on June 12,
after a brief and temperate debate, a final vote was taken on
unconditional acceptance and adoption of the Platt Amendment. The result
was sixteen ayes to eleven nays.

That ended the matter. The Amendment had become a permanent addendum to
the Cuban Constitution, and the relations between the island's future
government and the United States was irrevocably determined. There was
little further criticism. The American agitators and speculators who had
been inciting the Cubans to resistance, in order thus to make them
compass their own ruin, abandoned their execrable intrigues for other
ventures elsewhere, while the Cubans who had been their dupes, relieved
of their pernicious influence, soon began to appreciate the
reasonableness of most of the provisions of the Amendment and the very
material benefits which it would bestow upon Cuba.

CHAPTER XII

The concretion of Cuban history is in the Constitution of the Cuban
Republic. In that document are realized the hopes of a patient but
resolute people. In it are embodied the ideals for which Lopez fought
and died; for which Cespedes strove; for which Marti pleaded and taught
and planned; for which Maximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo battled against
desperate odds; for which Estrada Palma gave the ripe statesmanship of a
devoted life. There were provisional constitutions before, drafted in
mountain camps in the intervals between battles, but they represented
aspirations rather than achievements. It was reserved for the time of
triumph, when the Spaniard was forever driven from the Cuban shores, and
the Pearl of the Antilles was no more made to adorn an alien diadem, for
the statesmanship of the island in calm deliberation to frame the
instrument which was to confirm and safeguard for all time that which
had been won with the blood of innumerable martyrs, and which was to
erect the Cuban people into the Cuban Nation.

[Illustration: THE CAPITOL

The Capitol, the new government building at Havana, is one of the great
public works of the administration of President Menocal. It occupies a
fine site in the heart of the city, and will architecturally