es and minds and hearts toward him as the man of all best fitted to
inaugurate the independent republican sovereignty of the insular state
as its first President. He was the choice of no party--parties were yet
inchoate--but of the Cuban people.

In similar fashion General Bartolome Maso was put forward for
Vice-President. Of him we have already heard much in these pages; a
stern old warrior patriot of Oriente, who had done inestimable service
in the field in the two wars, and who had been President of the
Revolutionary Government--its last President, in the mountains of
Cubitas, at the time of the American intervention. A man of fine
education, of unblemished integrity, of sterling patriotism, he
commanded the respect and affection of all who knew him; though it must
be confessed that he was personally little known at the capital or in
the western half of the island.

For a time there seemed every prospect that these two men, so admirably
chosen, would be elected without contest. But at the end of October
there was a schism. Estrada Palma was favorably inclined toward the
Platt Amendment, while Bartolome Maso remained outspoken against it. The
sequel was that all the politicians of whatever factions who were
opposed to that instrument joined in putting Maso forward as a candidate
not for the Vice-Presidency but for the Presidency, in opposition to
Palma. On October 31 Maso issued an address announcing his candidacy,
which, he said, he had been induced to accept "in order to preserve the
nationalism and patriotism of the country"; and he added that the
American intervention had been "perverted into a military occupation
approaching a conquest." This was exaggeration, though entirely sincere;
Maso lacking the broad international vision necessary to appreciate the
relationships with the United States and the rest of the world upon
which Cuba was about to enter. But it made a strong appeal to a number
of diverse and incongruous elements, including some of the former
Autonomists, many of the Spaniards, and a number of Negroes who were
inclined to form a race party of their own.

There followed an animated but orderly and amicable campaign of mass
meetings and stump speeches, quite after the American style. At one time
the followers of Maso appeared to be numerous, and claimed that they
were sixty per cent. of the citizens of Cuba. But such claims were
illusory. Nearly all important leaders, from Maximo Gomez down, were on