May
17, three days before the transfer. It contained six members, chosen
without regard to party, for the President was not a partisan. As a
matter of fact, however, it contained representatives of all three of
the old parties, which were at this time in course of dissolution and
reorganization into the two which have since divided the Cuban people
between them. Diego Tamayo was the Secretary of Government, having
charge of the postal service, the signal service, sanitation, and the
Rural Guard. Carlos Zaldo was Secretary of State and of Justice. Emilio
Terry was Secretary of Agriculture. Manual Luciano Diaz was Secretary of
Public Works; Eduardo Yero was Secretary of Public Instruction; and
Garcia Montes was Secretary of Finance.

The President presented his first message to Congress on May 28. He
spoke with gratitude of the disinterested intervention and services of
the United States, and with confidence of Cuba's ability to fulfil her
duties as a sovereign State. He recommended care in the preparation of
the budget, and the formulation of measures for the encouragement of
cattle-raising and the growing of sugar and tobacco. Just then, owing
to the great increase of European beet sugar growing the Cuban sugar
trade was in an unsatisfactory state, but he hoped to improve it by
securing a reciprocity treaty with the United States which would admit
Cuban sugar to the markets of that country free of tariff duty. He also
promised to promote the building of much-needed railroads. He urged the
cultivation of cordial relations and commercial intercourse with all
nations, but especially with the United States. As a special act of
grace, a number of Americans who had justly been sentenced to terms in
Cuban prisons under the Government of Intervention received pardons.
These included three men, Rathbone, Neely and Reeves, who had been
sentenced for ten years for frauds in the Cuban postoffice, the only
serious scandal of the American administration.

Two of the items in the Platt Amendment were soon taken up by the United
States government, and were settled in a way eminently satisfactory to
Cuba. One was the disposition of the Isle of Pines. It was decided by
the State Department at Washington that when the American government was
withdrawn from Cuba, control of the Isle of Pines was transferred to the
Cuban government, to be held and exercised by it unless and until some
other disposition should subsequently be effected. In