k of all departments of the
Palma administration, in spite of the fact that the employes had much to
learn, and that mistakes were unavoidably made, was that Cuba began
almost immediately to establish herself as a nation worthy of
consideration, and respected among the other nations of the world. Her
commerce and industries were started for the first time on a stable
basis, and the general feeling of confidence, not only in the natural
resources of the island, but in the protection that had been promised
Cuba by her sister republic on the north, all tended to start the new
republic along the right lines. In a very short time after reciprocity
with the United States was secured funds began to accumulate in the
treasury, and by the end of the first Palma administration over
$20,000,000 had accrued to the credit of the country, and a large amount
of constructive work had been undertaken in various parts of the island.
Yet more than $4,000,000 had been spent on public works, and every
village with 25 children had a school.

It was the accumulation of this money in the treasury, and the rapid
success along commercial and other lines that seemed to attend the
republic during President Palma's administration, that served to excite
desire and envy among the more or less restless and unscrupulous
elements, who did not form a part of the Palma government. Some of these
outsiders were men of much ability, and many of them were excellent
orators. All of them were familiar with the methods in Latin American
republics of securing control of the government through revolution,
force and violence. It was then that parties began to be formed,
although these were divided into many groups, each surrounding its own
political hero, who, in these days, was necessarily a man with a
supposed military record. They eventually resolved themselves into two
groups, the Moderado, who were in many respects the parents of the
present Conservative party now in power under President Menocal, and the
Liberal, under the leadership of Dr. Alfredo Zayas, an able lawyer and a
shrewd political leader.

During the Palma administration and especially at the beginning of the
electoral campaign of 1905, another aspirant for presidential honors
suddenly appeared in the person of General Jose Miguel Gomez, a man with
no very brilliant record as a soldier, although he had taken part in the
Ten Years' War, but who had a strong local following as Governor, under
Pres