weakness was in an over-confidence in
the people to whose service he had given all the best of his life and in
whose loyalty and support he imagined that he could securely trust. He
could not, in the greatness of his own soul, bring himself to believe it
possible for men, for men calling themselves Cuban patriots, to do such
things as those which Jose Miguel Gomez and Alfredo Zayas and Orestes
Ferrara and their coparceners did. He was not moved by weakness, but by
a desire to protect Cuba from the ravages of sordid revolution and from
the unscrupulous exploitation of bushwhacking bandits, and to preserve
for the Cuban people and their Republic the good name which had been so
fairly and as he thought fully established during the years of his first
administration. His place in the annals of Cuba is secure. His rank
among the constitutional executives of the world is enviably high. There
has been in Cuba or elsewhere no more honest administration than his,
and none that more intelligently, unselfishly and untiringly strove to
fulfil its every duty to the state. Its untimely fall is not to be
charged against any subjective fault of its own, but to the unscrupulous
malice of sordid foes, the apathy of the people in whom too great
confidence had been reposed, and to the inexplicable betrayal by those
who should have supported and protected it but who instead consented to
its destruction.

CHAPTER XV

Mr. Magoon came to Cuba but little known to Cubans and unfamiliar with
what was before him. During this second American intervention there were
some radical changes in the administration, and more public works were
undertaken than President Palma had ventured upon. The consensus of
opinion among American officers, all the officers who had accompanied
Mr. Magoon, was that the Palma administration had made a mistake in
allowing so much money to accumulate in the treasury. It had become a
temptation to those who were not in power, and it would have been better
to have the money expended along lines that would tend to advance the
republic rather than to permit it to accumulate. So it was realized that
if it was not expended during Mr. Magoon's administration, it would be
spent, and probably largely wasted, if not actually misappropriated, by
the Liberals if they should secure control of the government.

The most unfortunate thing in connection with the visit of Mr. Taft, and
therefore with the administration of Mr. Magoon,