he
campaign. Gomez was made the candidate for the Presidency and Zayas was
nominated for the Vice-Presidency. The Conservatives nominated for the
Presidency General Mario G. Menocal and for the Vice-Presidency Doctor
Rafael Montoro.

The campaign was conducted with much spirit and earnestness but
generally in a dignified and law abiding manner. The chief stock in
trade of the Liberals was abuse of the former administration of Estrada
Palma, and of General Menocal as the inheritor of its traditions and
policies. There were also many intemperate attacks upon Doctor Montoro
because of his former association with the Autonomist party and the
brief Autonomist Government during the later part of the War of
Independence. How insincere this criticism of Dr. Montoro was appeared a
little later when that statesman was appointed to a very important
office under the Gomez administration.

The election occurred on November 14, under the general supervision of
the American Government of Intervention, and was conducted in a peaceful
and legal manner, giving no cause for serious complaints on either side.
The result of the polling was a decisive victory for the Liberal party.
Of the 331,455 votes the Liberals polled 201,199 and the Conservatives
130,256, there being thus a Liberal majority of 70,943. The Liberals
carried all six provinces of the island, obtaining their largest
majorities in Havana, Santa Clara and Oriente. Gomez and Zayas were
assured of the entire electoral vote, though under the law of
proportional representation for minorities the Conservatives elected
thirty-two members of Congress to the Liberals' fifty-one.

Various reasons were assigned for this decisive defeat of General
Menocal. One was, that the Liberals were in the public eye as coming
men. It was said that as their leaders had never been tried as directors
of the Republic, it was time to give them an opportunity to show what
they could do. The policy which the Liberals had outlined in advance was
very attractive to certain classes of the population. They promised to
abolish the law which General Wood had made, prohibiting cock-fighting.
They even harked back to "Jack" Cade for inspiration, and promised that
when they came into power there should be no necessity for men to work
as hard as they had been doing. In token of these two promises they
adopted as their pictorial emblem in the campaign a plow standing idle
in a weed-grown field without plowman or