ith a bill
pending before Congress, which provided that the head of the army should
not be removed excepting for cause. It was said that this bill was
strongly opposed by the Commander of the Rural Guards, and that he had
in consequence incited the attempt to assassinate Guerra. There was
much public discussion and agitation of this matter, but nothing
practical resulted from it.

Charges continued to be made increasingly of the profligacy and
corruption of the Gomez administration. It was charged, doubtless with
much truth, that the number of public offices and office holders had
been unnecessarily multiplied to a scandalous extent for the sake of
giving profitable jobs to the friends of Liberal leaders. It was also
intimated that the Government had subsidized the press to suppress the
truth concerning these and other charges, and thus to avoid an open
scandal which might result in a third American intervention. Taxation
was declared to be excessive and oppressive, amounting in some cases to
as much as 30 per cent. of the value of the property. Other charges were
that public offices, executive, legislative and even judicial, were
practically sold to the highest bidder for cash; that concessions for
public utilities were similarly disposed of for the profit not of the
public but of members of the Government, and that then extortionate
prices were charged to the public for the service rendered; that the
natural resources of Cuba were thus being parceled out to speculators
for cash; that a bill purporting to be for the improvement of the ports
had increased four-fold the expenses of those ports, for the enrichment
of a speculative company, and that in general the functions of the
government were being perverted to the uses and the personal enrichment
of a ring of Liberal politicians.

As the date of the electoral campaign of 1912 drew near, the conduct of
the administration became such as to incur the menace of another
intervention. In January of that year an arbitrary attempt was made by
President Gomez to thwart the activities and impair the influence of the
Veterans' Association, by forbidding army officers and members of the
Rural Guard to attend any of its meetings, on the pretended ground that
they were engaged in factional political agitation. As the organization
was in no sense a partisan affair, but was composed of men of varying
shades of political opinion who had the good of Cuba at heart, and who
strove to a