ndo Riva; a tragedy which occurred during a police
raid on a club, on the evening of July 7. This attempt to extend amnesty
to these men caused an acute and prolonged controversy. But on December
9, 1914, the bill was finally passed in a form which granted amnesty to
General Asbert, but not to Senator Arias. In this form the United States
Government sanctioned its enactment because of the belief that the real
burden of guilt rested upon the latter rather than upon the former.

This controversy over amnesty to General Asbert meanwhile had serious
political effects in Cuba. For a time the so-called Asbert faction of
the Liberal party allied itself with the Conservatives in Congress in
support of President Menocal and thus gave him a majority in that body.
But in the summer of 1914 this faction became reunited with the rest of
the Liberal party, and Conservative control of Congress was lost. The
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Senor Gonzales Lanuza, a
Conservative, resigned and was succeeded by Senor Urquiaga, a Liberal,
on August 31. When at last in February, 1915, the act of amnesty for
General Asbert was completed, and he was released and fully
rehabilitated, there was a great popular celebration of the event in the
City of Havana.

The first attempt at insurrection in President Menocal's administration
occurred on November 9, 1913, when Crecencio Garcia, a mulatto,
undertook to lead a revolt in the province of Santa Clara. It was
promptly suppressed by the Rural Guard in a manner which augured well
for the promise which the President had made, that there would be no
revolutions during his administration; and there were no more such
attempts until the great treason of ex-President Gomez.

CHAPTER XVIII

The fifth Presidential campaign of the Republic of Cuba occurred in
1916. The Conservative candidate for President was General Mario G.
Menocal, who was thus seeking reelection, and the candidate for
Vice-President was General Emilio Nunez, of whom we have already heard
as the leader of the Veterans' Association in its legitimate and orderly
resistance to the corruption and despotism of the Gomez administration,
who had had a distinguished career in the Liberating Army in the War of
Independence, and who was at this time serving as Secretary of
Agriculture, Industry and Commerce in the cabinet of President Menocal.

[Illustration: GEN. D. EMILIO NUNEZ]

On the Liberal side, in accordance with the c