over that Island to its own inhabitants. In 1899 except for the
military work done by the American Army the Island contained Spaniards
who had for years been its autocratic rulers and who had recently been
defeated in a war; and Cubans who {149} had for years been governed by
a tyrant race. In 1902 these two century-old hostile groups, neither
of whom had ever had any real experience in modern representative
government, received their country at the hands of the Americans with
new laws, with a republican form of government, with their own kind
for rulers elected by their own people, and began an existence that
has now been running long enough to prove that the work was so well
performed for them as to make the impossible possible--the rotten
kingdom, a clean republic; the decayed colony, an independent, proud
democracy.

It is a piece of work unparalleled in the annals of history. And the
closing episodes which occurred in Havana are a witness to the
affection and pride in which the people held the man who had
accomplished it, the nation which had ordered it and their Island
which was the scene of its happening.

One typical episode occurred on the night of President Palma's
inauguration ball given to the new President and the new Cuban
Congress by General Wood. Wood took a number of the {150} principal
representatives of the new Cuban Congress to the Spanish Club--the
hotbed of the Spanish _regime_--where there was a celebration in
progress in honor of King Alfonso's birthday. The two nationalities
fraternized at once under the influence of the American
Governor-General, and all of them, Spaniards and Cubans, drank the
health of the King of Spain. The President and the principal members
of the Club then joined the party and went to the ball together, where
in turn all of them, Spaniards and Cubans alike, drank the health of
the new republic. When Wood's family left for Spain the Spanish colony
in Havana made a request that they should sail on the Spanish Royal
Mail Steamer in order that they might show their appreciation of his
work. And this ship when she sailed was the first Spanish boat to
salute the brand new Cuban flag which had just been raised at the
entrance to the harbor where for 400 years before that day the flag of
Spain had waved.

Another witness to the singular skill with which the Governor-General
handled the diplomatic relations of the republic, and which is
probably {151} unequaled anywhere in his