The Politics of Intervention

92 THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTION

United States protection and put sailors and Marines aboard

its trains.^15 In all, Estrada Palma, by surveying the naval

buildup, could gamble that the United States would not let

the revolt go on, even to the point of taking temporary

political control in Cuba and occupying the island to the end

of the disorder.

The military situation in Cuba, as the Taft-Bacon Mission

soon found, was growing tense, for the officers of both the

insurgents and the government militia were on the verge

of losing control of their unruly followers.^16 Although the

insurgents had, in the first month of operations, limited them­

selves to requisitioning horses and arms, the rebel army had

grown so large that its soldiers had to forage widely to eat.

With each day the risk of general disorder and destruction

increased.^17 By September 27, Sir William Van Home was

writing that if the United States did not end the revolt quickly

"it may require an army of 150,000 men and prolonged guer­

rilla warfare to secure the United States in the peaceable

occupation of the country."^18

It was against this background of increasing combustibility

that Secretary of War William Howard Taft attempted to

negotiate a peaceful compromise that would keep the United

States from occupying and governing Cuba.

Taft in Havana, Roosevelt at Oyster Bay

Leaving Roosevelt at Oyster Bay on September 14, William
Howard Taft and Robert Bacon headed for Havana bearing
the President's confidence, his faint hope for peace without
intervention, and the burden of his previous military com­
mitments.^19 Taft was painfully aware that the Peace Mission
was a frail hope. To Elihu Root he wrote that he found his
position "quite embarrassing" because he knew so little of
Cuba. He thought only that the Cuban government was "a
house of cards" and that the United States must act to salvage
the Cuban nation.^20 To Roosevelt, Taft expressed doubt about