The Second Intervention 107him, but when it comes to organization and execution of
plans I think he is lacking."^83 In military circles, Funston's re
lief was laid to friction with some of his former Cuban com
rades, but the Army did not miss the point that pacification
still caused sticky problems with their civil superiors.^84
Even as Taft gloomily considered the problems of inter
vention and occupation, the Cubans themselves celebrated
the end of the revolt and the coming of la zafra. William
Inglis saw Guerra's insurgents return to Pinar del Rio, and
he was infected by the passion of the hand-waving, scream
ing crowd at the station. As the train pulled in, it was met with
thunderous vivas from the mob packed along the platform:
Mob: "Viva los Liberates!"
Rebels: "Viva Cuba!"
Mob: "Viva nos liberadores!"
Rebels "Viva la Constitution!'
Everybody: "Viva los Americanos. Viva la Paz! Viva Taft y Bacon!
Viva-a-a-a Mit'ter Roo-velt!"^85In Havana, the Liberals began to collect contributions to
erect a statue of Roosevelt, and Commander Colwell of the
"Denver" got a gold watch and a banquet in his honor from
the grateful revolutionary junta.^86 With Taffs announcement
of a general amnesty on October 10 and with the insurgent
army dispersed, the August Revolution, to the insurgents'
way of thinking, drew to a happy and successful close.^87
Uncomfortably settled in the palace, "as cheerful as Spring
Grove cemetery," Provisional Governor William Howard Taft,
in his scant moments of reflection, thought that the Cuban
intervention had been "wretched from the beginning." In let
ters to Elihu Root and his brother Charles, Taft reviewed
the events of September, and the dominant tone of his ac
count was futility.^88 The cause of the revolt, he believed,
was the coercion in the Porfirio Diaz style used to thwart the
popular will in the elections of 1905. "The theory is all right,
but the practice failed because there was no Diaz and there
was no force to suppress the revolution which followed."