The Politics of Intervention

110 THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTION

because they feared the loss of the foreign property held
hostage by the rebels. Varona could see no other reason why
the United States government had abandoned the rule of law,
which was one of its guiding principles. He believed that the
influence of foreign capital was the "major social force" in
Cuba, that with its vast resources foreign capital had moved
in its own self-defense to end the war and halt the politics
of violence and destruction:

Thus far it has limited itself to crushing the Government of Sr.
Estrada; and it will substitute another when it becomes advantageous.
Without bias it will take tomorrow the necessary steps as they appear
to it in order to avoid the disagreeable need of repeating the operation.
Thus our first revolt will be liquidated. Those who worry about the
future of the Cubans in their own country will help in liquidation with
sadness, shame and fear.^97

Among Cuban historians the machinations of pro-annexation
property owners and the deleterious effect of the Platt Amend­
ment on Cuban domestic politics have vied as the major
causes of the intervention. Few have denied the event's impor­
tance. Martinez Ortiz believed the August Revolution was a
greater disruption of the nation's life and a greater source of
disillusionment and insecurity than the war for independence;
he thought that if the war had continued the nation would
have dissolved in social revolution. Roig de Leuchsenring cast
the Platt Amendment as the chief villain because it encour­
aged the politicos to plead and threaten to gain American
support and then evade their responsibilities when the United
States became involved. Portell Vila stated that the instability
of Cuban post-colonial society made revolt inevitable, for
which intervention was a poor solution and annexation a
constant threat. The Platt Amendment gave the American
and Spanish property owners all the promise they needed to
agitate for intervention.^98

There is little doubt that Roosevelt and Taft believed that
nothing could be worse for any society than to be sundered
by rebellion and to have law and order collapse. As far as
Cuba was concerned, Roosevelt and Taft were friendly with