The Politics of Intervention

The Pacification of Cuba 137

at half-price, courtesy of the Cuban railways. Summer recrea­

tion at Camp Columbia, announced General Barry, included

polo, boating, and bathing.^42 And then there was the great

Cuban Olympiad of June 29-July 4, 1908. Involving 1,300

participants and designed to impress the Cuban spectators,

the Army held games "to develop the resourceful brain, the

accurate eye, and the spirit of courage." The athletic and

military competitions, in General Barry's perishable prose,

were a great success:

On the green-clad parade, rising high above the blue waters of the

gulf and swept by breezes, with all the colors of the different arms of

the service blowing from the brawny breasts of the soldier-athletes, the

scenes and events of this first Olympiad of Cuba formed a brilliant

background for its distinguishing spirit of achievement and good will.^43

The Cubans' reactions were not reported.
In the provinces, occupation duty was hot, monotonous
and hard.^44 In addition to the practice marches, the soldiers
had to bear the normal garrison instruction, inspections,
equipment upkeep, and police of buildings. Finding pure
water was a continuing problem. The rations were dull, as
usual, and not so good, the Marines griped, as the chow fur­
nished by the Navy. Social contacts in the occupied com­
munity were generally limited to other Americans, hucksters,
and the skin-traders. An inspecting officer left this description
of Ciego de Avila, the worst of the battalion posts:

The town ... is the most unattractive station for troops that I have

yet seen. The streets are dirty and unpaved, and in the whole town there

are but three buildings with a second story to them, and they are

small. The hotel is vile and dirty.... There are no means of enter­

tainment or diversion. The result of this condition is evidenced among

the men by the fact that at my inspection, there were fourteen prisoners

in the guardhouse, many of them on account of over-indulgence in

liquor.^45

However routine the occupation became for the American

troops, their presence contributed to the economic welfare

of the communities which housed them and incidentally con­