The Politics of Intervention

138 THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTION

tributed to the island's pacification. The funds spent locally
by the Army came from two sources, individual pay and
goods and services purchased by the garrisons. In the twenty-
eight months of the occupation, paymasters counted out some
$4 million in pay to bored and thirsty soldiers, and it is fair
to guess that much of this money ended in Cuban hands.
Secondly, the Provisional Government paid for a host of
items out of the revenues of the Cuban Treasury: rent for
quarters and property, maintenance and repairs, water, sew­
age disposal, construction materials and labor, and sanitation
services. Total disbursements for these items was $850,000.
When local prices permitted, in addition, the Chief Commis­
sary authorized the purchase of ice, beef, forage, and perish­
able foods by individual posts. The Chief Quartermaster, too,
spent $4 million during the occupation, much of it in Ha­
vana.^46 In fact, James L. Rodgers, Steinhart's successor as
Consul-General, reported that American spending supported
the Cuban economy through a world recession in 1907 and
a glutted sugar market in 1908; Rodgers specifically men­
tioned the local impact of Army funds for spreading the pros­
perity throughout the population.^47 Though the expenditures
of the Army represented only a fraction of the sums spent by
the Provisional Government to bolster the Cuban economy,
they made, nonetheless, a substantial contribution to the
stability the Army was assigned to maintain.

The Army of Cuban Pacification's influence on American
policy in Cuba was based on its military responsibilities on
the island and the attitudes of its officers. Though it remained
responsive and obedient to civil direction, the Army, by coun­
seling caution and by stressing the political unrest its intelli­
gence officers reported, contributed to the progressive length­
ening of the occupation. The Army's sympathies and rational
preferences were to expand American control of Cuban affairs.
Though its political orientation by implication favored the
alien business class, the Army was not as committed to eco­
nomic imperialism as it was to benign paternalism. It was
most interested in improving education and public health, in