The Politics of Intervention

The Politics of Occupation 145

intentions seemed clear enough: the Provisional Government

would only "... administer the island for a few months"

until there was enough peace to hold an election and form

a new Cuban government. His sermon to the Cubans, the

veiled threat to act "right" or else, left the weaknesses in

Cuba's political system still unfaced:

The United States wishes nothing of Cuba except that it shall prosper

morally and materially, and wishes nothing of the Cubans save that they

shall be able to preserve order among themselves and therefore to pre­

serve their independence. If the elections become a farce, and if the

insurrectionary habit becomes confirmed in the Island, it is absolutely

out of the question that the Island should continue independent; and

the United States, which has assumed sponsorship before the civilized

world for Cuba's career as a nation, would again have to intervene and

to see that the government was managed in such orderly fashion as to

secure the safety of life and property.

The path to be trodden by those who exercise self-government is

always hard, and we should have every charity and patience with the

Cubans as they tread this difficult path. I have the utmost sympathy

with, and regard for, them; but I most earnestly adjure them solemnly

to weigh their responsibilities and to see that when their new govern­

ment is started it shall run smoothly and with freedom from flagrant

denial of right on the one hand, and from insurrectionary disturbances

on the other.^2

Privately, Roosevelt weighed the ramification of the new
intervention, his promise to sponsor a new Cuban govern­
ment, and whether such a course held any real hope for
Cuban stability. He remained concerned about the possible
reaction of American voters to any other policy but the an­
nounced one, and he believed that his administration had
barely escaped major criticism for the intervention itself. His
attentions in the fall of 1906, too, were on more important
subjects: the Congressional elections, the gubernatorial race
in New York, his forthcoming trip to Panama, The Hague
Conference, the Algeciras negotiations, and tensions with
Japan. In the moments when he considered the Cuban prob­
lem, he found that he still had lingering doubts about Cuban
independence. He concluded that one more revolt in Cuba
would force a more permanent occupation.^3 Roosevelt, how­