The Politics of Occupation 149were Beckman Winthrop, governor of Puerto Rico, and
Charles E. Magoon, former governor of the Canal Zone and
minister to Panama. Taft wanted to send Magoon to the
Philippines, but Root convinced the President that Magoon
was the man for Havana. Magoon, a Nebraska lawyer who
had earned Root's admiration for his researches on the His
panic codes, had been Law Officer of the Bureau of Insular
Affairs. His Panama service had proved him to be good at
pacifying the Corps of Engineers and Latin Americans. Root
described him to Taft as "large and serene, like some others
of my acquaintance, of sound judgement, good temper, never
fears responsibility and perfectly adapted to control excitable
elements which have to be dealt with."^14
Tactful to the point of pliancy, honest, congenial, unimagi
native, Charles E. Magoon had been an able administrator
in Panama though he spoke little Spanish and had not the
slightest touch of brilliance. His forte was paperwork, com
promise, and untangling the cobwebs of the law. A bachelor
of forty-five, physically cut from the same portly pattern as
Taft, Magoon looked exactly what he was: a prosperous, hard
working country lawyer. He enjoyed a good table, and his
favorite exercise was riding in an automobile. He was a "solid
type." The virtues which made him Roosevelt's man in
Havana, however, proved to be weaknesses when seen in
Cuban eyes. That Magoon was not a military man (was not,
in fact, Leonard Wood), that he was unflamboyant, unin
spiring, and conciliatory, damaged his effectiveness in Cuba.
Most of the criticism leveled at him by Cubans stems from
the policy he was executing, and he has borne the historical
burden. According to Cuban tradition, he invented botellas
(soft jobs) and graft, took bribes, favored American busi
nessmen, and was "a lazy, miserly, good-for-nothing slob."^15
To govern Cuba, where personal appearances were every
thing, Roosevelt selected a man who was a hopelessly con
ventional American civilian, and a bureaucrat at that. Magoon
was all the things Leonard Wood was not. As governor of
a land populated with military heroes, Magoon was incon
gruously pacific. By selecting a passive executor of admin