The Politics of Intervention

150 THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTION

istration policy, Roosevelt sacrificed the potential effective­
ness of an American Governor-General surrogate. Much Cuban
resentment and frustration over the occupation was bound to
focus on the person of the governor. The chief casualty was
Magoon's character, but the morale and influence of the Pro­
visional Government must also have diminished with the
Governor's reputation. Many of Magoon's problems in his
relations with the Cubans would have been lessened if he
had worn a uniform and acted as the Cubans thought a ruler
should.
From the day of his assumption of office, Magoon left no
doubt about how he had been ordered to handle the "Cuban
problem." The Provisional Government had to protect "life,
property, and individual liberty" (which had been accom­
plished), and then "restore the ordinary agencies and methods
of government" under the existing laws and general provisions
of the Cuban Constitution.
16
In terms of day-to-day adminis­
tration, Magoon approached his task as an exercise in partisan
politics. He agreed that it was "necessary to have good laws,"
but the heart of his task was to promote party cohesion in
Cuba, and patronage was his chief instrument.^17
Roosevelt and Taft saw the problem in the same way; they
had started the Provisional Government on this path before
Magoon arrived in Havana. Taft had already promised the
Liberals that he would see that vacancies in the bureaucracy
would go to qualified Liberals in order to balance out the
Moderate domination in the executive departments.^18 To
further pacify the insurgents, Magoon restored Liberal admin­
istration in twenty-two of the thirty-two municipalities where
the Liberals claimed the Moderates had arbitrarily removed
their partisans in 1905 and 1906. To aid in the selection of
Liberal officeholders, Magoon worked with the Liberal Com­
mittee, composed of the leading members of the Revolution­
ary Committee and "heroes" of the August Revolution. The
Committee (known to the Liberals as the Committee for
Appointments) was formed to make the Liberals speak with
one voice on patronage problems. Its original members were
Pino Guerra, Eduardo Guzman, Ernesto Asbert, Alfredo