The Politics of Intervention

The Politics of Occupation 157

Whatever their disenchantment with Roosevelt's policy to
create a viable party system, the officers in the Provisional
Government did not attempt to appeal their case to political
pressure groups in the United States or ally themselves with
the alien-conservatives in Cuba. None of them had the force
or political stature of Wood or Wilson; the restraints upon
them in terms of their professional self-image and their
careers were real and assertive. That they questioned the
essential wisdom of occupation policy is certain. That they
obstructed it is less so. Yet the longer the occupation lasted,
the more complex the political problems became and the
more intense the pressure upon Magoon, largely from his
officers and the business elite, to increase American control
for the purpose of making lasting changes in the island's
institutions. The officers' influence upon Magoon depended
largely upon how accurate he believed their assessment of
conditions in Cuba to be, and he relied on them heavily. In
retrospect the officers' contempt for politics Cuban-style was
justified in terms of the political events they witnessed, for the
act of intervention itself made it more difficult than ever to
identify party alignments in Cuba.

The Political Residue of the Intervention, 1906-1907

As the work of disarming the insurgents and militia
progressed, as the Claims Commission began to pay for
damages, and as la zafra put the people to work, Magoon
tackled the reconstruction of the Cuban political system.
He found the Liberals ascendant and the Moderates mori­
bund. Each group presented different problems, similar only
in their complexity, and complex because neither of these
loose personal alliances was a political party.
The Liberal party in the first six months of the occupation
fell completely apart. In September and October, 1906, the
Liberal leaders were given a facade of solidarity when the
Revolutionary Committee, which had bargained with Taft,
was institutionalized as the Liberal Committee. This com­