CHAPTER SIXTHE ANNEXATIONISTS AND MASSO PARRA:
THE REVOLT THAT NEVER WAS
D
the confused and dangerous days of
'September, 1906, there had been a brief
annexationist boom in the United States and Cuba. American
sugar planters and financiers, Spanish businessmen in Cuba,
the New York press, and some European journals agreed
that the Cubans had had their independence and forfeited
it.^1 While Roosevelt and Root discouraged the agitators in
the United States with public statements condemning annexa
tion, the alien and conservative business groups in Cuba
clung to the faint hope that American protection would not
be withdrawn.
Taft found during his brief tour as Provisional Governor
that the businessmen of Havana, nearly all annexationists,
were as troublesome as the politicos. Though the Spanish
seemed incapable of organizing opposition to the United
States goals, the American adventurers in Cuba posed a real
threat to peace. Writing his brother Charles, Taft described
the American agitators as "the yellow dog type, not business
men, who are also strongly in favor of annexation and who are
equal to stirring up trouble just for the purpose of bringing
about annexation."^2
Charles Magoon quickly learned upon taking over the
governorship that the "business interests," favoring annexation
or an American protectorate, were unconvinced that there
was peace in Cuba. In order to prolong the United States
occupation, these men (many of them ex-Moderates or non
party types) were perfectly capable of secretly financing a
revolt by Cuban dissidents. American citizens were a vocal