184 THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTIONWhile the other nations of the earth have fought tooth and nail to
add to their domains, in all lands and in all ages territory being con
sidered a most desirable possession, we Americans lie awake night pain
fully planning how to rid ourselves of the additions to our greatness,
resulting from our prowess or from Providential causes.
Is it not time for us to abandon this childish shrinking from mixing
in the world with other grown up nations?
What would Travis and Crockett and Houston, the men who wrung
the huge State of Texas from the Mexicans, and added it to the Union,
think of the timid, not to say cowardly, conduct of their descendants
who pulled down the flag of the United States in Honolulu and in
Cuba, and would pull it down in the Philippines.^64
In the balance, the Masso Parra conspiracy appears to have
been exactly what the Provisional Government first suspected
it was: an alien-conservative attempt to provoke annexation
by encouraging Liberal dissidents and the Negro associ
ations to revolt. The Military Information Division, whatever
Magoon's disclaimers, remained convinced that Masso Parra
was financed by Spaniards who desired some sort of perma
nent intervention, if not American, then British, French, or
German. The Spanish wanted a strong government which
would provide absolute security for their property interests,
"not one like the United States, which plays to the common
people and makes their [the businessmen's] interests secondary
to politics in the United States."
(^65) Masso Parra, aware of
the conservatives' wishes, "considered a movement that ap
peared to be war against the Americans, a means to the
ends desired."^66
The plan failed for several reasons. First, the Miguelistas
and Zayistas believed they could turn their support of Magoon
into more government patronage and halt a challenge to their
political hegemony at the same time. Both factions feared
that a revolt would endanger the plans to restore the Cuban
government, although such a realization was made only
after each faction decided it could not pin the onus of the
conspiracy on the other. In addition, the Provisional Govern
ment, through its public works projects and the Army's prac
tice marches, made clear to the Cuban people that rebellion
was unnecessary to get work and unhealthy at best: "As long