The Politics of Intervention

202 THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTION

works, essential both to internal peace and Cuba's develop­
ment, would have to be financed by long-term loans to the
Cuban government. Magoon believed that although the gov­
ernment's bonded indebtedness was then $50.6 million, another
loan of $20-$25 million was mandatory.^35
Early in the occupation, Magoon, at the urging of the
Cuban Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Navigation,
investigated the possibility of another, more liberal, reciprocity
treaty with the United States. Havana businessman Louis V.
Place urged Magoon to consider a draft treaty that the
Moderates had ignored. A new treaty would benefit Cuba,
to be sure, but:

The Cuban question, I repeat, is an economical question, and needs
to be settled economically.
Cuba's economical problems once settled can make Cuba sufficiently
rich to support any political problems, for her political leaders do love
Cuba for the fat there is in it.^36

Magoon forwarded Place's letter, and other opinions to
Elihu Root and asked for the State Department's view of such
a treaty. Root's reply was brusque: plans for a new reciprocity
treaty were "rejected, abandoned."^37 Some merchants and
planters turned to lobbying in Washington and agitating for
annexation in Cuba, but reciprocity remained a dead issue.^38
With a good deal of justice, Diario de la Marino said that
Cubans and Americans were not ready for mutual under­
standing. The Cubans had wanted American assistance, but

... it was not supposed that the Americans, besides shedding their

blood and spending their money for the so-called Cuban cause, would

change also their principle of protectionist tariffs and ruin great agri­

cultural and industrial interests of their own, merely to make happy a

people of such different race and mentality.^39

Although the Provisional Government was sympathetic to

Cuban agricultural development and diversification, it did

little to alter the conditions under which Cubans farmed.^40

The Provisional Government's major effort was in building

roads, but its motives were not entirely to stimulate produc­