The Politics of Intervention

210 THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTION

the prognosis for each yellow fever case. For the period of
the epidemic the reports listed sixty-two new cases of yellow
fever among Spanish immigrants and American soldiers. The
September reports put the yellow fever problem in perspec­
tive: in that month there were 15 active fever cases, 26
typhoid cases, and 2094 active cases of tuberculosis.^68
In 1908, another small yellow fever epidemic aroused the
State Department. Writing Magoon, Elihu Root stressed
that Cuba must live up to its public health pledge in the
Platt Amendment:

If there had been no intervention I should be hammering away

vigorously at the Government of Cuba to require them to go on with

the plan for the sanitation of Havana... perhaps we ought to declare

war on you. You are a large mark and would be easier to hit than the

average Cuban.^69

Despite the Department of Sanitation's successful eradication
of the fever, the State Department quarantined Cuba (with
the exception of Havana and Marianao) in April, 1908. Major
Kean called the quarantine "unreasonable," "unnecessary," and
a violation of the Sanitary Convention signed by the United
States and Cuba in 1905. At the time of the quarantine there
were active cases in only two Cuban towns and no new cases
in seven weeks, Kean stated.^70 Later in the summer, the
quarantine was lifted.
The yellow fever outbreaks, the United States government's
concern about them, and the generally bad condition of public
health administration in Cuba convinced Kean early in the
occupation that the sanitary service should be completely
nationalized.
71
Under the existing conditions, Kean observed,
the municipalities had too few funds and the councilors did
not enforce the sanitary laws because of family and political
loyalties. Official indifference was wedded to public resistance.
Kean's first step to enforce the codes was to have Magoon
place Army medical officers on the municipal boards of health;
Kean told the Governor that American supervision was essen­
tial to yellow fever control.^72 By the summer of 1907, Kean had
persuaded the Governor that if he wanted an effective Cuban