The Politics of Intervention

212 THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTION

believed Magoon was trying to make the politicos dependent
on him and responsible for their nominees.^78
Magoon kept the Department of Sanitation in politics,
much to Kean's disgust. In one instance, Kean found that
Magoon and Steinhart had changed all the public health
officers of importance in Cienfuegos without consulting him,
whereupon he suggested to the Governor that the jefe local
be changed too if the Governor wanted anything accom­
plished.^79 In February, 1908, Kean told Magoon that unless
he approved the National Sanitary Board's nominees quickly
the Provisional Government would have a yellow fever epi­
demic on its hands.^80 He made the appointments and got
quarantined too.
The genesis of the Department of Sanitation illustrates how
closely related the Provisional Government's administrative
acts were to its policy of restructuring Cuban politics along
party lines, and how it instead reinforced colonial patterns.
The creation of the department actually forced the politicos
to compete for posts at the national level rather than at the
local level. Clearly, Major Kean's motives for nationalizing
the public health service were professional from both a mili­
tary and medical standpoint. He hoped that the standards
of performance he and his fellow officers and physicians
demanded during the occupation would continue, and that
Cuba would be able to do more for its people than keep
itself clean of yellow fever for the United States benefit. He
underestimated the political imperatives facing Magoon and
the opportunities the new Department created for the Gov­
ernor's patronage policy. Both men wanted a Department of
Sanitation to check yellow fever; beyond that their goals
split. At the time the occupation ended, the Department was
far from being the non-partisan, public-service agency Kean
first envisioned.

During the course of the intervention, the Army officers in
the Provisional Government carried on two separate argu­
ments with their civil superiors. The first concerned the
wisdom of trying to establish a stable government for an