The Reconstruction of the Cuban Armed Forces 239administration (including Magoon) chose to override the
advice of American officers serving with the Provisional Gov
ernment because it believed that their position was too rooted
in institutional interest and favored a minority of the Cuban
people. Certainly the administration did not acquiesce in the
formation of the Permanent Army because it believed it
would protect only the economic and social position of the
alien commercial class. Instead, it approved the Permanent
Army as a politically acceptable solution to what it believed
were the basic military requirements for the withdrawal of
American troops. In its deliberations its concern was to please
its constituents, the Cuban politicians. To have ignored them,
to have decided on a strengthened Rural Guard alone, would
have denied the American way in foreign affairs: that matters
being negotiated, regardless of the social and economic en
vironment, may be settled by a peaceful adjustment of power
between the negotiators.
In Cuba the Roosevelt administration clearly followed the
path of least resistance to please those whom it thought spoke
for Cuba. The Cuban armed forces controversy ended with a
compromise which was in substance no compromise at all for
the United States. On the basic issue—the creation of a
separate regular army—the Liberals were the outright victors.
However spurious their arguments, however bogus their
pretensions as spokesmen for the Cuban people, however
harmful their army in terms of Cuba's future welfare, the
Liberals were the only popular politicians the United
States could find. In its futile effort to foster a stable
party system, the United States served as midwife for an
other institution with which Cuba's politicians could exploit
their nation's weaknesses.
- Johnson, Cuba, IV, 144-45; Hagedorn, Leonard Wood, I, 214.
- Order No. 114, Military Government of Cuba, July 5, 1901, Civil
Report, 1901, II, 172-91. - Capt. Matthew E. Hanna, USA, "The Necessity of Increasing the
Efficiency of the Cuban Army," Journal of the Military Service Institu
tion, XXXV (July, 1904), 28-36.