The Politics of Intervention

(^252) THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTION
measures necessary to develop them. Then Roosevelt put the
Cuban occupation in its broad historical and political context:
We have passed the time when a nation with even an imperfectly
developed conscience is content simply to exploit for its own benefit a
country that it has conquered; and the effort to govern such a country
in its own interest without falling into mawkish sentimentality implies
some mighty difficult steering.^26
Close to the end of his administration, when his thoughts were
far from Kettle Hill and his Corollary, Roosevelt, in a con­
versation with his military aide and Cuban veteran Captain
Archibald Butt, gave his (and his nation's) eulogy to the
Second Intervention. "I do not think about Cuba now," he
said. "It is not our fault if things go badly there.... "^27
Cuba was still very much on the mind of Leonard Wood's
friends in the Provisional Government as the end of the
occupation neared. After Roosevelt ordered elections, Stein-
hart wrote the General that everyone was working with
restoration in mind; he, for example, was putting Wood's
friends in the government where possible. Steinhart was
unhappy with Roosevelt's policy, but reconciled that with­
drawal would come.
28
Lieutenant Colonel Bullard was con­
vinced that peaceful elections under American aegis were a
poor way to test Cuba's capacity for self-government: "The
question here is one of men and slow change which can come
only in time and so we may not expect to see any appreciable
results from an election."^29
The politicos triumph in the national elections further
discouraged Wood's partisans. As Steinhart wrote McCoy:
"Within a few weeks the second intervention will be a thing
of the past and the Lord only knows what the future may
have in store for this misfortunate island, in which I am
informed bullfights, cock fights and lotteries are the new
elements of contentment to be introduced."^30 Major Slocum
hoped the new government would last, but, despite the
accomplishments of the Provisional Government, feared it
would not.^31 Captain John W. Wright of the Military Infor­
mation Division wrote Wood that the "better classes" of