The Politics of Intervention

26 THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTION

It depended on American sympathy to regain even a part of
its limited financial wealth. Freemasonry and rationalism were
in vogue.^11 The Church's philanthropic services lagged, and
the people, particularly the Spanish, turned to their private
clubs for succor. Other forms of association further divided
the people, for whether university, secondary school, club,
labor union, or intellectual circle, all were characteristically
exclusive. The nation's press was generally irresponsible and
biased by class, political, or national affiliation to the point
of becoming a destructive rather than constructive force
in politics.
One Spanish legacy, the tax system, was particularly burden­
some, for import duties had been the colonial government's
chief source of revenue. Heavy duties were levied on clothes,
food, and other necessities of daily life. Land taxes, too,
on developed property discouraged native investment. One
observer estimated that in 1905 the per capita tax burden in
Cuba was $12, in the United States, $3.55.
12
Throughout the colonial period, the government of Cuba
was intimately involved with the island's economy through
land grants, subventions, taxation, and trade restrictions. For
the individual Spaniard a colonial office provided a financial
sinecure. To the Cubans, the government, which they did not
share, was an economic institution for individual gain. View­
ing the world's wealth in fixed terms rather than as a growing
expression of human productivity, they equated holding office
with individual economic activity. Political power was an
accepted way of gaining wealth and status. Although the
psychological need for public recognition made office-holding
attractive, the economic motive was foremost in the drive for
position. The concept of public service or public interest was
alien. Appointment to office was preferable to election because
in the first instance the officeholder had only to be loyal to
the patron, whereas in the second he was at the mercy of
an electorate which could strip him of his livelihood. Con­
versely, each citizen, after independence and the adoption of
virtually free suffrage, received one valuable vote to sell.