The Revolt That Never Was 185as they have work and money to support their families they
will be peaceable, and the politicians will find it difficult to
stir them up. This is one reason why some politicians are
antagonistic to public works."(^67) Within the conspiracy, the
plotters and their financial backers failed to make the revolt
credible in their anxiety to create the illusion of a great anti-
American rising. Masso Parra may have worried Magoon, but
he did not really shake the Army's grip on the situation.
Ironically, the conspiracy's failure may have given impetus
to Cuba's Conservative party and the presidential candidacy
of Mario G. Menocal, sugarman, peacemaker, and respected
general of the Army of Liberation. Menocal was solidly backed
by the same people interested in annexation: dissident "Lib
erals, Conservatives, Spaniards, Americans, and all other com
mercial and producing classes of the island."^68 With the alter
native of annexation denied them, the conservatives turned
to party politics. The Provisional Government, by pinching
off the Masso Parra conspiracy in 1907, destroyed the last,
desperate attempt to join Cuba to the United States and
helped create the organized conservative opposition party
which American policy needed.
- Lockmiller, Magoon in Cuba, pp. 69-70; Portell Vila, Historia de
Cuba, IV, 527-28. - Taft to Charles P. Taft, October 9, 1907, Taft Papers.
- Magoon to Taft, November 29, 1906, Taft Papers.
- Magoon to Taft, January 20, 1907, Taft Papers.
- Jose de Armas to Taft, December 27, 1906, Taft Papers.
- Atkins to Taft, January 19, 1907, Taft Popers.
- E. V. Morgan to Root, October 22, 1906, Case 1943-1, Num.
File, 1906-1910, Vol. CCV, RG 59. - E. V. Morgan to Root, December 29, 1906, Case 1943-43, Num.
File, 1906-1910, Vol. CCV, RG 59. - Editorial, La Union Espanola, October 24, 1906.
- "Report of the Very Rev. Albion W. Knight, Episcopal Bishop of
Cuba," File 056-056-1, CC/PGoC, RG 199. - Capt. C. F. Crain to MID, December 13 and 14, 1906, File 017,
CC/PGoC; MID to C/S, ACP, December 21, 1906, File 032, CC/PGoC;
Maj. W. D. Beach to C/S, ACP, June 4, 1907, File 063/19, CC/PGoC;