Restoration and Withdrawal 265The United States government was more concerned with
concluding the historical act of military occupation rather
than changing the conditions which brought it about.
For both countries, the withdrawal marked a restoration
of Cuban self-government at the expense of Cuba's political
development.
The impact of the Second Intervention on American policy
in the Caribbean has been underestimated. The occupation of
Cuba coincided with the development of fiscal supervision in
the Dominican Republic, and it was the tool of fiscal super
vision perfected in the latter country which seemed best suited
and was subsequently most applied to influence the lives of
the Caribbean republics. In a sense, the Roosevelt adminis
tration had two experiments underway at the same time,
and it bequeathed the results of both to Taft and Woodrow
Wilson. Recognizing the unique circumstances of each of the
United States Caribbean interventions, the Cuban model, mili
tary occupation and direct governmental control sanctioned
by treaty, was not willingly used again elsewhere. The
Dominican model, financial supervision and indirect control,
seemed a handier way to bring stability while reducing the
political risks.
There were some obvious factors in the increasing reluctance
to use military occupations elsewhere: no other Caribbean
island was as strategically and economically important to the
United States as Cuba, nor did any other hold the same his
toric and emotional relationship. Armed intervention and out
right military occupation in Cuba might be rationally and
emotionally acceptable to the Americans, but these measures
might not be so easily justifiable in another republic.
In the broadest sense, the Second Intervention reminded
American policy-makers that outright control and military
occupation, as in Cuba, brought the United States govern
ment face to face with the problem of political and social
change in the former Spanish colonies. The United States
government was unwilling to assume the responsibility for
making any institutional changes which it would have to