52 THE POLITICS OF INTERVENTIONtaries. It is more likely that he believed his own re-election
was crucial to Cuba's existence and he was willing to condone
most, if not all, the measures necessary to insure his victory.
Unrest increased during the tiempo muerto of 1905 as the
fall elections approached. The Liberals charged that Estrada
Palma was using political violence to bring on American
intervention and annexation.^55 One of his accusers, the popular
Miguelista and secretary of the Constitutional Convention,
Enrique Villuendas, was killed in a gun battle with police in
Cienfuegos the day before the provincial-municipal elections.
The Liberals added assassination to their charges. The follow-
day, September 23, 1905, the Moderates swept the elections,
although the Liberals, through equally effective coercion, held
on to some posts in Santa Clara and Pinar del Rio. Violence
was used by both parties. After the election a Moderate
newspaper admitted that 432,000 names were on the regis
ters, although Cuba probably had no more than 300,000
eligible voters.^56 In the national elections which followed on
December 1, the Moderates and Estrada Palma won their
soiled mandate as the Liberals boycotted the polls.
That the Liberals shortly began to plan a revolt seems
certain, but the coming of la zafra deprived them of many
potential rebels. There was, nonetheless, scattered violence.
The most inauspicious incident was the attack on the Rural
Guard post at Guanabacoa near Havana on February 24,
- There a group of some thirty insurgents killed two
Guards, wounded others, and captured guns and horses. On
the diplomatic front, Jose Miguel Gomez went to New York
in October to lecture the newspapers there on Moderate
injustice. In one interview he blandly suggested that it was the
United States duty to right the election wrongs in the name
of constitutionalism and democracy.^57 By the time of Estrada
Palma's second inauguration (May 20, 1906), the Liberals
had despaired of any peaceful settlement, and a revolt in 1906
was only a matter of timing and organization.
As the tiempo muerto of 1906 again brought Cuba to an
economic standstill, the rumors of revolt grew along with the