Guantánamo (23 page)
Authors: Jonathan M. Hansen
Far from renouncing its right to proceed as originally authorized by Wood's orders of July and especially November 1900, the committee proceeded with, if anything, more resolve. What had begun as an
opinion
would become an argument as the Cubans turned Root's language back on him. Root's order had referred to what the Cuban delegates
ought to desire
to be incorporated into the Cuban constitution. But who knew Cuban desires better than the Cubans themselves? “We are the delegates of the people of Cuba,” the committee wrote, as if talking to a child. “On this account our primordial duty consists in interpreting
the will and heeding the interests of our country.” Had not Root himself acknowledged that only the U.S. Congress possessed the power to state definitively the American perspective on relations? Thus, weren't Root's terms simply the “opinion of the executive department”? In light of this qualification, the committee reiterated its authority “to accept or not accept” Root's stipulationsâ“to choose from among them what seems proper to us, and to add to, amend, or substitute them, in conformity with the dictates of our conscience.” It also confirmed the delegates' belief that no further statement on U.S.-Cuban relations was necessary. “The interests of both countries are preserved, as far as human foresight will reach, with the precepts of the constitution we have just adopted for the Republic of Cuba.”
58
opinion
would become an argument as the Cubans turned Root's language back on him. Root's order had referred to what the Cuban delegates
ought to desire
to be incorporated into the Cuban constitution. But who knew Cuban desires better than the Cubans themselves? “We are the delegates of the people of Cuba,” the committee wrote, as if talking to a child. “On this account our primordial duty consists in interpreting
the will and heeding the interests of our country.” Had not Root himself acknowledged that only the U.S. Congress possessed the power to state definitively the American perspective on relations? Thus, weren't Root's terms simply the “opinion of the executive department”? In light of this qualification, the committee reiterated its authority “to accept or not accept” Root's stipulationsâ“to choose from among them what seems proper to us, and to add to, amend, or substitute them, in conformity with the dictates of our conscience.” It also confirmed the delegates' belief that no further statement on U.S.-Cuban relations was necessary. “The interests of both countries are preserved, as far as human foresight will reach, with the precepts of the constitution we have just adopted for the Republic of Cuba.”
58
The delegates had always imagined it their duty to make Cuba independent of all nations, “the great and noble American nation included.” Were Cuba to accede to the demand that it acquire U.S. consent for its international policies; were it to accede to the United States the right to intervene at will in Cuba's internal affairs; were it to grant the United States the right to acquire naval bases, Cuba might “seem independent of the rest of the world” while being in fact dependent on the United States. And truly, what were the Americans so concerned about? As realized in the new constitution and in policies newly announced, Cuba was politically and economically on a firm footing. Liberal constitutional protections ensured the sanctity of life and property evenânay, especiallyâfor foreign individuals.
So plain were these facts that the commission was tempted to respond to Washington's recent overtures with the simple statement that the end of Cuban independence had been attained. Out of respect for Washington and in a spirit of generosity toward the Americans, the committee urged their fellow delegates to adopt the following five declarations into the new Cuban constitution: First, Cuba would not compromise its independence or national integrity by means of treaty, convention, or territorial cession. Second, Cuba would not allow other nations to use its territory as a base of attack against the United States. Third, Cuba would abide by the terms of the Treaty of Paris regarding the protection of life and property. Fourth, Cuba would approve the acts of the U.S. military government. Fifth, Cuba would negotiate a mutually beneficial trade agreement with the United States. With
these provisions, Cuban delegates aimed to assure the McKinley administration that they were prepared to maintain Cuba's independence at all costs, and to live “in peace with all the world, orderly and pacifically governing ourselves, and being to the United States a brotherly, deferent, and thankful people.”
59
these provisions, Cuban delegates aimed to assure the McKinley administration that they were prepared to maintain Cuba's independence at all costs, and to live “in peace with all the world, orderly and pacifically governing ourselves, and being to the United States a brotherly, deferent, and thankful people.”
59
But there was one demand they rejected: naval bases. Before Wood took the Cuban leaders on his hunting trip, most Cubans had apparently been prepared to
lease
the Americans a coaling station or two. Root's suggestion, forwarded to the Cubans by Wood, that the United States should “acquire and hold the title to land for naval stations” had so alarmed the Cuban Committee on Relations that they omitted mention of the naval bases altogether.
60
But it wasn't just bases the United States would insist on. Root had intended the Cubans to adopt his suggestions whole hog, and when they declined to do so, he sent Wood the slightly enlarged list of demands that would become the Platt Amendment. The Platt Amendment essentially reiterated Root's previous five demands, simply moving the fifth clause about naval stations to number seven, while inserting as clauses five and six statements about sanitation and the future of the Isle of Pines (an island traditionally considered to be part of Cuba whose fate would be decided later). Also added was an eighth clause obliging Cuba to embody the foregoing seven clauses into a permanent treaty with the United States.
lease
the Americans a coaling station or two. Root's suggestion, forwarded to the Cubans by Wood, that the United States should “acquire and hold the title to land for naval stations” had so alarmed the Cuban Committee on Relations that they omitted mention of the naval bases altogether.
60
But it wasn't just bases the United States would insist on. Root had intended the Cubans to adopt his suggestions whole hog, and when they declined to do so, he sent Wood the slightly enlarged list of demands that would become the Platt Amendment. The Platt Amendment essentially reiterated Root's previous five demands, simply moving the fifth clause about naval stations to number seven, while inserting as clauses five and six statements about sanitation and the future of the Isle of Pines (an island traditionally considered to be part of Cuba whose fate would be decided later). Also added was an eighth clause obliging Cuba to embody the foregoing seven clauses into a permanent treaty with the United States.
The Cubans first received word of the new terms on February 27, the day the Cuban Committee on Relations proclaimed its own
desires
about U.S.-Cuban relations and before the Platt Amendment had become law. It didn't take a U.S. Senate vote approving the Platt Amendment on March 1 to plunge Cuba into a political uproar somehow unanticipated in the United States. Predictably, Wood assured Root that both the Cuban Constitutional Assembly and the population at large had no real objections to Platt Amendment demands. “The general feeling in the country is excellent,” Wood wrote Root on March 4, just three days after the Platt Amendment became U.S. law, “and the proposed relations have inspired confidence in the responsible and conservative element of all parties.” At bottom, the Cubans were “willing to do what we want them to do.”
61
desires
about U.S.-Cuban relations and before the Platt Amendment had become law. It didn't take a U.S. Senate vote approving the Platt Amendment on March 1 to plunge Cuba into a political uproar somehow unanticipated in the United States. Predictably, Wood assured Root that both the Cuban Constitutional Assembly and the population at large had no real objections to Platt Amendment demands. “The general feeling in the country is excellent,” Wood wrote Root on March 4, just three days after the Platt Amendment became U.S. law, “and the proposed relations have inspired confidence in the responsible and conservative element of all parties.” At bottom, the Cubans were “willing to do what we want them to do.”
61
When Cubans objected to the proposal, Wood could come up with
no more compelling explanation than that their leaders were emotional, cowardly, hysterical, irresponsible, unprincipled, ignorant, ungrateful, and, above all, of modest financial means; the list went on.
62
Wood was hardly alone in denigrating Cubans critical of U.S. policy, as if riches were a prerequisite of self-government, submissiveness its cardinal virtue, and dissent unpatriotic. Wood's and Root's misreading of Cuban sentiment caught many Americans by surprise. In Congress, not a few of Platt's initial supporters insisted that they would never have voted for the amendment had they known that the majority of Cubans were opposed to ceding independence to the United States.
63
no more compelling explanation than that their leaders were emotional, cowardly, hysterical, irresponsible, unprincipled, ignorant, ungrateful, and, above all, of modest financial means; the list went on.
62
Wood was hardly alone in denigrating Cubans critical of U.S. policy, as if riches were a prerequisite of self-government, submissiveness its cardinal virtue, and dissent unpatriotic. Wood's and Root's misreading of Cuban sentiment caught many Americans by surprise. In Congress, not a few of Platt's initial supporters insisted that they would never have voted for the amendment had they known that the majority of Cubans were opposed to ceding independence to the United States.
63
Â
In Havana, Cubans greeted news that Platt had become U.S. law with protests outside the Martà Theater, home to the Cuban Constitutional Convention. The anti-American protest combined with a strike by stevedores and harbor lighters to lend the capital city a decidedly incendiary air. Inside the Martà Theater, delegates debated how to respond to the latest American aggression. Radicals wanted to throw Platt back in the Americans' lap and shut down the convention. Moderates proposed suspending the convention for a couple of weeks so delegates could return to their districts to consult the people. In the end, conservatives prevailed on a majority to stay in session, while referring the convention's response to the Committee on Relations.
In the time that elapsed between Senate passage of the Platt Amendment on March 1 and the committee's response, which came out on March 26, U.S. periodicals and audiences weighed in on Platt's relative merits. Predictably, discussion focused on clauses three and seven, the first of which authorized the United States to intervene at will in Cuban affairs, the second of which provided naval bases, and which together, everybody agreed, restricted Cuba's sovereignty.
To critics such as
The State
, a Democratic newspaper out of Columbia, South Carolina, Platt was a “dastardly act” obviously designed to “coerce the Cubans into relinquishing the essentials of sovereignty and independence which this government solemnly pledged to them three years ago.” As if still smarting from the Union occupation of the South after the American Civil War, the formerly pro-annexationist
State
castigated the McKinley administration's deployment of military force to overawe a democratic and constitutional process. The delegates to the Cuban Constitutional Convention, the paper argued, lacked authority to curtail Cuba's sovereignty or part with any of its land. Precisely for this reason the Committee on Relations had been silent on the subject of naval bases in its original report. Any “intelligent reader” would concede, as the Cubans put it, that U.S. bases in Cuba “militate against the independence which both parties desire to preserve.” Rhetorical skill and logic, never mind right, lay entirely on the side of Cuba.
The State
, a Democratic newspaper out of Columbia, South Carolina, Platt was a “dastardly act” obviously designed to “coerce the Cubans into relinquishing the essentials of sovereignty and independence which this government solemnly pledged to them three years ago.” As if still smarting from the Union occupation of the South after the American Civil War, the formerly pro-annexationist
State
castigated the McKinley administration's deployment of military force to overawe a democratic and constitutional process. The delegates to the Cuban Constitutional Convention, the paper argued, lacked authority to curtail Cuba's sovereignty or part with any of its land. Precisely for this reason the Committee on Relations had been silent on the subject of naval bases in its original report. Any “intelligent reader” would concede, as the Cubans put it, that U.S. bases in Cuba “militate against the independence which both parties desire to preserve.” Rhetorical skill and logic, never mind right, lay entirely on the side of Cuba.
Platt's critics were not altruistic. Indeed, it was America that
The State
was actually worried about. In breaking its promise to Cubaâ“in putting a pistol to the head of its protégé and demanding compensation for a volunteered kindness”âthe United States disgraced itself in the eyes of the world “for generations to come.” The paper lamented, “The loss and the humiliation are ours. The penalty will be oursâthe penalty of national faithlessness which hereafter may well cause every people in the world to withhold all trust from âlying America.'”
64
The State
was actually worried about. In breaking its promise to Cubaâ“in putting a pistol to the head of its protégé and demanding compensation for a volunteered kindness”âthe United States disgraced itself in the eyes of the world “for generations to come.” The paper lamented, “The loss and the humiliation are ours. The penalty will be oursâthe penalty of national faithlessness which hereafter may well cause every people in the world to withhold all trust from âlying America.'”
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But many Americans were unwilling to concede logic to the Cubans. Opposition to Platt,
The New York Times
argued in early February, derived from misunderstanding of the terms
sovereignty
and
independence
themselves. Inadequate understanding of the these words “led, on the one hand, to extravagant notions of the future political status of Cuba, and on the other to weak and foolish arguments for a partial or complete repudiation of the pledge of the Teller resolution.” Sovereignty was perfectly compatible with a degree of U.S. control over Cuba. Without question, sovereignty entailed the right of a people to form a government, establish laws, and regulate their country's internal affairs. But sovereignty did not imply the right of a state to do whatever it so pleased. Just as the liberty of an individual was subject to the liberty of others, so the sovereignty of a state was “subject to the general peace and public order of nations.”
65
The New York Times
argued in early February, derived from misunderstanding of the terms
sovereignty
and
independence
themselves. Inadequate understanding of the these words “led, on the one hand, to extravagant notions of the future political status of Cuba, and on the other to weak and foolish arguments for a partial or complete repudiation of the pledge of the Teller resolution.” Sovereignty was perfectly compatible with a degree of U.S. control over Cuba. Without question, sovereignty entailed the right of a people to form a government, establish laws, and regulate their country's internal affairs. But sovereignty did not imply the right of a state to do whatever it so pleased. Just as the liberty of an individual was subject to the liberty of others, so the sovereignty of a state was “subject to the general peace and public order of nations.”
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But who got to define
public
? The
Times
didn't flinch in assigning that right to the United States. Just as in Europe, for example, the sovereignty of individual states was subject to the “concert of Europe,” so in the Western Hemisphere states were answerable to an analogous system. “The peace of Europe is the law of Europe,” the
Times
observed.
“The law is enforced by the concertâthe Great Powers acting together. Any act that endangers peace contravenes the law of the public system and the concert may take jurisdiction.” This hemisphere, too, possessed such a public system; it just so happened that responsibility for that system fell entirely to the United States (on account of its “indisputable primacy”). While not assuming to regulate inter-American relations or determine “territorial arrangements” here, the United States absolutely forbade new European expansion here. In other words, the Monroe Doctrine
was
the public system of the Western Hemisphere; “the peace of the United States” was its “law.” Cuba would enjoy sovereignty “subject to this law,” though whether Cuba would be expected to make concessions to the United States not conceded to by, say, Chile or Brazil, remained to be worked out.
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public
? The
Times
didn't flinch in assigning that right to the United States. Just as in Europe, for example, the sovereignty of individual states was subject to the “concert of Europe,” so in the Western Hemisphere states were answerable to an analogous system. “The peace of Europe is the law of Europe,” the
Times
observed.
“The law is enforced by the concertâthe Great Powers acting together. Any act that endangers peace contravenes the law of the public system and the concert may take jurisdiction.” This hemisphere, too, possessed such a public system; it just so happened that responsibility for that system fell entirely to the United States (on account of its “indisputable primacy”). While not assuming to regulate inter-American relations or determine “territorial arrangements” here, the United States absolutely forbade new European expansion here. In other words, the Monroe Doctrine
was
the public system of the Western Hemisphere; “the peace of the United States” was its “law.” Cuba would enjoy sovereignty “subject to this law,” though whether Cuba would be expected to make concessions to the United States not conceded to by, say, Chile or Brazil, remained to be worked out.
66
If the
Times
's equating of Western Hemispheric law to “the peace of the United States” seems audacious, to put it mildly, the editors were only stating definitively sentiment that American officials had expressed since the founding era. Cuba's “interests and the interests of the United States are identical,” the
Times
put it a week or so later; they “will be served and protected by the same measures.”
67
The presumption of the claim that U.S. interests were the public law of the hemisphere to which other nations' sovereignty would be held accountable was matched only by its hubris. Does Cuba wish to erect coast defenses, build ships of war, maintain armies, and maintain a big public debt to pay for these luxuries of greatness? the
Times
demanded. “Is it her purpose to seek admission into the family of great nations with the full privilege to sue and be sued, to make war and get whipped?” Or would Cuba prove sensible and commit its fate to the “infinitely more effective, the amply sufficient, guarantee” of U.S. national policy? These were rhetorical questions. The choice wasn't Cuba's to make. Though Cuba might do as it pleased with its constitution, in its relations with the United States, recognition of U.S. rights and “common interests” must “necessarily find a place.”
68
Times
's equating of Western Hemispheric law to “the peace of the United States” seems audacious, to put it mildly, the editors were only stating definitively sentiment that American officials had expressed since the founding era. Cuba's “interests and the interests of the United States are identical,” the
Times
put it a week or so later; they “will be served and protected by the same measures.”
67
The presumption of the claim that U.S. interests were the public law of the hemisphere to which other nations' sovereignty would be held accountable was matched only by its hubris. Does Cuba wish to erect coast defenses, build ships of war, maintain armies, and maintain a big public debt to pay for these luxuries of greatness? the
Times
demanded. “Is it her purpose to seek admission into the family of great nations with the full privilege to sue and be sued, to make war and get whipped?” Or would Cuba prove sensible and commit its fate to the “infinitely more effective, the amply sufficient, guarantee” of U.S. national policy? These were rhetorical questions. The choice wasn't Cuba's to make. Though Cuba might do as it pleased with its constitution, in its relations with the United States, recognition of U.S. rights and “common interests” must “necessarily find a place.”
68
Â
By the end of March, the Cuban committee assigned to devise a response to the Platt Amendment issued not one but five reports.
69
The most detailed and most popular was that of Juan Gualberto Gómez
(no relation to Máximo), veteran of all three Cuban wars of independence since 1868, including La Guerra Chiquita, during which he was captured and imprisoned in Spain.
70
Having struggled so long for Cuban sovereignty, Gómez was dismayed to see it whittled away at the hands of Platt, which would only make Cubans “a vassal people.” Like many critics, Gomez focused on clauses three, six, and seven, which granted the United States the right to intervene at will in Cuban affairs, separated the Isle of Pines from Cuba, and demanded that Cuba sell or lease land for naval stations.
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The most detailed and most popular was that of Juan Gualberto Gómez
(no relation to Máximo), veteran of all three Cuban wars of independence since 1868, including La Guerra Chiquita, during which he was captured and imprisoned in Spain.
70
Having struggled so long for Cuban sovereignty, Gómez was dismayed to see it whittled away at the hands of Platt, which would only make Cubans “a vassal people.” Like many critics, Gomez focused on clauses three, six, and seven, which granted the United States the right to intervene at will in Cuban affairs, separated the Isle of Pines from Cuba, and demanded that Cuba sell or lease land for naval stations.
In authorizing the United States to intervene in Cuba's affairs, Gomez observed, Platt bestowed a right that the U.S. Constitution did not grant the federal government vis-Ã -vis the individual states. To concede that right would be like handing a stranger the keys to your house, allowing him to enter as he pleased, at any hour of day or night, whether for good or ill. A government that conceded such a right wasn't worthy of the name, and could be nothing more than a docile instrument of a “foreign and irresponsible power.” Moreover, clause three's expressed aim to ensure in Cuba a government capable of protecting life, liberty, and property was simply redundant. For what was the purpose of government if not exactly that? It didn't take a treaty between the United States and Spain to justify U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. To insist that Cuba grant the United States the right to intervene in what amounted to a treaty would “dishonor future Cuban governments before they were born, condemning them to inferiority so humiliating that no Cuban would agree to take part in them.”
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