Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [272]
He looked forward to sailing on the newest of his completed battleships, the Louisiana, in a couple of months’ time. Construction of the Panama Canal was well under way, and he wanted to see “the dirt fly” with his own eyes. In the meantime, he braced for the likelihood that a few of these white ships might soon be required for active duty in Cuba—exactly the last place he wanted to send them, at a time when the Democratic Party was looking round for a fall campaign issue.
An uprising by “liberals” had taken place on the island eighteen days before, in protest against alleged election-rigging by President Tomás Estrada Palma and his regime of “moderates.” The fighting since then had been fierce enough to make both party names jokeworthy. But what was less funny was the obligation of the United States to intervene in any such dispute, under an amendment attached years before to a bill long since forgotten, by Senator Orville Platt of Connecticut. The Platt Amendment in effect made Cuba an American protectorate, should she ever become unable to govern herself, and thus invite the greedy interest of foreign powers.
Having fought for the liberty of Cubans in 1898, bestowed it himself in 1902, and preached the “moral” virtues of a reciprocity treaty with them, Roosevelt was unwilling to see any more cartoons of himself in Rough Rider uniform. For a day or two after the naval review, an amnesty offer by Estrada Palma encouraged hopes of peace. But the insurrection could not be quelled, and on 8 September came the inevitable request for naval intervention by the United States.
Roosevelt authorized the dispatch of two warships, along with a harsh warning by Assistant Secretary of State Robert Bacon that the President considered intervention to be “a very serious thing.” Before landing any Marines, he would have to be “absolutely certain” that the Cuban government was indeed helpless.
“Just at the moment I am so angry with that infernal little Cuban republic that I would like to wipe its people off the face of the earth,” he wrote to Henry White on 13 September. “All that we wanted from them was that they would behave themselves and be prosperous and happy so that we would not have to interfere.” It was particularly galling to be called back there just after Elihu Root, who had made the improvement of North-South relations his priority as Secretary of State, had told Latin Americans: “We wish for no victories but those of peace; for no territory except our own; for no sovereignty except the sovereignty over ourselves.”
Roosevelt’s annoyance reflected the fact that both Cuban factions were gambling on seeing the Stars and Stripes rise again over Havana—the moderates because they hoped to be kept in power, the liberals because they believed they would consequently get a free and fair election. Thus, he was presented with a paradox of foreign policy. By not intervening, he would encourage civil war; by intervening, he would strengthen both sides, and therefore have to stay.
To his further annoyance, he heard that Bacon had, against instructions, authorized the landing of a party of Marines in Cuba. The Assistant Secretary was the best-looking man in the Administration, if not its brightest. “You had no business to direct the landing of those troops without specific authority from here…,” Roosevelt furiously cabled him. “Unless you are directed otherwise from here the forces are only to be used to protect American life and property.”
Hoping still to avoid direct intervention, he summoned Bacon and Taft to Oyster Bay for a crisis meeting. His latest Secretary of the Navy, Charles