File No. 837.00/1493
Months ago the President announced that he would restore the
constitutional guaranties when, and only when, the laws he asked
for, which would enable him to discharge his international
obligations, were passed by Congress.
[Enclosure—Translation]
President Menocal’s Proclamation of August 14,
1918
To the People of Cuba:
The voters of the country having on the 2d of August been
convoked by the Central Electoral Board for the election to be
held on the first of November next, the moment has arrived for
the rival political forces to work with entire freedom and firm
decision under the protection of the constitutional guaranties
restored by my decree of this date with the single exception of
the guaranty contained in Article 22 of the Constitution in
respect of private correspondence, which must continue subject
to censure, for the duration of the war, for obvious reasons of
public safety.
Suspension of the guaranties had not, it must in justice be said,
subsisted in detriment of the political rights of citizens, nor
for any political purposes whatever affecting the internal life
of the nation, after the seditious movement of February (1917)
had been put down, but for the purpose of more effectively
keeping down espionage and the machinations of agent or
auxiliary subjects of enemy powers in the great struggle for
right, liberty and international justice, in which Cuba has of
her free will and with energetic resolution joined
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her destiny with those
of the Allied Nations for the defense and victory of that noble
cause and its high and supreme ideals.
It was not possible, therefore, to restore the constitutional
guaranties in the absence of special laws for the detection of
espionage and for the surveillance and repression of enemy
aliens; for without such laws the Government would have been
helpless in the face of unavoidable exigencies of the existing
state of war, as compelling for our own safety as for the loyal
fulfilment of our obligations to the Allied Nations.
Those laws have now been enacted and vest in me, if not all the
exceptional means and all the extraordinary powers available, in
this terrible world crisis, not only to the governments of
belligerent nations but to those of nearly all the neutral
nations, and especially of our great neighbor Republic,
illustrious model of liberty and democracy, which has omitted no
precaution nor effort, nor sacrificed to vain theories the
supreme necessity of national defense, at least the most
indispensable of such means and powers. Although deeming them
insufficient in certain contingencies for the object sought, I
have not cared further to delay the restoration of
constitutional guaranties, the suspension of which, I must
repeat, no one can rightly claim has been used for purposes of
internal politics nor for the purpose of preventing or
interfering with the exercise of their rights by any party or
person.
Those who wish and whose duty it is to participate in the
forthcoming electoral struggle have wide and free avenues open
to them in the law and with no other restrictions than those
prescribed by law. All may and ought to go to the polls in
defense of their respective ideals, of their political
aspirations, and of their candidates, with enthusiasm and
decision, but also with the composure and discipline proper in
free peoples.
To all I offer, whatever their party badges or their purposes or
platforms, entire impartiality on the part of the Government and
the most effective guaranties for the purity and freedom of
suffrage. I hope that all will observe the limits which wisdom
and civism impose upon the activities of contestants, and that
none will forget that the rights of each must be harmonized with
the rights of others and that never as in the present moment has
it been so important to raise and dignify party strife by that
scrupulous respect for law and order which is the prime
necessity of democracies. I pin my faith in that the forthcoming
election will be held with the utmost freedom and will be as
hard-fought as orderly, without prejudice to the higher
sentiments of national solidarity which the state of war ought
to awaken in all hearts animated by the pure throbs of
patriotism.
