837.513/54: Telegram

The Representative on Special Mission in Cuba (Crowder) to the Secretary of State

41. I have great pleasure in announcing to the Department that I am officially informed that President Zayas signed this afternoon the decree reforming the lottery in the precise form in which I rewrote it. See my despatch of June 26th43 and its enclosures which should have reached the Department this morning. The present director general of the lottery, a relative of President Zayas and the present sub-director, his son, will be replaced, the former by a man who has been agreed upon but who has not yet accepted and the latter by a very responsible official selected from the Department of the Treasury. Both men are satisfactory to the new Secretary of the Treasury and to me.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I anticipate a storm of opposition from the following sources: first, from newspapers which may be compelled to discontinue publication when deprived of the very substantial aid they now receive from the lottery; second, from Congress nearly all of the members of which will be deprived of very substantial incomes which they now receive from the same source; third, from the small army of colectores who hold their existing colecturías as sinecures; and fourth, from ticket monopolists (acaparadores) who are entirely eliminated by the new decree.

President Zayas expressed to me the view that the issuance of this decree might result in his formal accusation by Congress. His friends have expressed to me similar apprehensions and I was asked by Secretary Cortina if President Zayas could rely in such a contingency on a supporting statement from United States Government. I replied that I would not recommend such supporting statement unless from this time on Zayas stood unmistakably and aggressively for this and other reforms and gave his new Cabinet every proper support in making effective their campaign against graft, corruption and immorality in the public administration.

Crowder
  1. Not printed; see telegram no. 40, June 26, from General Crowder, supra.