837.00/2815
The Ambassador in Cuba ( Guggenheim ) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 21.]
Sir: I have the honor to report that further efforts to reconcile the differences between the Machado administration and the Unión Nacionalista have apparently failed because the latter will not relinquish their issue of the constitutionality of the present administration.
The negotiations were conducted through Mr. Antonio Gonzalez Mendoza, a prominent business man who is a friend of mine and a close friend of Colonel Mendieta. I was at all times informed of the discussions and used my personal good offices to bring the two groups into agreement; but the continued obstinacy of Colonel Mendieta and his associates in demanding Machado’s resignation made it impossible to reach an accord.
The President made every reasonable concession to his opponents. He was willing to ask Congress to enact legislation to provide for a new census, to modify the electoral laws in such a way as to bring them into conformity with the spirit of the Crowder Code4 and to permit the reorganization of the political parties and the organization of new ones. In other words, he would make it possible for the Unión Nacionalista to organize as a party and to present candidates at the forthcoming elections. He refused point blank, however, to admit any discussion of the constitutionality of his election.
In the face of this impasse, the President, at my suggestion, determined to go ahead with the beforementioned legislative program [Page 651] and to inform the Nacionalistas of his intentions. He felt, and I believe rightly, that this would cut most of the ground out from under their feet. He therefore sent for Antonio Mendoza, but the latter took the occasion to request the proposals mentioned above and to add the stipulation that the President should resign and call for a new presidential election if the Nacionalistas returned a majority of the 24 Senators and 59 Representatives to be elected.
The President agreed to accept these proposals and instructed Clemente Vasquéz Bello, President of the Senate and of the Liberal Party, to draft an electoral law and appropriate covering message to Congress. The Nacionalistas, however, refused to accept.
It is my well considered opinion that President Machado has proceeded in this matter in good faith and has been animated by a real desire to compose his differences with the Nacionalistas. There can be no question that he was disposed to make important concessions to them. He was even willing to take some of their leaders into his Cabinet and would probably have been persuaded to grant amnesty to the persons indicted in connection with the riot at Artemisa last May.
The Nacionalistas, however, showed themselves to be most stubborn and uncompromising. They have made much of their so-called ideals and demands for electoral reforms and have asserted that they represent a majority of the Cuban people. Yet when offered practically everything for which their program calls excepting the actual resignation of the President, they declined. The inference from this is obvious: in the last analysis the Nacionalistas want only one thing, to satisfy their own personal ambition to get into office.
I am of the opinion that Colonel Mendieta and his associates are almost at the end of their resources and that if the President will honestly carry out the census and the reform of the electoral laws the Nacionalistas will in due course either be forced to cooperate with him on his own terms or play their last card by attempting to start a revolution.
I have [etc.]
- See Foreign Relations, 1919, vol. ii, pp. 1 ff; also Ley Orgánica del Poder Ejecutivo y Reglamento para el Gobierno de las Secretarias de Despacho de Cuba de Enero 26 de 1909 (Habana, 1909).↩