JACK'S BLOG
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CubaTHE END OF The Spanish-American War marked the beginning of American paternalism in Cuba. President McKinley delegated his authority to rule the island to General John Brooke, who became the island's first military governor. Brooke was supposed to gain the affections of the natives, mitigate their political rivalries, keep them from starving, protect the unfortunate, and promote local reforms. Since the Spanish had provided few public services, Brooke began by cleaning up the island. Elihu Root, who would serve as Theodore Roosevelt's Secretary of State, wrote in a War Department Report for 1899, that sanitation was unbelievably backward: “garbage littered the streets, animals were kept in dwellings, and disease was rampant.”
Brooke dispatched troops to inspect homes. A sanitary corps was established. Sewers and streets were cleaned. Water sources were bettered. Both private and public structures were disinfected. The military governor made sure that such conditions didn't recur. He declared rules and imposed fines and punishments for all who failed to comply. One of Brooke's subordinates was Leonard Wood, a trained surgeon who had won the Medal of Honor for bravery during the wars with the Apaches. He also served as personal physician to Presidents Grover Cleveland and William McKinley. In Cuba, he was the commanding officer for the eastern part of the island. From July to December, 1898, Wood's command distributed 25,000 rations daily. The number leaped occasionally to 50,000. Other commanders adapted Brooke's proscriptions to the needs of the people in their districts. For example, in Matanzas, near the center of the island, General Wilson distributed food and animals needed by farm families. One of Brooke's failures during his two-year term as military governor is that he did not replace the Spanish bureaucrats that remained on the island following the Treaty in Paris. Brooke was inclined to agree with the Spanish that the Cubans made better subjects than rulers. It was an attitude that I found eerily similar to the French who left Chinese police, imported by the Japanese conquerers, in Vietnam following World War II. Just as the Chinese reminded the Vietnamese of their subjugation, Spanish officials were an irritant to the Cubans, and a serious flaw in Brooke's administration of the island. Although Brooke's administration of the island lasted just two years, it was considered the first generation of American paternalism in Cuba. The second generation would be administered by his replacement, Leonard Wood.
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CubaCUBA SUFFERED FROM four hundred years of Spanish mismanagement until the Americans arrived. They had never invested in the island. They had only taken from it. There was no trace of infrastructure remotely resembling a late nineteenth century nation; no utilities, no sanitation, no public education, except in tiny enclaves where Americans had purchased plantations and built railroads and sugar mills to support their business operations. The islanders were destitute. More than 200,000 had died during the most recent installment of revolution. Some from combat. Many from disease and starvation in the reconcentrado centers that the Spaniards had established to deny the rebels of their popular support. The future didn't bode well either. Barely eight percent of the population was age four or younger. Thus, it would take decades to repopulate the island sufficiently to make it self-sustaining.
Two-thirds of the island's population was illiterate. This was important to Americans. Most agreed with Thomas Jefferson who preached that only an educated people could support and maintain a free, democratic nation. Cuba was deeply in debt. Spain accounted that Cuba owed them for its fight against the revolution. The bills had been charged to the Cuban colonial treasury. Furthermore, Cuba had accrued the costs of Spain's Mexican expedition of 1898, the Santo Domingo experiment of 1861-1865, the Peruvian War of 1866, and the Carlist wars in Spain, as well as the financial burden of its consular and diplomatic corps for the entire hemisphere, pensions paid to Columbus's heirs and, finally, the administration of the island. The total cost of these debts far exceeded the total value of all real estate on the island. Spain approached Washington with the bill following the Spanish-American War. A delegation from Cuba followed close on their heels requesting a loan to pay the insurrectionists who had participated in the revolution. Spain agreed in The Treaty of Paris ending the Spanish-American War, that it would evacuate Cuba and the United States would exercise authority in their place. Little was said about an independent Cuba. Also, the treaty stipulated that Spain would relinquish title to the island. During the treaty negotiations, the Spanish tried to attach the Cuban debt to the United States, but the American Secretary of State argued that the debt resulted from their misrule. America, he announced, had ended the mounting cost to property and life by ending their mismanagement. Even the most steadfast foes of imperialism had to concede that there must be some form of transitional involvement by the United States to maintain order in Cuba and insure its success. 10/29/2012 2 Comments Has any war ever lived up to the expectations of the youth who marched into it?CubaAMERICAN SOLDIERS SERVING in Cuba during the Spanish-American War were greatly disillusioned by the insurgents fighting alongside them. They had come to the island with romantic notions of the Cuban rebels inspired by tales printed in American newspapers. The reality they discovered was far different. Civilized warfare is a luxury when you face a well-trained and disciplined militia armed with modern firearms, and you have little more than a cane knife in your hand. The knife used to harvest sugar cane is a heavier version of its cousin, the machete. Most are rectangularly shaped with a hook at the end for pulling the felled stalks away from the area being harvested. Although not intended as a weapon, it served that purpose well if you could get close enough to the enemy. Many insurgents were killed as they attempted to close ranks with Spaniards firing well-aimed volleys.
The Americans were also shocked when they found that the insurgents treated noncombatants brutally. They thought that behavior was the sole provenance of the Spaniards. However, Cubans who failed to join the rebel forces or supply them were considered loyalists even if they were innocent. Thousands were hacked to death for no better reason than they had nothing to offer the rebels when the insurgents visited their villages. Whatever good intentions the Americans had brought to the island with them were quickly dissipated as they got to know their new brothers in arms. By the time the Spaniards sued for peace, few could be found who supported the Cubans' bid for self-government. American military and political leaders were similarly disenchanted with the rebel leaders. Although a few had proven themselves in combat, none were seen as having any practical political leadership skills. Thus, it quickly became evident to the Americans that they would have to train the Cubans to govern themselves and help them build the infrastructure of a modern nation. However, there is no real evidence that the Americans ever intended to permanently annex the island. Indeed, there is every sign that they expected that their job in Cuba would be accomplished within a generation and that they would leave thereafter. The Americans feared leaving Cuba to fend for itself at the end of the Spanish-American War. They didn't have to look far to the south of the island to see an example of the problems that would probably arise. Haiti had purchased its freedom from France a few decades earlier and its people were among the most destitute in the Caribbean. Having the same thing occur in Cuba, just a few miles off the southern coast of the United States was unacceptable. Disease and poverty could well spread to America's shores unless they were eradicated in Cuba. Also, there were American investments in the island to be considered. The potential for profit there was too great to abandon. Oh Dark ThirtyI'VE BATTLED THE BULGE nearly all my life, at least the past sixty years of it. Bear with me through my tale of suffering and I'll share a secret with you. Hopefully, it will be a valuable secret if you share my affliction. I began gaining weight when I reached puberty. My mother took me to a specialist at Johns Hopkins who poked and prodded before declaring, “Mrs. Durish, your son eats too much.” How perceptive of him. I didn't stop the gain until I reached two hundred-forty pounds in my fourteenth year. I wasn't sedentary. I played outside of the house whenever possible. Baseball. Football. Getting out was my escape from an abusive father. As far as I could tell, I wasn't overeating. My brother, who never saw the high side of one hundred thirty-five pounds consumed more calories in a meal than I did in any two days. No, he wasn't more active. My father also remained relatively trim regardless of what he ate. Unfortunately for them, both suffered severe arterial blockages in later life due to excessive cholesterol intake. Shortly after graduating from law school, I applied to the Navy. They wanted me to lose seventy pounds before they would consider me fit for duty. My mother had heard of a “diet doctor” who was “working miracles”. He gave me a month's supply of two pills and told me to return when they were gone. I lost the seventy pounds in about two and a half months. The doctor went to jail. No, I never learned what was in those pills. I didn't begin regaining the weight until I was stationed in Hawaii with the U.S. Army (the Navy thing didn't work out), and an Army doctor handed me instructions for a thing called the Diabetic Exchange Diet. It was the precursor of the system that Weight Watchers made famous. I lost the weight and maintained myself for a few years on that. One of the things I learned on the Army Diet was that I required far fewer calories than normal. The doctor calculated that I should be able to lose weight eating 2000 or less calories per day. I had to reduce my intake to well below that. I gained on two thousand. Interestingly, I don't require as much oxygen as a normal person either. As a SCUBA diver, I often returned to shore with my tanks only half empty after my diving buddies had drained theirs. Apparently, I have the metabolism of a harbor seal. Several times over the years, doctors have recommended that I keep a diary of what I eat. I developed an aversion to this practice in my youth because doctors would examine my diary and declare that I had a psychological problem. Obviously, in their opinion, I was lying. No normal person could eat so little and still gain weight. However, as I learned in later years, such a diary is valuable to weight loss and weight maintenance.
Now, you will be rewarded for your patience. I have found an excellent online diary. One of its greatest features is that it's free. It's called MyFitnessPal.com. It's second greatest feature is that it's easy to use. When you first begin using it, you'll have to look up the foods as you eat them. You will be surprised to find that most everything you eat is already listed, including listings for different brands of the same foods. Then, those foods that you eat frequently will appear in a special list that you can add to your diary simply by selecting them. And, it's free. MyFitnessPal.com also allows you to record your exercise activity and credits you with more calories in your diet if it is significant. And, it encourages you to drink water. You will be admonished to drink more every day if you don't record a minimum of 8 glasses. Did I mention, it's free? Also, we can be buddies. MyFitnessPal.com features a system that allows updates to be sent automatically to friends so that we can encourage each other as we lose weight. Okay, one last time. It's free. By the way, I've lost almost fifteen pounds since I began using MyFitnessPal.com about nine weeks ago. Huzzah for me! I must admit that it calculated that I was allowed two thousand calories per day based on my height and age. Right. I would need a forklift to get around if I ate like that. The lawyer in me advises that I warn you to consult with your physician before embarking on any diet or exercise regimen, and your results may vary. Also, take note: This is not a paid endorsement. I'm just sharing. Election 2012I CAN TALK to some of my friends and family about anything. Others want me to shut up if I say anything about politics. Why is that? Do they lack confidence in their beliefs or do they fear me? Okay, I get it. I'm different. I have never shied away from a good debate. I have even adopted a contrary position on occasion just because I was bored simply agreeing with everyone around me. When people who knew my attitudes and beliefs caught me playing devil's advocate, I excused myself as testing my own opinions.
I can't help but smile at the memory of the night when a friend tried to engage me in debate. Apparently I failed to rise to the bait he offered. I guess that I was distracted by my own thoughts and missed his verbal challenges. Finally, he looked me in the eye and asked what was wrong. Something had to be wrong with me to avoid a good debate. Thus, I cannot judge others by my own behavior. Not everyone enjoys conflict as much as I. However, this still doesn't satisfy my curiosity. What is wrong with people who run from it? We are about to make an important decision on November 6th. Doesn't everyone want to have the facts and make the best decision? How can they know for sure that they're making the best decision if they don't make a conscious effort to think about it, converse about it, debate it, argue it? Conservatives talk with me. Tea Partiers will go toe to toe with me. Democrats have never been shy. But liberals? Progressives? No way. Several important issues have come to light in recent days. You won't find them mentioned on the leading broadcast networks or in large city newspapers. They seem to be avoiding them. However, the blogosphere is alive with them. I'm only seeing one side of this news. I would love to talk with anyone who supports President Obama's reelection to get their side of the story. However, if I even mention these developments, they recoil in horror, accuse me of spreading malicious gossip, and threaten to “unfriend” me if I don't shut up and go away. What is their problem? What are they afraid of? What are these issues?
All of these issues, and others, are being presented with highly credible evidence from highly credible sources. I'm sure there are opposing viewpoints, but the people I expect to present them, especially those who support President Obama assiduously, won't even discuss them. They attempt to distract me with specious attacks on Mitt Romney. They complain that George Bush is responsible for all the ills that face America. The President himself deflects blame on others. Whatever happened to the sign that Harry Truman used to keep in the Oval Office when he was President, “The Buck Stops Here”? I don't need people who agree with me. I need my friends and family who support the President to challenge me, to show me, with credible evidence, the error of these assertions. Or, if they accept these charges as true, do they not care and support the President in spite of them? Maybe they think I shouldn't care either. Why won't they tell me? Why won't they even talk to me? 10/25/2012 1 Comment Would it have made any difference if America hadn't helped drive Spain from Cuba?SOME MAY ARGUE that the Cubans could have won their fight for independence without any help from the Americans. Indeed, I made that case in my novel, Rebels on the Mountain. The Spaniards were exhausted and the cost of the revolution was bankrupting them. Only pride kept them going, false pride. But, would it have made any difference if America had stayed out of it? Whoever ruled the island would be partnering with the Yankee businessmen. Americans purchased vast plantations for pennies on the dollar from Spaniards who feared that they were going to lose their property when the Cubans drove them off the island. Selling out to the Americans before that happened gave them something to take to the bank. As a result, Americans were already investing heavily in Cuba before the Spaniards lost control.
Americans who owned property in Cuba before the Spanish-American War invested heavily to improve their holdings. They built railroads and factories to serve their own business needs. Their investments added value to the island for the benefit of everyone. Jobs were created. Productivity and exports were up. New products and services were arriving, and Cubans as well as island creoles were able to purchase them with money that they were earning from the Americans. After the war, American investment spread over the rest of the island. Cuba had known such prosperity only once before in its history, during the few brief months that England had ruled the island after defeating the Spanish. Unfortunately, Britain traded the island back to the Spaniards in exchange for Florida, and Cuba returned to the economic doldrums. Spain never invested in the island or its people. All that changed when the war ended and Cuba became an American protectorate. Granted, there were Americans who flooded the island. Their energy and industry overwhelmed the native islanders. Regardless of how much money they may have had, these Yankees were there to prosper and, as far as they were concerned, it didn't matter who had to get out of their way. The officials who had been sent by the United States government to administer the island didn't see anything wrong with this. Indeed, they likely hoped that the Cubans would learn the Puritanical work ethic from living and working with the Americans. Of course, Jose Marti's ghost must have recoiled in horror at the death of his beloved Cuban heritage. However, just for the moment, let's consider what might have happened had America remained neutral and allowed Cuba to win its own independence. Would the new government of Cuba have forced the Americans as well as the Spaniards to leave? It's highly unlikely. The Cubans needed investment capital to recover from the losses incurred during the revolution, and to begin building a modern country with a stable economy. Americans hardly would have been likely to pump more money into the island if they had been forced out. Furthermore, there was no other Latin American country with the means to help them at that time, and European nations couldn't be expected to help out a distant island that wasn't their own colony. Would a free Cuba have been able to survive without outside investment? Possibly. However, they would have become another Haiti. That island struggled for centuries to survive let alone prosper. Indeed, it hasn't succeeded even yet. Of course, Haiti was saddled with the debt of purchasing itself and its people from the owners in France. That debt was only recently paid off. Interestingly, a few months prior to the Spanish-American War, a group of American financiers crafted a plan for the Cubans to buy their independence from Spain using funds that would be loaned by the Americans. Had the Cubans availed themselves of this offer, they would have put themselves in the same position as the Haitians, and probably still be paying the debt. It's fun to speculate, but it's hard enough to know what actually happened. Fathoming a history that never happened is not only more difficult, but also a meaningless intellectual exercise. VietnamMY TOUR OF DUTY in the rear echelons of the 9th Infantry Division during the Vietnam War began in May of 1967. I had spent a year in Infantry School, as told in my previously published memoir – Infantry School: A Soldier's Journal – preparing for combat. The Army chose then to commission me in the Adjutant Generals Corps. Although I have ranted against my fate, I must admit that it gave me a peculiar vantage point from which to observe the war. With the training of an infantry officer and the education of a lawyer as well as the vantage point of an infantry division headquarters, I am, I suppose, better qualified than most to comment on the histories that are being written of America's most unpopular war. Vietnam wasn't an unpopular war when I enlisted on March 3rd, 1966. We were still riled up at the audacity of the communists. How dare they fire on American warships in international waters. Sure, they were spying on the North Vietnamese. However, backed by the Soviet Union and Communist China, they were invading a peaceful nation to the south. Well, that's what we believed then and, as it turns out, that is just what was happening.
I was motivated to write my memoir because of the nonsense that my children, nieces, and nephews were learning in school. Fed by the lies perpetrated by the anti-war activists of the Vietnam War era, now teaching in our colleges and universities, a perverted version of history has become the “official” story of the conflict. I decided that someone has to stand up for the truth. My story is not politically correct, but it is all true. I hope that it will find its way into the hands of future scholars, and that it will at least inspire them to question the propaganda to which they are being exposed. 10/24/2012 0 Comments Did America launch the Spanish-American War to seize Cuba and exploit its people?AMERICA FREQUENTLY IS accused of behaving badly. We went to war in Iraq to steal their oil. We went to war in Vietnam to steal their rubber. President Obama, raised to embrace his father's antipathy for colonialism, spent the early part of his Administration traveling the world to apologize for our country's misdeeds. The Spanish-American War was no exception. Although it began as America's most popularly supported war in history, some turned against it quickly. Mark Twain saw it as a war of conquest. He wrote and spoke out against it frequently as in this essay: “I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific. It seemed tiresome and tame for it to content itself with the Rockies. “Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? And I thought it would be a real good thing to do. “I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves. “But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. . . “It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.” Was Twain correct? Actually no. As events played out, America attempted to woo the islanders, but never coerced them into annexation.
You may be surprised to learn that leading businessmen who had substantial investments in Cuba stood with President McKinley in opposition to the war. However, once it began, they supported its quick and decisive end. The truth is that America's ideology has always borne a close relationship to its economy. It is not a matter of conspiracy so much as a matter of free men and women pursuing their own interests. Others frequently fail to recognize the prominence of the work ethic in America's psyche and often mistake it for greed and avarice. After all, most of the wealthy in other countries either inherited or stole their riches. Ultimately, America did not wage war against Spain in 1898 to replace Spanish domination with its own. It fought to free Cuba and lay the foundations of freedom and democracy by which the Island and its people and their American partners could become prosperous. The proof is in the history of the period of American paternalism that followed the Spanish-American War. Unfortunately, most Cubans rejected these opportunities. Those that didn't were forced to emigrate to America. CubaTHE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR was a lop-sided win for the United States. Although some Spanish infantry fought gallantly, they were pitifully overwhelmed in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. When the smoke cleared, America had gained possession of Cuba and the Philippines. They also purchased Guam and Puerto Rico from Spain at a fraction of their value. Spain attempted to avoid the conflict by acceding to President McKinley's demands at the last minute. Unfortunately, their pride caused them to delay too long, and both the Americans and the insurgents in Cuba had advanced their strategy too far to pull back. The ease with which the Americans destroyed their fleet at Manila Bay and overran their defenses in Cuba left the Spaniards despondent. Although little is remembered of this war, other than Teddy Roosevelt's famous charge with the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill, there is one story which has been told and retold more often than any other military adventure in modern history: A Message to Garcia. No military maneuver is more fraught with danger than a beachhead landing. The success of the allied invasion of France on D-Day may lull some into complacency. However, had the Germans not been misdirected by false intelligence and a feint to another landing zone, the allies might easily have been thrown back into the sea. Think of how much more dangerous a beachhead assault is when the army lacks specialized landing craft, and airborne troops to land behind enemy lines and disrupt their communications and logistics. During the Spanish-American War, U.S. Army soldiers were rowed ashore in wooden longboats. As the Americans prepared to storm the beaches of Cuba during the Spanish-American War, they had only one asset to prevent the enemy from decimating their ranks as they rowed from the ships to shore: The Cuban insurgents then under the command of General Garcia. When President McKinley met with his military commanders, he asked how they planned to coordinate their assault so that the rebels would keep the Spanish from intercepting them. There was only one answer. Someone had to get a message to Garcia. Garcia and his force were encamped somewhere in the rugged mountains at the eastern end of the mountain. No one knew exactly where. As Elbert Hubbard related in his telling of the tale, “No mail or telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly. What to do! Someone said to the President, 'There is a fellow by the name of Rowan who will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.'” Thus began the tale of Rowan's search for Garcia, a tale wherein he lands on a beach in the middle of the night and slips into the jungle. Three weeks later he emerges on the other side of the island, “having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia.”
Hubbard dashed off his rendition of Rowan's adventure for a monthly periodical, The Philistine. Requests for reprints began to arrive almost immediately: a dozen, fifty, a hundred, a thousand. The New York Central Railroad then ordered one hundred thousand copies in pamphlet form with their ad on the back cover. It was then translated into Russian by order of Prince Hilakoff, Director of Russian Railroads, and a copy given to every employee in Russia. Other countries republished it in their own language. Rowan's heroism, endurance, and determination became a model to be emulated by men everywhere. I knew that I had to include a modern version of the tale in my novel, Rebels on the Mountain, as an homage to Rowan. Thus, my hero, Nick Andrews, a U.S. Army Ranger, takes a message to Castro. 10/22/2012 2 Comments Do you “Remember the Maine!”?DON'T WORRY IF you don't “Remember the Maine!” It's one of those dim moments from history, a rallying cry during the Spanish-American War. But, it wasn't the casus belli, the justification for the war, as most of us were taught. The U.S. Battleship Maine sank in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898. The resolution of war against Spain wasn't passed in Congress until April, a full two months following the sinking. Most believed that the explosion that destroyed the Maine was triggered accidentally. Later investigations would prove them correct. Congress was pressured to authorize war with Spain by the accumulated frustration in the United States over the Cuba issue. Some Americans were outraged by the depredations of revolution and the suffering of the islanders. Others were fearful for their business investments in the island. When the revolution began in 1895, Spain had just 14,000 soldiers and four warships defending the island. The Spanish forces, poorly led by Martinez Campos, were being beaten back steadily by the insurgents. Spain lost confidence in their chief administrator of the island and sent a new governor-general, Valeriano Weyler, to plot a new strategy. Weyler had an interesting perspective on insurrection in Cuba; he had fought on both sides of it. During the Ten Years War, he led creole volunteers who fought against the insurrectionists. Later, he served beside Máximo Gomez, a rebel general. As Chinese Communist Chairman Mao Zedong advised guerrillas decades later, Weyler knew that the rebels were hiding among the non-belligerents all over the countryside like “fish swimming in the sea”. Thus, he instituted the reconcentrado program, moving islanders into more populated towns and cities. He also had the army destroy homes, crops, and live stock to deprive the rebels of any succor. The reconcentrado program was eerily similar to the same strategy employed by American forces in South Vietnam. However, unlike the Americans, Weyler didn't have the resources to feed, clothe and shelter the reconcentrados. Death and disease ran rampant. Correspondents filed lurid tales of the plight of the reconcentrados with their newspapers in America. Images of bodies laying unburied in the streets, an infant sucking at its dead mother's breast, and other equally horrific scenes stoked the indignation of U.S. Citizens. It wasn't difficult to motivate Congress to act. President McKinley resisted the tides of war as long as he could. He directed American diplomats to protest directly to the government in Madrid. They blamed the government there for the depredations of uncivilized and inhumane acts of war perpetrated by their chief administrator in Cuba. Weyler, they added, was also held responsible for the destruction of Cuban productivity. Thus, they linked capitalism and humanitarianism. The tactic worked. The Spanish-American War became one of the most popularly supported in American history.
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