Cuba’s Rebellion and Foreign Control
Cuba is again in rebellion. The situation is a perfectly natural one; rebellion seems to be indigenous to the island, just as it is in all countries where the original owners and their descendants have been and are being driven to the wall. Spain oppressed the people of Cuba for many generations, and the simple natives knew no way of relief but through physical rebellion. At last, by the assistance of the United States, they secured a nominal independence and an outward cleaning up. But during this process a wily, silent foe crept in. It was hidden in the folds of the Stars and Stripes. The Cubans have apparently awakened to the fact that their rich island resources are passing under control of foreigners. These are not all Americans, some of them are English, etc.—but they came in while the United States Government was in control. The Cubans are not skilled in the art of "frenzied finance;" they can not defend their rights in such a contest, nor do they know how to develop fully their home resources. They are at the mercy of skilled competitors under their nominal independence, as verily as they were formerly at the mercy of Spain. Knowing no resort but that of physical rebellion, many of them have taken to the field against their government, which they claim is conducted in the interest of the men who are robbing them through the mediums of business enterprise. The end will probably be sooner or later, annexation to the United States—the result prophesied and desired by those who are fast absorbing the natural wealth of the island republic. There can be no such thing in this world as an independent government by a people who can not maintain it by military and naval force. The small ones only exist by sufferance of the large ones, and this sufferance will exist only as long as the federated strong governments deem it consistent with their own interests.