c^ 2 
 
 9 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
ROSEMARY PRESS BROCHURES 
 
 V IN THE SUNSHINE AT HAVANA 
 
 By Charles Dana Burrage 
 
 RECORD OF A TRIP IN NOVEMBER, I917 
 ALSO 
 
 HURRYING FROM HAVANA— (1906) 
 
 By Atheiton Brownell 
 
 CUBA— LAND OF SUGAR AND SPENDTHRIFTS 
 
 By Alfred J. Thompson 
 
 Posemarv 
 ^ Press 
 
 For the use of the members of the Chile Club 
 
 %%* 
 
Copyright 1922 
 by Rosemary Press. 
 
 : ■ r ■ 
 
 sep 22 mi V 
 
 ©CUG8C129 fy 
 
IN THE SUNSHINE AT HAVANA 
 
 By Charles Dana Burrage 
 
 In the first place, Havana, in Spanish, Habana, is fortunate in 
 its name — probably of Cuban Indian derivation — the land of the 
 Abanas. Then it is so distinctively Spanish, so un-American in 
 every way, so suggestive of Old "World habits and Tropical lan- 
 guor; and this, too, in spite of the fact that its stores are largely 
 filled with very evidently American-made goods, and that one sees 
 everywhere American electric cars and American automobiles. 
 
 The approach to the city from the sea is striking — even beauti- 
 ful. With the ancient castle on the high Morro (or height) on the 
 left, and the low sweep of the crowded city on the right, across the 
 very narrow entrance to the harbour within, the first sight of 
 Havana interests one extremely. The narrow streets, barely wide 
 enough between the curbs to let two vehicles pass, where the side- 
 walks are often but a foot wide, so that the street car crowds the 
 pedestrians into single file, and an open umbrella cannot survive; 
 these multitudinous, unending, crowded narrow streets of Havana 
 appeal instantly to the lover of the picturesque. For there are lim- 
 itless vistas opening every moment before you; on every side 
 glimpses through open doorways far back into the patios, or inner 
 open-to-the-air court yards, that are inseparable from every resi- 
 dence in this land of sunshine ; passing, fragmentary views of the 
 sacred inner home life so carefully kept behind the forbidding front 
 of the dwelling, as is usual among all the Latins, and particularly so 
 in the warmer parts of Spanish America. 
 
 The first glance at a Havana building impresses the beholder, 
 for one sees every window opening screened with iron, either with 
 plain, straight, horizontal or upright bars, or with grille work in 
 plain, or sometimes, fanciful designs of scroll and arabesque work, 
 very solid and substantial. There are no windows of glass in 
 Havana, they appear to be unnecessary. Only shutters of varying 
 kinds fill the openings behind the iron bars or grille work. The 
 
lover, talking with his inamorata through this lattice of unyielding 
 and inexorable iron, is a common sight. The wistful faces of chil- 
 dren peer out through the bars, suggestive of prison discipline and 
 control. 
 
 Every building comes to the exact and limited edge of the all- 
 too-narrow sidewalk; the passers-by are within a few inches of the 
 pale, oval-faced daughters of the Sun leaning against the curving, 
 twisting scrolls of iron. The houses, narrow on the street, with 
 only party walls between, (never by any chance any opening, or 
 area, or alley, or court,) extend far back into the middle of long 
 blocks. They cannot but be crowded in these narrow abodes, for 
 the children seem to live in the streets. Everywhere they abound, 
 all the varying shades from clear white to darkest black, all with 
 the least possible clothing on, which in the poorer sections means 
 none at all, on those of very tender years. Stopping for a moment 
 to catch a kodak of a baby girl just old enough to toddle along the 
 sidewalk, we were instantly besieged to take pictures of many oth- 
 ers ; one mother, pathetic in her eagerness, beseeching our attention 
 to a handsome crippled boy in a wide box, lying clear and sharp in 
 the shade, down a crowded, reeking court way. 
 
 All the buildings are low, one or two stories usually, and all 
 of brick covered with cement, or of white limestone blocks. We 
 saw one house, only, built of cement blocks, arranged in imitation 
 of the "rustic" finish so popular in the far West many, many years 
 ago. This solid form of architecture undoubtedly is directly due 
 to the climate, and is the result of long experience — some say that 
 the superabundant and voracious ant would soon eat out the tim- 
 bers, if of wood. But the survival of the iron bars is rather curious 
 in this twentieth century. Evidently the first settlers of Havana 
 found their pirate neighbors, who so thronged the countless islands 
 of the Caribs ' Sea, and the densely-wooded shores along the Spanish 
 Main, too urgent in their attentions, for, as we read in history, 
 Havana was many times attacked by these rovers of the sea. 
 
 Not only great forts arose on every side and vast subterranean 
 defences were excavated in the hills to protect the city, but every 
 householder protected himself. He built his house with solid walls 
 and iron-barred windows, closely joined to his neighbor 's, and made 
 his front door of solid mahogany, massive, heavily barred, and 
 secure against any small pirate gang. They say they retain these 
 
5 
 
 ancient habits of protection, because the numerous blacks are so 
 covetous of other people's personal property that nothing is safe 
 unless guarded. Very likely, but it is probable that in a land 
 where the shutters must be open at night for comfort, the grim 
 iron protective screen serves an excellent purpose. 
 
 The "old" or original city is wonderfully attractive. It, as 
 well as New York, has a "Wall" street marking the ancient line 
 of fortification; unlike New York, a small section, a salient angle 
 surmounted by a bastion, of this original wall has been kept, and 
 will now unquestionably be preserved forever. Yet in all Havana 
 no photograph, not even a stray postal card, could be found show- 
 ing this most striking, interesting and ancient land-mark. I have 
 promised myself the pleasure of enlarging a small kodak of this 
 venerable ruin, to hang in grateful honor above my office desk, as 
 a reminder of a pleasant visit. 
 
 A whole day, long, arduous, most tiring, yet supremely re- 
 warded, may be spent at the ancient and stupendous fortresses of 
 Cabanas and Morro, just across the bay. History has much to tell 
 of these, all of bloody deeds, cruelties, sufferings and wrongs. 
 
 In the "Laurel Ditch," the high wall is pitted deeply for a 
 distance of 85 feet with bullet holes, where suspected Cuban pa- 
 triots were shot in almost daily groups lined against the wall, to 
 the number of thousands, in all, by Weyler's orders. 
 
 The views of moats, drawbridges and ramparts ; the old Span- 
 ish bronze cannon of Ferdinand and Isabella, now as useless as 
 the forts themselves; the great system of subterranean defenses; 
 the torture room at Morro; the dungeons deep in the rock under 
 Cabanas, without light, where patriots were thrust, to linger mis- 
 erably, without food or water, unvisited until death came, all seem 
 like pictures from the ' ' Old World ' ' rather than by our own doors 
 here in the New World. 
 
 In Vedado, the residence suburb within the city limits, largely 
 American, one finds in the front areas and gardens that luxuriance 
 of flower and shrub we are wont to associate with the tropics. 
 Here every house has a porch, and every porch, almost, has a flam- 
 ing mass of magenta-colored Bougainvilleas, with an occasional 
 pink, or scarlet or golden-yellow wreath of blossoms to keep it 
 company. Everywhere the Eoyal Palm stretches to the sky ; every- 
 where the delicately divided foliage of the graceful Royal Poinciana 
 
is seen; in its season the whole tree a fiery ball of flaming scarlet. 
 The wide range of Cuban flora may be seen to advantage in the 
 beautiful Botanical and Tropical Gardens. Even here in Vedado 
 the walls are solid, even here every window opening (with but a 
 very few exceptions) is covered with graceful and intricately 
 wrought iron grilles. 
 
 When a number of these narrow one-storied white-walled 
 houses are seen side by side, each with a roofed-over white-solid- 
 porch and a little white fenced-in garden in front, they look exact- 
 ly like a larger edition of the pathetic little fenced-in grave lots of 
 the poor in the vast Colon cemetery. And they carry a heart-ache 
 too, remembering that these little grave lots (for they are only 
 just large enough for a single grave) are rented not sold. The 
 sum of ten dollars pays for five years' use, when, if a further pay- 
 ment remains unpaid, the grave is emptied, the bones being thrown 
 into the great "boneyard" where thousands upon thousands of 
 skulls and miscellaneous human bones keep dreadful company — 
 a shame and disgrace to such a rich city as Havana. 
 
 But this is not the only disgraceful thing to be seen there. 
 Far out on the embankment by the sea, nearly out to Vedado, fac- 
 ing the distant shores of America, there remain, stored in a shed 
 with a "danger" sign nearby, the sacred relics of the "Maine," 
 presented to the Cuban Government for use in a permanent memo- 
 rial, at the time (1912) the shattered hulk of the betrayed battle- 
 ship was raised from its bed of mud in the harbour, and towed out 
 to sea, to sink to eternal rest in the ocean 's depths — with the Stars 
 and Stripes nailed to its mast head. Oblivious to her duty, Cuba 
 flaunts her careless disregard for these historic mementos in the 
 face of all men — a flagrant breach of faith — her promises broken — 
 her honor tarnished — an insult, growing deeper every day, to the 
 United States, which by its blood and treasure bought Cuba's free- 
 dom — whose Navy is Cuba's sole reliance against a foreign foe. 
 Without a navy, without an army, with her forts and defences an- 
 tiquated and entirely useless, with all the antique guns upon their 
 ramparts rusty and worthless, Cuba rests supinely helpless, rely- 
 ing absolutely and entirely upon the treaty promise of the United 
 States to protect her in any case of need. It is well for Cuba that 
 America's promises are not written in the sand, but will be kept in 
 both spirit and letter. Why should Cuba so fail in her duty? 
 
7 
 
 Under the hateful Spanish rule conditions in Havana were oner- 
 ous, and taxes high. Under the brief American administration 
 taxes were reduced to low and entirely reasonable figures and the 
 City kept clean. Under the Cuban regime, however, taxes are now 
 higher than they ever were under Spanish dominion, and the City's 
 care of its streets and markets is growing slack, quite perceptibly. 
 Does the answer lie here? 
 
 But these irritations are lost in the glory of the Sunshine ; the 
 beauties of a land just within the lines of the Tropics ; the quaintly 
 interesting street scenes of Havana, and the countless allurements, 
 enticements and seductive attractions of the "City beautiful." 
 The departing steamer passes swiftly Northward between the Male- 
 con, — the curving boulevard embankment, — and Morro, — the great 
 fortress on the height opposite. We turn our eyes gratefully, wist- 
 fully, longingly to the entrancing picture of sea and city spread be- 
 fore us. Once, in our youth, we stood at midnight by the Trevi 
 fountain at Rome, to observe the ancient tradition that a traveler, 
 on departing, by taking a drink of the water at that hour and 
 casting a coin into the basin would ensure his return to Rome. 
 
 So again we lift the beaker in a vow, (that has been kept,) 
 that we would return to Havana the Beautiful, the City of Sun- 
 shine. 
 
CUBA AND HAVANA 
 
 FROM 
 
 OTHER VIEW-POINTS 
 
11 
 
 HURRYING FROM HAVANA 
 
 By Atherton Brownell 
 [Special Correspondence of the Boston Transcript] 
 
 Havana, March 17, 1906. 
 
 During the present season more than 25,000 American visitors 
 to Havana have registered. How many more there are who have 
 not recorded their presence it is not possible to say. Today there 
 is hardly a pleasure-seeker in Havana who could get passage away 
 from Cuba in the wild scramble for home that has forced steam- 
 ship companies to double their service, and first-class passengers 
 to occupy intermediate staterooms amid the smell of cooking and 
 the yelling of infants, or pay double or treble prices for staterooms 
 of the officers. Had the dreaded yellow fever broken out the rush 
 could scarcely have been worse. Yet there is no yellow fever, no 
 increase in the death rate, no epidemic of illness, nor local fear of 
 such ; the weather is as wonderful, the sky as clear, and the gayety of 
 the natives — always an attraction — as great. Out of this all guests 
 have fled to a climate that in the middle of March possesses possibil- 
 ities for colds in the head, pneumonia, and bronchitis, that are un- 
 known in Cuba. Like the statement of the plague in the fable, "I 
 killed only one-half the people, fear killed the rest." 
 
 And yet this statement is only partly true. The homeward 
 rush of the Cuban visitors previous to March 15 is due to no remote 
 fear of possible disease, but to the desire to avoid the certainty of 
 detention at quarantine at the home ports of all passengers leaving 
 Havana after this date — a date as arbitrarily set as that which de- 
 termines when a New York apartment house janitor shall turn off 
 the steam in the spring whatever the weather conditions may be. 
 That the date for the establishment of the quarantine was this year 
 delayed after the strenuous work of Edmund C. Vaughan, presi- 
 dent of the American Club, only makes the injustice to Cuba the 
 more marked since the announcement of the postponement did not 
 eome until after practically everybody had packed and was ready 
 to depart. 
 
12 
 
 The action of the Southern ports of the United States in estab- 
 lishing with a brass band a quarantine against Havana on March 
 15, rain or shine, is generally credited more to local jealousy than 
 to reasonable sanitary precautions, principally because of the fact 
 that Havana has had no such record for yellow fever as that estab- 
 lished, for instance, by New Orleans last summer, but the loud proc- 
 lamation of the quarantine spreads a fear abroad that is damaging 
 to the highest degree to Havana and to a large extent unjust, for 
 Havana and the other cities of Cuba enjoy a death rate that is low 
 compared with other Southern cities, and surprisingly low consid- 
 ering the well-known lack of as complete sanitary facilities as are 
 commonly thought to be desirable. 
 
 Looking over the vital statistics of Havana, it is to be noted 
 that when all is said there is very little difference between the death 
 rate here and in New York. In the latter city it averages less than 
 twenty to every thousand, while in Havana for the past year it has 
 averaged 20.3. London's low death rate of 14.9 was equalled by 
 Havana during one month last year, and it is worthy to note 
 further that in the month when yellow fever was most prevalent 
 the death rate was the lowest with this single exception. The 
 Louisiana death rate for 1902-3 was : White, 17.91 ; colored, 30.18 ; 
 an average of 24.05. In the entire United States, from July 21 to 
 Dec. 29, 1905, there were 907 deaths from yellow fever, of which 
 460 were in New Orleans. In all the world otherwise there were 
 during this same period 1648 deaths from yellow fever, of which 
 twenty-three were in Havana. 
 
 The charge is made against Havana that it has no sewers, and 
 it is a charge that cannot be escaped. In reply, however, your 
 Havanese points out that his city has a water supply unexcelled 
 elsewhere in the world, and that is as true as his companion state- 
 ment that, even if rents, hotels, food, and clothing are high, you 
 can buy roses for one dollar a dozen. The water supply of Havana 
 is perfect and simple. Thirty-three springs well up from the coral 
 reef that underlies Cuba, and supply the city with 150 gallons per 
 capita every day of the purest water it is possible to find, while 
 little old New York, with its sky-scrapers, its multitudes of faucets, 
 its hotels, its fires, and its great floating population, has to struggle 
 along on ninety gallons a day for each inhabitant. What they do 
 with their 150 gallons in Havana is hard to say. They do not drink 
 
13 
 it. They do not bathe to any great extent. They have few fires, 
 and sanitary plumbing is one of the things to which the natives are 
 not yet educated. 
 
 Yet, in spite of these things, the health of the city is as has 
 been indicated, and the death rate would be decreased by almost 
 one-half if consumption could be exterminated, for it is practically 
 the cause of as many deaths as all other diseases combined. It has 
 often been noted in the Philippines, where the inhabitants are 
 physically weak, that nothing but the warmth of the climate keeps 
 the people alive, but here in Cuba, where the life is so much out of 
 doors, and where the open air has the freest possible access to all 
 the houses, consumption holds the sway, and makes the inroads of 
 the dreaded yellow fever insignificant. The generally assigned 
 cause is that it is a heritage from Spanish rule, a legacy from Gen- 
 eral Weyler, for the results of his reconcentrado policy did not 
 cease with the starvation of the time, but so undermined the physi- 
 cal strength of the nation that consumption remained intrenched, 
 even after the Spaniards had evacuated the city. The quarantine 
 is not against the real and existent consumption, however, but 
 against the more or less fancied fiebre amarilla. 
 
 Throughout Cuba the same anomalous condition presents it- 
 self, of poor sanitary precaution and a comparatively low death 
 rate. Cardenas, for instance, is one of the healthiest cities in Cuba, 
 and yet its water service is, or has been, shamefully neglected. 
 Here the natural supply is perfect — an underground river, which 
 has but to be tapped to pour forth all of the water that is needed. 
 The water works here have long been in the hands of a Spaniard 
 who so unmercifully charged the people for water that it became 
 too great a luxury, and recently he was glad to part with his con- 
 cession to a new company — American, of course — which has already 
 improved the service, and lowered the rates so that the citizens of 
 Cardenas can really bathe if it pleases them so to do. Out of a 
 population of 25,000, there are but 900 users of water, partly be- 
 cause they are slow to move, and partly because the Ayuntamiento, 
 or municipal government, is not sufficiently awake to its manifest 
 duty to create any of the requirements that are demanded in all 
 modern cities. Because of the low death rate the Cubans are per- 
 haps to be excused for feeling some heat at the quarantine regula- 
 tions of the Southern ports of the United States, causing them, as 
 
14 
 
 it does, hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly, in loss of patron- 
 age of their merchants, but until these same Cubans remove the 
 stigma of lack of sewers as in Havana and lack of regulations for 
 the use of water in Cardenas, their complaints will not have full 
 standing in the court of public opinion in the United States. 
 
 Cuba suffers further from the existence of the most harmful 
 advertising that it is possible to create, that of spoken words of 
 disgusted, discouraged, and disheartened fortune-seekers who have 
 been lured here by the glowing literature of unscrupulous land 
 sharks. For the most part these are Americans who have devoted 
 a small capital to the purchase of worthless lands or have acquired 
 them by option and have then invested heavily in printer's ink 
 to attract the discontented farmers of the North with their word- 
 painting of the charms and delights of farming in the semi-tropics. 
 Some of these fakes have been unconscionable in their boldness, 
 in one case the advertisement reading ' ' first-class savannah lands. ' ' 
 Now the word "savannah" has a definite meaning, it comes from 
 the Spanish "sabana," which means "a large plain covered with 
 snow," but snow in Cuba becomes water, and "savannah" becomes 
 a swamp. That is what purchasers bought. The story of La Gloria 
 is too well known. Today this colony is wrestling victory from de- 
 feat, but in Bahia Honda the lands thus acquired are being aban- 
 doned or given away, while household goods, the last earthly pos- 
 sessions, are being sold to enable the unfortunate colonists to get 
 away from their disastrous investments. 
 
 There are many cases of these swindles in Cuba, just as there 
 is much land that is worthless. The golden tales of rich soil that 
 will produce perpetual crops are not myths, nor yet are they uni- 
 versally true. The story of the colonies of Cuba will tell of many 
 happy and contented settlers, and of many who have invested in 
 fruit or cane lands with responsible holders and development com- 
 panies where transportation facilities are adequate, where the capi- 
 tal is at hand for the erection of sawmills, refrigerating plants, 
 schools, and the like, and this phase is the pleasant one. I have 
 seen twenty-five feet of all alluvial soil so rich that it is almost fer- 
 tilizer in itself, and orange trees two and three years old that were 
 producing fruit that was the equal of that from trees four and five 
 years old in Florida and California. Still, one of the leading cul- 
 tivators, George Gillette of the Development Company of Cuba, 
 
IS 
 
 is responsible for the statement: ''Let no farmer come to Cuba 
 thinking that he will meet no difficulties. The soil is here and the 
 climate is here, but for every obstacle he met at home he will meet 
 ten here. This soil is rich — the richest in the world — and it will 
 not yield up its riches without a fierce struggle. When it does yield 
 the reward is great." 
 
 Along with the swindles of the sale of bad lands there have 
 been the swindles of land titles, so that the occupant who has strug- 
 gled with the soil and is beginning to see his reward suddenly finds 
 that he is not the owner of the property for which he has paid. In 
 popular estimation, therefore, Cuban land titles are in bad favor. 
 A very careful examination of this situation leads to the conclusion 
 that the fault lies, not with the Cuban system of registry, either in 
 theory or in practice, but with the purchaser. It is useless to throw 
 the blame and responsibility wholly upon the unscrupulous seller, 
 whether Cuban, Spaniard or American, who may be a squatter 
 merely, or one who holds the land only on an option. One cannot 
 easily fancy the purchaser of land in the United States taking 
 nothing but the would-be seller's word for the fact that his deed or 
 lease would be good, and not following with a legal examination of 
 title. It is almost unbelievable, therefore, that in countless in- 
 stances of the purchase of Cuban lands, from ignorance or 
 carelessness, there has been no proper examination of title, and 
 many losses have occurred thereby. There is one case that has 
 come to be almost a cause celebre of a young American who leased 
 certain grazing lands, imported herds and turned them loose upon 
 what he supposed to be his ranges, only to awake one morning to 
 find himself and 35,000 head roaming wild, having been evicted 
 "without process of law." The case is now in the United States 
 Senate for some unaccountable reason, and entirely because there 
 was no examination of the lessor 's right to lease. 
 
 It is not to be supposed for a moment that such men as the 
 Havemeyers, the Tobacco Trust directors and others would have 
 placed millions of their hard-earned dollars in lands that were 
 either worthless or of doubtful title, still the cry can be heard, in 
 reply to which there is one obvious admonition, that reasonable in- 
 vestigation and precaution are necessary, and that the main secu- 
 rity lies only in connection with established and reputable interests. 
 
16 
 
 CUBA, LAND OF SUGAR AND SPENDTHRIFTS 
 
 To The New York Herald : The economic situation in Cuba 
 is fundamentally as sound as ever. There is no doubt that the 
 paralyzed condition prevailing here at this time is purely mon- 
 etary and political and is in no way linked or identified with Cuba's 
 basic ability to produce sugar cheaply. 
 
 In the production of sugar Porto Rico is not a formidable com- 
 petitor. In the first place her total production is only about 
 450,000 tons, or not enough to supply the entire United States for 
 six weeks. Besides, Porto Rico can never compete without some 
 stimulation in the form of a protective tariff, as her lands do not 
 yield the large output of the Cuban soil and have to be replanted 
 approximately every two and a half years even when highly fer- 
 tilized. In Cuba cane is grown and cut from the same plant for 
 twenty years without fertilization. 
 
 Hawaii produces about 500,000 tons, which is only another six 
 weeks' ration for the United States. 
 
 Cuba's real competition comes from Java, which at this time 
 last year had delivered into the United States over 880,000 tons of 
 sugar. The very lowest figure at which Java could put sugar on 
 an American dock is about 4.75 cents a pound, the total being ap- 
 portioned as follows : 
 
 Cost and freight 2.75 cents 
 
 Duty — ,„2.00 cents 
 
 Total ..._ - ™ ....4.75 cents 
 
 The Cuban planter, economically situated, could meet this 
 price and make a profit of 20 per cent. 
 
 As to the monetary situation to which I have referred, the 
 Cuban is always in the pawnshop and needing money, but in these 
 times his collateral has gone and the bankers are faced with this 
 problem, as one of them clearly put it the other night: Suppose 
 you own a pawnshop and a man comes to you and says: "Here's 
 my watch, lend me some money." In a few days more he says, 
 "Here's my ring," and gets some more money on that. A few 
 
17 
 days later all his belongings are brought into the pawnshop and 
 money is raised on them. He still needs more money, but he has no 
 more collateral. Some day you look out of the window of your 
 pawnshop and you see this man in a torn and tattered undershirt 
 with all his collateral gone. What would you, as a banker, do in 
 that case ? 
 
 This is the situation as it exists today in Cuba. All the spend- 
 ing of money which one sees in the streets is done on credit. It 
 is a common joke in town that the banks have more paper in 
 "pagares" (promissory notes) than they have in money. But this 
 is temporary, and if Cuba can pass this crisis she will be down to 
 a manufacturing cost against which no nation or people in the 
 world can compete or have ever been able to compete. 
 
 Less than twenty-five years ago I saw cane carts full of good 
 cane being drawn by three or four teams of oxen on their way to 
 the mills to have the cane converted into sugar. The price of sugar 
 was one and seven-eighths cents a pound, cost and freight to New 
 York. How the men were paid, the carts built, the oxen obtained 
 I don't know, but they were. 
 
 At that time the sugar planters did not have the fine machinery 
 they now have and they were losing as high as 10 per cent of the 
 sugar in the cane. Today they lose 1.4 per cent, or less, due to im- 
 proved methods. And the marvellous sun and soil of Cuba are 
 still there. But we must get down our manufacturing costs. 
 Empty bags are now sold at 12 cents each as compared with 60 cents 
 last year. Freights, labor, food — all must come down. Once re- 
 stored to normal Cuba will show the world once more that no spot 
 on this planet can compete with her in the production of sugar. 
 
 Last season I saw a young negro who had just received $50 as 
 a cane cutter for work of probably two weeks. He wore patent 
 leather shoes, white flannel trousers, a straw hat with a silk band 
 and a gold ring and stick pin. With his $50 he bought at the plan- 
 tation store ten silk ties at $3 each and two bottles of perfume at 
 $10 a bottle. 
 
 Another instance of some of the past economic errors of Cuba 
 came to my attention during one of my long horseback rides 
 through the interior. 
 
 About noon one day we came to a little hut with an earthen 
 floor. The occupants were a man of about 50 and his wife and 
 
18 
 
 My companion and myself asked for a little coffee, intending 
 to proceed on our journey afterward; but in the truly delightful 
 manner of the Cuban guajiro (farmer) he insisted on our dis- 
 mounting and entering his hut. The family had just had their 
 almuerzo (noon meal) ; and on the rough nailed boards constitut- 
 ing the dining table were a package of cut sugar from Brooklyn, 
 two empty cans of the finest boneless French sardines in olive oil, 
 empty cans of breast of chicken, three empty cans of California 
 giant asparagus, two glass jars of costly American bacon and a 
 tin of golden rusks. These things are expensive enough in any 
 big city in the United States, but to find them in the interior of 
 the island of Cuba means that they cost the consumer about three 
 times the original American retail price. 
 
 After coffee the farmer said he would accompany us to the 
 town, about eight miles away, and begged a minute or two delay 
 while he chased round and caught a pig. He tied its legs with 
 heavy cord (made in the United States), lifted it on his saddle 
 (made in the United States) and so joined us for the journey to the 
 town store. 
 
 This man carried the pig to the store and sold it for cash, and 
 with this cash, in the same store, he loaded his saddle bags with tins 
 of sausages made in Chicago, tins of lard, rice, more bacon in glass 
 jars, ink fish in cans, pate de foies gras, French peas and pre- 
 served California fruits. 
 
 This is only one instance of the economic errors of the people 
 and for which they are now paying the piper. But this man still 
 has his wonderful land and still grows his rich cane. All he asks 
 for now is the money to pay his laborers so as to harvest the cane 
 and keep the fields clean of weeds. 
 
 During the recent high prices of sugar conditions in Havana 
 reflected the opulence of sugar farmers. They poured into the 
 city, where some of them walked on sidewalks for the first time in 
 their lives. Their pockets were full of gold and their heads devoid 
 of any sane methods of handling it. 
 
 They bought high priced American and foreign automobiles 
 and paid liveried chauffeurs their own price to drive them — with 
 gasolene at 54 cents a gallon. 
 
 A farmer entered the largest diamond store in Havana. He 
 was wearing the typical Panama hat of the country folks ; the rest 
 
19 
 
 of his costume was a blue shirt with pockets like a coat and with 
 the tails outside his trousers, a stiff starched pair of crude linen 
 trousers creased down the sides, and a pair of screaming new yel- 
 low shoes which squeaked at every step of his stockingless feet. He 
 said to the attendant: "I have no jewelry of any kind, and I want 
 to get fixed up. ' ' 
 
 He selected a jewelled gold watch, a pearl and platinum chain, 
 two handsome Oriental sapphire and diamond rings, a beautiful 
 pearl and diamond scarf pin and a gold and diamond cigarette 
 case. 
 
 "Well, Chico, how much is all this?" The clerk figured and 
 replied, "$10,500." 
 
 The farmer looked at his purchases again and said: "Well, all 
 right, but put in about $4,500 more and then I '11 be all right. 
 
 That farmer is back now on the farm. He is eating rice and 
 beans and working eighteen hours a day. His lands are produc- 
 ing the same old 1,000 tons of cane a caballeria, and instead of pay- 
 ing his cane cutters $7.50 to $10 a day he is promising them $1 a 
 day and their food. 
 
 The farmer can keep this up as long as he has the rice and 
 beans, but our bankers and politicians must see that his supplies 
 do not stop, otherwise his fields will grow full of weeds and instead 
 of producing 1,000 tons of cane a caballeria of land he will be pro- 
 ducing only 100 tons, and that will soon reflect itself in Cuba's 
 ability to produce sugar at low prices. 
 
 If this is neglected $600,000,000 of American capital now in- 
 vested in the sugar industry in Cuba will be partially or totally 
 lost. 
 
 ALFRED J. THOMPSON. 
 
 Havana, Cuba, June 25, 1921 
 
♦ 
 
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