War for Machado

The members of the Havana Yacht Club, the waiters, cooks and hall porters eyed each other bitterly last week.

"Judas!" they hissed at each other. "Judas!"

The Yacht Club has been a hotbed of anti-Machado intrigue ever since a member of Dictator Machado's Cabinet was snubbed by a Yacht Club member last December and President Gerardo Machado, El Gallo ("The Rooster"), pad locked the clubhouse in retaliation. Fort night ago Julio Cadena's yacht Coral slipped away from the yacht club pier with Cuba's onetime President, bearded Mario Garcia Menocal on board, also Colonel Carlos Mendieta and a shipload of other insurgents. Their plan was to go down the coast, land, take charge of revo lutionary forces that had already taken the field, sweep into Havana in triumph. There was some traitor in the club. The Coral was scarcely free of the pier before Cuban gunboats started in pursuit. Seventeen men, including onetime President Menocal's two brothers Fausto and Guatimon slipped ashore to sidetrack the pursuers. They were promptly arrested and clapped into Cabana fortress. The Coral disappeared in the direction of Cuba's western tip, Pinar del Rio. Three days later the puffing gunboat Baire found the yacht loafing along the coast. It was captured without a shot. A crew of three sailors were on board who knew nothing, had seen nothing. They were brought back as prisoners in high good humor.

Wherever the two leaders were, revolution did not wait for them. From Pinar del Rio to Oriente violence broke out all over the island. There was skirmishing outside Santiago de Cuba (centre of U. S. action in the Spanish-American War, see map), at Artemisa, Sancti Spiritus, Sierra Morena. The Machado Government issued a slightly contradictory bulletin to say that the situation was well in hand but that fighting had broken out at 49 points.

At Tacomino just outside Havana, insurgents swooped down, burned the telegraph station, killed ten soldiers, kidnapped 15 more.

At Ceja del Negro, Government troops accounted for 15 of the enemy.

At Artemisa in Pinar del Rio eight young student insurrectos were ambushed by Government troops.

Rebels made a grand raid on Santa Clara city, seized food and stores, killed 30 men, then withdrew to the mountains. Santa Clara is the heart of the sugar district. With sugar at 2-c- a pound it is now the heart of unemployment and hunger. The province gave the anti-Machado leaders their fiercest recruits. President Machado rushed there from Havana to take charge of operations and keep an eye on his own generals to be sure that none of them went over to the rebels.

Nesbitt E. Allen, U. S. citizen, rancher of Santa Clara province, put in the first claim for damages. Insurrectos had swept down on him, seized his horses, provisions and a stock of dynamite he kept for stone quarrying. Nesbitt E. Allen added it all up and forwarded a bill to President Machado for $5,257.

At Yateras, Oriente Province, a band of insurrectos galloped into town, raided a cafe, stole all the liquor and provisions, smashed the crockery, rode away.

Oldtime newshawks grinned reminiscently as the week progressed. Day by day the revolution seemed to be following the "Cuba Libre" insurrection of 1895 which led to the blowing up of the Maine and U. S. intervention. Last week, as in 1895, the insurrectos were split up into dozens of little bands, raiding, ambushing, running away to raid again somewhere else. Last week as in 1895 a stiff press censorship was clamped down on war news. Foreign correspondents were not allowed to leave Havana and spent their time like the late Richard Harding Davis collecting news from cafe tables on O'Reilly St.

In the U. S., of the great figures of the Spanish-American War only William Randolph Hearst, who headlined the country into war, and the Lindbergh of 1898, Richmond Pearson Hobson who sank the Merrimac in the mouth of Santiago harbor, are alive (Hero Hobson is now a Prohibition and antinarcotic lecturer-- TIME, March 2). All the others-- Roosevelt, Dewey, Shafter, Leonard Wood, Sampson. Schley, even Col. William Jennings Bryan of the Nebraska Volunteers --have died. Cuban revolutionists live longer. President Machado, General Menocal and Colonel Mendieta are all veterans of Cuba's War of Independence. Even Cosme de la Torriente, Cuba's grave member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, suddenly remembered his youth as an officer under Garcia and wrote violent articles last week, throwing his lot in with the new insurrectos.

Death of a Warrior. It was a last revolution for one old fighter, General Francisco Peraza. Even 1895 was no novelty for intrepid General Peraza, who was then 44 years old. He was a 17-year-old "Colonel" in the first war for independence in 1868. He fought through the Spanish-American War as a General. In 1917 he buckled on his ancient horse pistol and went out as a rebel against President Menocal. For this revolution he had made peace with Menocal and joined his forces, partly through a mutual hatred of Machado the Rooster, and partly because --Que Diablo!--a good revolution doesn't come every day. Federal troops cornered the white-haired old warrior near Los Palacios in Pinar del Rio. He escaped to the hills on horseback with 22 followers. Again there was a traitor. The Federals followed to Peraza's secret camp on Toro Hill. There was a rush, a rattle of musketry. Ten were shot where they lay, ten were captured, two escaped. The old man reached for his rifle and fell with three bullets in him. So rough was the trail that it took 18 hours to carry the old fighter's body five miles to the nearest village. Up and down the length of Cuba went another story. General Peraza, veteran of four wars, had been killed by one of his own men.

Machado & Menocal, U. S. liberals were perfectly willing to believe the worst about President Machado. The stories of political assassination, university closings, press gagging, lack of personal liberty have been repeated too often and with too much circumstance to be denied. Then there is the shark chute of Cabana fortress. A cement garbage slide exists in the old fort leading to the waters of the harbor. Ever since Spanish times political prisoners are supposed to have been thrown down this slide, fed to the sharks of the harbor. Only one case ever approximated verification. Two years ago Labor Leader Claude Bruzon was a political prisoner in the fortress and disappeared. When a fisherman in the harbor found an arm identified later as Bruzon's. inside a shark, the Machado Government forbade all shark fishing in the harbor (TIME, March 11, 1929).

These things may be true, but on the other hand President Machado has run the finances of his troubled country with apparent honesty and he has performed one great national service: he has built a motor road 715 miles long from one end of the island to the other, a road that was one of his strongest weapons in fighting revolution last week.

There is nothing to show that bearded General Menocal would be any better. Affable, cultivated, an aristocrat and great sugar planter, he was Cuba's President during the War, during her years of greatest prosperity. In his time he was accused of all the things he charges against Gerardo Machado. A revolution against him was put down only when the U. S. threatened intervention.

Rebel Miguel Mariano Gomez is even more of a broken reed. He was a loyal Machadan and Mayor of Havana until Machado abolished the Mayoralty six months ago by making Havana a Federal district. Shortly thereafter someone attempted to drop a bomb into President Machado's bathroom. There was plenty of evidence pointing to ex-Mayor Gomez as the instigator.

Capture. At the week's end came a story to blight the exuberance of the revolutionists. Menocal & Mendieta had indeed been captured. They had landed from the yacht Coral near the tip of Pinar del Rio. Federals were in the district. Airplanes zoomed overhead. For days they hid in the swamps along the riverbeds while loyal troops came closer and closer. Lieutenant Urrutia of the gunboat Fernandez Quevedo was searching the dense shores of Guadiana Bay in a launch. Suddenly round a bend he came on an old charcoal barge. On it were General Menocal, Colonel Mendieta, Julio Cadena, owner of the Coral and a few followers. Senor Cadena leaped in front of his chief with drawn revolver, but the bearded General brushed him aside. "Put up your revolver, amigo, it's no use."

This was foxy Machado's greatest victory, and he brought back his prisoners in triumph. The Fernandez Quevedo came into Havana harbor early in the morning. Photographers and newsreel men were there on orders to take the prisoners pictures, broadcast them to the villages where the insurrectos still held out. There was no hint of the shark slide for the captured leaders. On the contrary a great show of courtesy was made--the duration of which would doubtless match the duration of the revolt. Havana regarded Machado's triumph sourly. There were no cheers, there were no crowds. General Menocal stepped ashore first, gaunt, his beard (which makes him look so much like Brig.-Gen. Cornelius Vanderbilt) untrimmed. his clothes torn and soiled. Yet he held his shoulders square, marched with head high past the clicking cameras. Fat old Carlos Mendieta. one eye swollen shut, slumped behind him, a dirty yellow slicker drooping from his shoulders, a shapeless felt hat squashed on his head. Just as he approached the waiting automobile he looked up with bleary eyes and delivered himself of one complete, soul-satisfying expletive. "Carrrajo!" swore Colonel Mendieta and drove off to jail.

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