"Loot The Palace!"

A dead city, hushed by the terror of a brutal massacre, was the capital of Cuba last week. Eight years of steadily increased repression had culminated in an ominous, apprehensive silence. The shutters and doors of Havana were bolted, the streets deserted save for soldiers patrolling and police squads riding around in cars. "The Tyrant," paunchy, pock-faced President Gerardo Machado y Morales, had proclaimed "a state of war" in his effort to break his countrymen's general strike against his regime. It had spread throughout the island in all businesses and professions (TIME, Aug. 14). Food was hard to get. The capital was more completely paralyzed every day as fewer and fewer shopkeepers opened their doors. The dreaded Porra, President Machado's secret terror squads, odious for their savage murders, boasted of the massacres early in the week when hundreds of joyous citizens, shouting a false rumor "Machado is out!" rushed prematurely toward the Presidential Palace where scores were quickly mowed down by a merciless fusillade.

Emphatically President Machado was still Dictator. Only in the person of crisp, calm, young U. S. Ambassador Sumner Welles did terrified Cubans see hope of reviving their paralyzed capital. President Roosevelt had sent Mr. Welles to Havana to "mediate" when Machado tyranny became too obvious (TIME, May 15). He was known to be conferring with members of all parties. Army officers had sought him out.

When President Machado flatly refused to treat with Mediator Welles, the Army officers knew it was for them to decide Cuba's fate. While the President slept, they discussed his obduracy, saw that they must either draw more of their countrymen's blood to uphold Machado, or depose him. Early Friday afternoon, Battalion No. 1 of the Cabana Fortress was first to train its guns upon the $2,000,000 Presidential Palace of Carrara marble, decorated by Manhattan's Tiffany Studios. The guns did not fire, but soon Castillo de la Real Fuerza and all other Havana garrisons aimed their guns at the Palace's dome of yellow glazed tile. Subordinate officers told sly, grandfatherly little War Minister General Alberto Herrera that he must tell President Machado to resign. When the War Minister refused he was arrested, forced to promise "on my word of honor as a Cuban, an officer and a gentleman" that he would beard the President.

In his Palace, despite the menace of the guns, President Machado could not believe that his Army & Navy--well paid while other Cuban Government employes have gone unpaid for months--had turned against him. He ordered his car, ordered War Minister Herrera into it, set off guarded by a machine gun squad to talk to the rebellious officers, who had gathered outside Havana at Camp Columbia. Promises, threats and a storm of rage from President Machado produced no result. The officers stood sullen until finally Lieut.-Colonel Julio Sanguilly, Chief of Aviation at Camp Columbia, spoke: "With all respect, General Machado, you must resign before noon tomorrow!" Other officers plucked up courage, made the same demand.

"All right, my boys!" the President suddenly exclaimed. "I'll resign." He dashed back to the Palace, drove next morning out of Havana to his estate. Through Havana spread the electrifying word: "Machado is through! Loot the Palace!"

Plunder & Death, Cautiously at first, then rapidly, joyously, riotously Havana's streets became full. With no soldiers to stop them this time, a swelling mob burst into the Palace, smashing, ransacking, pillaging "I've got Machado's sheets!" screamed a negress. Other mobsters tore the mosquito netting from the President's bed. Smarter thieves stole silverware and fine porcelain. The Presidential water filter attracted one patriot who wheeled it drunkenly away. Others threw avocados and oranges at tapestries and paintings. The sidewalks outside were littered ankle-deep with debris hurled from the windows.

Amid storms of laughter signs were hung on the Palace door reading "Vacant" and "For Rent." Thousands of mobsters, unable to crowd indoors, tore up palm fronds in the Palace gardens, marched off waving them in triumph. Some stopped at the U. S. Embassy to cheer Ambassador Welles who promised "continued mediation " declared that "Cubans are solving their own problems," begged for "control and calm."

By this time Cubans who had felt the clutches of the Porra, who had languished in slimy jails or knew that the Porra had murdered a friend or relative, started a wild manhunt through the streets of Havana to slay and trample every Porrista they could catch. Frenzy grew maddest when Colonel Antonio Jiminez, dread Chief of the Porra, was sighted on the Prado. "There's Jiminez! It's Jiminez, the Porrista! Kill him!"

Dodging behind a lamp post, Colonel Jiminez whipped out his pistol and fired into the crowd, wounding two civilians just as soldiers commanded by Lieut. Rogerio Perez Villalon dashed up in a motor car. Doubling back for refuge toward a drugstore, Colonel Jiminez found it closed (by the strike). He crawled in desperation under a stone bench on the Prado. Two Porristas who bravely sought to rescue their leader were killed by the soldiers' fusillade. Lieut. Villalon drew his pistol, warily approached the bench. Standing his ground, he shot it out with Jiminez until the latter fell on his side, mortally wounded. The watching mob closed in.

One man brought a rope. He wanted to hitch Jiminez' legs to a motor car and drag him through the streets. "No! No!" commanded Lieut. Villalon. "Let him lie in the streets like an animal!" The dying man stared up at them. They kicked and fouled his corpse after he went limp.

Bars served free drinks. Tipsy citizens cried "Whoopee!" in U. S. fashion as more Porristas (50 in all last week) were shot down, trampled and mangled by the crowds, dragged away by soldiers.

General looting began when the offices of the Heraldo de Cuba, long the leading Machado news organ, were stormed by a crowd so reckless that typewriters, swivel chairs and even desks were tossed out of windows, injuring mobsters in many cases. After wrecking Heraldo de Cuba's presses and setting fire to the building, exultant citizens stormed the residential quarter of Havana, sacking mansion after mansion, wrecking automobiles and stealing everything movable from the house of Secretary of State Orestes Ferrara. Signs marking General Machado Avenue were torn down for a distance of three miles, the imposing Machado Monument was destroyed by patriots with crowbars. Meanwhile where was Machado? Who was President?

Gold Dollars & Cespedes. Congress did not meet until evening to designate a Provisional President but at 2 p. m. (while looting in Havana was at its worst) Sr. Machado and four aides arrived at General Machado Airport, 15 mi. outside the city. They chartered an amphibian plane but officials refused to let it take off until they obtained authority from the Cuban War Department--which took an hour and a half, during which Sr. Machado seemed calm, his entourage nervous. At 3:32 p. m. the amphibian roared away. That evening it came down in the lee of Andros Island in the Bahamas. The refugees spent the night aboard, next day flying on to Nassau. There Machado, haggard in his crumpled white linen suit (he had had no time to pack even a suitcase), led his party to the sumptuous, somnolent Royal Victoria Hotel. He ordered tea, whiskey, a bath and a tailor. "I am glad I am with English people," he said. "England understands trouble and my relations with England were always good. I expect to sleep most of the day." Britons thought it possible he might sleep well, since Sr. Machado is reported to have a personal deposit with the Bank of England of 500,000 gold dollars. Senora Elvira Machado --estranged from her husband for the past five years--was escorted with other members of the fallen Dictator's family to his gunboat-yacht, the Juan B. Zayas, which carried them safely to Key West.

Fleeing Havana by the regular "Yankee Clipper" plane of the Pan American Airways, frightened Cuban Secretary of State Orestes Ferrara & wife were fired at by mobsters who put several bullets into the plane but did no serious damage. On landing at Miami, Dr. Ferrara was jeered by members of the local Cuban revolutionary Junta one of whom challenged him to duel. Having fought eleven duels, Dr. Ferrara was about to accept when a U. S. policeman intervened.

"Ambassador Welles offered me a refuge in the United States." said Dr. Ferrara. "I leave criticism of Welles's policy in Cuba to History."

Meanwhile in Havana the Congress, closely guarded by 300 soldiers, had accepted from War Minister Herrera resignations signed by Sr. Machado and other members of his Cabinet which had the effect of making General Herrera for about 30 minutes the Provisional President. Not acceptable to Ambassador Welles or to the Cuban army officers who had staged the coup d'etat, General Herrera waited only for Congress to rush through a bill permitting him to hand the Provisional Presidency over to a "civilian neutral" and retired Cuban diplomat, quiet, scholarly, short-statured Carlos Manuel de Cespedes (pronounced "Sess-pay-dess").

Aristocratic Dr. Cespedes will serve only as a stop-gap President. The regular Cuban Presidential election is scheduled for next year. His name is popular in Cuba because his father, also Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, headed a brief revolutionary regime in 1868 (30 years before the U. S. helped Cuba to win independence from Spain) and has been called "the Cuban George Washington." His family were forced to flee Cuba after the revolt and Dr. Cespedes was born in New York just 62 years ago last week. Popular in Washington from 1914 to 1922 as Minister of Cuba, he knew Franklin Delano Roosevelt well as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. In 1925 during President Machado's first (and happier) term, Dr. Cespedes served briefly as Cuban Secretary of State, resigned for private reasons. Though a member of the Machado Liberal Party he was acceptable to all Cuban groups last week chiefly because in recent years he has held rigorously aloof from Cuban politics.

Since no public building seemed a safe place to inaugurate Provisional President de Cespedes he gave an inaugural garden party at 9:30 a. m. on the wide terrace of his handsome house. Flashing-eyed Cuban ladies embraced each other and their escorts with patriotic fervor as eight judges of the Cuban Supreme Court arrived majestically in their black robes. No foreign envoy, not even U. S. Ambassador Welles, was present. Amid sizzling heat Dr. Cespedes. perspiring in formal morning clothes, took this brief oath: "I swear faithfully to fulfill the duties of President of the Republic and enforce the Constitution and the laws!" Going inside from the garden terrace he signed the oath, exclaiming as he laid down his pen, "Viva la Republica Libre!"

Significant Battleships. Directly after his inaugural Provisional President de Cespedes, still sweating profusely, changed into a suit of white linen, enlivened by glistening tan shoes and an orange-striped shirt. "The people of Cuba desired the re-establishment of normal conditions," he told U. S. correspondents in perfect English, "and they acted almost unanimously in the quick, effective manner necessary to their aim."

The Provisional President went into action not by appointing a Cabinet, which he delayed, but by receiving Mediator Sumner Welles at 11:30 a. m. and twice thereafter during the day. Disorder still reigned in Havana with soldiers and armed members of the A B C (secret-anti-Machado organization) hunting members of the Porra from house to house, killing them brutally when found. In some instances "mercy" was shown, as to Porrista Carlos Souto: he begged and was permitted to shoot himself. Four police officers were seized, lodged in the Central Police Station. ABC members gave them each a pistol containing one bullet each, told them they might shoot themselves by 3 p. m. or be turned out. For an hour expectant crowds packed the sidewalks. As they waited listening for the four shots their bloodlust cooled. At 3 p. m. the four policemen, who still had not shot themselves, were driven off in a patrol wagon to Cabana Fortress. Meanwhile mobsters were on their wav out to the Machado estate where they butchered prize cattle, held a barbecue. Havana continued in turmoil.

By nightfall the new Government, consisting as yet only of Dr. de Cespedes, wanted some prop more stable than Cuban soldiers, many of whom were frankly on the loose. Ambassador Welles, constantly in telephonic touch with President Roosevelt, abruptly announced that three U. S. destroyers were steaming full speed for Cuba. With relief Provisional President de Cespedes cried, "The order of President Roosevelt sending three American naval ships to Cuba for the protection of American lives and property was issued with my full knowledge and approval. It carries no implication of intervention."

Two-edged Amendment In Washington harassed State Department officials sighed with relief at this statement which, they hoped, would check any Latin-American tendency to charge the U. S. with again intervening in Cuba under the Platt Amendment. In 1901 the U. S. Senate tacked onto the U. S. Army Appropriation Bill an amendment, later incorporated into the Cuban Constitution, providing that "the Government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence" or for "the maintenance of a Government adequate for the protection of life, property and individual liberty" in Cuba. Written originally as fire insurance, this amendment became two-edged. In the hands of a tyrant it could be brandished as a weapon and up to last week attempts to overthrow corrupt Cuban Presidents had uniformly failed.

Most Cubans were abed when at 1:35 a. m. the U. S. destroyers Claxton and Taylor nosed discreetly into Havana harbor. They had dashed over from Key West. From Balboa the destroyers Sturtevant and Overton steamed full speed for Cuba and the U. S. Navy Department announced that eight more destroyers and two cruisers were ready to follow. Of these the largest was the brand new cruiser Indianapolis mounting 8-in. guns, on which President Roosevelt cruised last month.

New Sugar Deal? Discussing Cuba with White House correspondents, President Roosevelt minimized the Cuban general strike and the Army coup d'etat. He emphasized the Congressional procedure by which Dr. de Cespedes became Provisional President, and that "the change was in entire accord with the Constitution and laws."

President Roosevelt showed his clear perception that Cuba's troubles, superficially political, actually spring from an economic misery rooted chiefly in the low price of sugar. To supply the Allies with sugar during the War, Cuba became virtually a one-crop country, suffered terrific hardship when the sugar boom collapsed. In 1924 Conservatives and Liberals united to elect Gerardo Machado who was hailed as a "businessman President" much as was Herbert Hoover later. President Machado has cooperated actively in the Chadbourne Plan of world sugar crop restriction, but with U. S. tariffs soaring higher and higher against Cuban sugar the business of government in Havana became more and more that of preserving order among an impoverished and rebellious people by methods increasingly brutal. What Cuba needs, if her problems are to be solved realistically, is a new sugar deal from Washington.

Last week U. S. Secretary of State Hull inspired despatches to the effect that he believes Cuba has been economically choked by the U. S. tariff policy of recent years. As the London Conference proved, Mr. Hull's tariff-slashing ideas are broadly disapproved by his chief, but in the case of Cuba and her sugar, special exceptions might be made. Cautiously the President let it be known that he favors a "New Deal" for Cuba on somewhat these lines:

1) Return of Cuba to a multi-crop system with peons now employed on the large sugar and tobacco plantations being established on smaller farms where they could produce their own sustenance in case of need.

2) Establishment of a regional sugar control agreement to give Cuba a fairer share of the U. S. market.

3) Negotiations with the Cuban Government both as to reciprocal tariff favors and the protection of U. S. investors who now have in Cuba a partially frozen stake exceeding $1,000,000,000.

"Corruption probably is the chief cause of the trouble in Cuba," said Nevada's Key Pittman, Chairman of the U. S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, returning last week from the London Conference. "If the United States should intervene I think other nations would understand." After conferring with the President, Senator Pittman amended: "I expect our warships back soon. The Monroe Doctrine is a thorn in the side of South American nations."

New Cabinet. Not until the morning after Provisional President de Cespedes' inauguration did Cubans end their general strike. Tramcars clanged again, busses rattled, milk wagons resumed their rounds, markets opened and storekeepers finally raised their steel shutters. After a conference with Ambassador Welles, the Provisional President formed a partial Cabinet, with no Secretary of State. Triumphant members of the ABC, the secret anti-Machado cabal formed three years ago to combat the Porra, received four Cabinet posts, with Dr. Joaquin Martinez Saenz, chief of the A B C, as Secretary of the Treasury.

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