An Amendment's End

One afternoon last week U. S. Ambassador Jefferson Caffery left the front door of his Embassy in Havana and walked down the street in his cutaway and high hat--nonchalantly as became a diplomat. He proceeded straight to the door of the Presidential Palace where, as he arrived, a band on the terrace played "The Star Spangled Banner" and "El himno bayames." Marching inside while the guns of Cabanas Fortress across the bay boomed a 21-gun salute, he received profuse protestations of pleasure from President Carlos Mendieta y Montefur. There was bravery in Ambassador Caffery's walk from the Embassy because he had no certainty that he would reach the palace alive.

Only three days before, at the hour that Ambassador Caffery was due to leave for church, a motor car drove past his home and its occupants fired a fusillade, mortally wounding one military guard. Next day the automobile of First Secretary H. Freeman Matthews was assaulted only a short distance from the Caffery residence, but Secretary Matthews was not in it. All Havana seemed to be seething with anti-U. S. feeling and the assassination of the U. S. Ambassador would have been welcomed by many.

Ambassador Caffery was required to take his risky stroll because at that very hour in Washington the U. S. was making over its diplomatic relations with Cuba. At the State Department, Secretary Hull and Dr. Manuel Marquez Sterling, Cuba's Ambassador, were signing a treaty to replace the fundamental compact made between the U. S. and Cuba in 1903. The new agreement omitted the famed "Platt Amendment."

There are no amendments to a treaty, but in 1901, after Cuba had been freed from Spain and pacified by U. S. arms, Senator Orville H. Platt* of Connecticut succeeded in having an amendment attached to that year's Army appropriation bill. On the strength of that amendment the following terms were written into the treaty later made with the new Republic of Cuba:

1) Cuba should be forbidden to enter into any treaty with any other nation that would tend to impair her independence.

2) Cuba should not contract any debts which she could not service out of her ordinary revenues.

3) The U. S. should have the right to intervene in Cuba at any time to preserve Cuban independence or U. S. life and property.

4) Cuba should maintain proper sanitation to control all epidemics.

The other articles granted the U. S. the right to maintain a naval base in Cuba, and approved the legality of all acts of the U. S. Army in Cuba during the Spanish War. These two articles of the 1903 pact were all that were retained in the treaty of 1934.

When the signatures were on paper and red wax seals affixed. Ambassador Sterling excitedly exclaimed : "At the solemn moment when the Republic of Cuba was proclaimed in 1902, a famous leader and great American tribune of the people who was present/- when the glorious flag of his country was lowered in order that the flag of our independence might be raised, felt himself overcome by profound emotion and said to the Cuban patriots around him: 'It is better that the Stars and Stripes should be indelibly impressed upon your heart, than that they should float above your heads.' My country is persuaded by long and hard experience that those treaties are always fruitful and lasting which, like the Stars and Stripes, are indelibly imprinted in our hearts and create an undying bond of gratitude and confidence."

Well might Dr. Sterling grow enthusiastic. He had fought a long fight for Cuba's liberty. Born at Lima, Peru of an old Spanish family (the Sterlings traced back to an ancestral Scotsman who settled in Spain three centuries ago), he went in his 20's to help Cuba fight for freedom. In 1901 as a young journalist he was a member of a delegation that arrived in Washington to protest to Secretary of War Elihu Root against the Platt Amendment. The protest was in vain.

Young Dr. Sterling went back to Havana, became one of its leading citizens, represented his adopted country in Brazil, Peru and Mexico. While Ambassador to Mexico (1929-32) he grew disgusted with the Machado regime, finally denounced it, and went to Washington to live with his son. There he became well known for his snuff-colored suits and the atomizer he carried for colds and hay fever.

Last August his hour came. Machado fell. Dr. Sterling was made Cuban Ambassador to Washington. In the Embassy on 16th Street his trials began. With the first cold snap, he found the Embassy furnace would not work. He sat by a grate fire shivering, doing his business and squirting his atomizer. At last the furnace was repaired, but about the same time a second revolution in Cuba put the Grau government into office, and Dr. Sterling was recalled. A third revolution that installed the Mendieta government put him back again. Last week he had his reward.

After signing the new treaty at the State Department Ambassador Sterling went home to the Embassy. All afternoon and evening a procession of Latin American diplomats appeared with felicitations. Meantime President Roosevelt had sent the new treaty to the Senate for ratification. Two days later when it was brought up on the floor Ambassador Sterling was in the diplomatic gallery watching with feverish interest. Said Senator Logan of Kentucky, in the chair:

"The question is on agreeing to the resolution of ratification. All those in favor say 'Aye.' Opposed 'No.' " He rapped lustily with his gavel. "Two thirds of the Senators present concurring therein, the resolution is agreed to, and the treaty is ratified."

Senator Fess of Ohio rose belatedly to say that if he had realized the treaty was being ratified he would have spoken in opposition to it because he did not really approve of scrapping the Platt Amendment.

Dr. Sterling in the gallery looked puzzled. He got up, went around to the door of the press gallery and tapped a newshawk on the shoulder.

"What happened?" he demanded.

"Why, they've just ratified your treaty --all in ten minutes," replied the newshawk. Dr. Sterling gaped incredulously.

Significance. The end of the Platt Amendment under which the U. S. once (1906) sent troops to Cuba and again and again dictated the internal affairs of that island republic came with startling suddenness. Not until it was signed did Washington even suspect that a new treaty was in the making. President Roosevelt's immediate purpose in rushing the new pact through at this time was to strengthen the hands of the Mendieta regime which the U. S. helped install in office. Only three weeks ago ex-President Ramon Grau y San Martin returned to Cuba from Mexico to accuse President Mendieta of not keeping his pledge to abrogate the old treaty (TIME, May 28).

With the Platt Amendment definitely off the books, the Presidents of the two republics might well hope that anti-U. S. outbursts like last fortnight's attack on U. S. diplomats would cease.

President Roosevelt's larger purpose, however, was to gain Latin American goodwill. Even without a treaty the U. S. can, under international law, still land troops to protect the lives and property of its citizens in case of danger, as it has done on occasion in Nicaragua, Haiti, Mexico. Moreover, under the Monroe Doctrine the U. S. still preserves its policy of refusing any European nation the opportunity to acquire a foothold in Latin America. By giving up the Platt Amendment the U. S. therefore gave up virtually nothing of practical importance, while winning the kindly regard of those nations to the South which have long looked with open skepticism upon U. S. protestations of Pan-American equality.

*Not to be confused with his more famed colleague, Senator Thomas C. (''Me Too") Platt of New York.

/-William Jennings Bryan.

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