Abstract
The task of creating a prosperous Cuba had not been completed when the Military Government left the island. For an additional year and a half, President Roosevelt and Secretary Root fought to obtain a reciprocity agreement for Cuba. Their purpose was to ensure a market for Cuban sugar which would assist prosperity and stability; without reciprocity, the whole effort of the Military Government to rebuild Cuba would have been undermined. The fight over reciprocity arose not with Cubans, but with Democrats, high tariff men and beet sugar interests in the United States.1
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References
Accounts of the Cuban reciprocity issue are to be found in Fitzgibbon, Cuba and the United States, Ch. 8; Hagedorn, Wood, I, Ch. 17; J. L. Laughlin, and H. P. Willis, Reciprocity (New York, 1903); Healy, U.S. in Cuba, Ch. 16; U.S. Tariff Commission, Effects of the Cuban Reciprocity Treaty (Washington: GPO, 1929); Weigle, “The Sugar Interests & American Diplomacy, 1893–1903,” unpublished Ph. D. thesis, Yale University, 1939, Chs. 8–10.
U.S., Congress, House, Annual Message of the President, doc. 1, Dec. 3, 1901, 57th Cong., 1st session.
DIA C705–230, Message from the President of the United States in regard to Reciprocity with Cuba, 57th Cong., 1st sess., S. doc. 405, June 13, 1902.
Report of the Secretary of War, 1901–1902. 53.
Laughlin and Willis, Reciprocity, 2.
DIA C705–96, F. D. Pavey, “The Power and Authority of Congress to Pass a Special Tariff Act for Cuba.” Pavey was counsel for the Chamber of Commerce of the Island of Cuba. DIA C705–98, J. B. Moore, “Opinion upon the Question Whether Congress can pass a Special Tariff Act for Cuba.”
Wood papers, Wood to Root, Jan. 16, 1902. DIA C705–33, J. G. Gómez to L. V. Placé, Nov. 25, 1901. Cubans of all classes and beliefs proclaimed their plight and urged close economic ties.
Wood papers, Root to Wood, March 6, 1901; Wood to Root, March 11, 1901; Root to Thurber, May 6, 1901, May 10, 1901.
Root papers, Wood to Root, Feb. 2, 1901; DIA C705–192, Hearings on Reciprocity with Cuba, Committee on Ways and Means, 57th Cong., 1st Sess., Jan. 25, 1902 (Washington, GPO, 1902). Wood was called down by Root for sending pamphlets and letters to congressmen, Root papers, Root to Wood. Feb. 7, 1902.
Wood papers, Root to Wood, Jan. 10, 1902, Wood to Root, Jan. 21, 1902.
Dept. of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Statistics. 1st series, 1903–04. Monthly summary of Commerce and Finance of the United States (Washington: GPO, 1903), 400.
DIA C 390–63, Wood to Root, cable, March 6, 1902, Cuban Sugar Sales, 3–4, 12–13; Havemeyer refined about one-half of the sugar sold in the U.S. and bought about 65 percent of the foreign sugars bought by the U.S. He argued that reciprocity would aid Cuba more than the trust because he bought sugar from all over the world. He also maintained that he did not control the Cuban sugar crop, had no agents there and bought in Cuba from commission merchants. He offered to buy so much at a certain price on a certain day from commission merchants who made their profit on the difference between what the trust offered and what the Cuban might accept as a selling price. Havemeyer made no advances to planters. These were made by banks, other merchants. See also DIA C390–76, Wood to Edwards, April 3, 1902, cable, showing further breakdown on disposition of Cuban sugar crop for 1902, where most of it was being retained in the island to pay off debts or to wait for a price rise.
DIA C390–90, Platt to Root, May 5, 1902, Wood to Root, May 8, 1902; DIA C705–246, “United States Diplomatic and Consular Reports: Trade of Cuba for the year 1901,” Foreign Office, Great Britain, Oct. 1902, no. 2909, Annual Series, 40–42, copy sent to Edwards by Steinhart; Havana Post, Jan. 15, 1902, typical of the many articles appearing daily on the sugar crisis in the Cuban press; Wood papers, H. G. Squires to John Hay, July 11, 1902, noting 123 mercantile failures as of June 30, and that nearly 35 percent of the merchants were insolvent. The British consul thought Cubans exaggerated their predicament; Squires did not. Wilson papers, Bliss to J. H. Wilson, Feb. 28, 1902.
U.S. House. “Hearings on Reciprocity,” doc. 535, 57th Cong., 1st sess., Atkins, 19, 41. Wood and Atkins resented each other due to Wood’s attempts to collect taxes on Atkins’ property near Cienfuegos. See also testimony of G. R. Fowler, a Cuban Planter, 459–65; of Bliss, 378–96; Placé, 41–3; R. T. Oxnard, president of the American Sugar Beet Assn., 164–177; W. R. Convine, New York Merchants Assn., Evan Thomas, C. P. Armstrong and Chas. Rubaden of the New York Produce Exchange, 99; J. H. Post, Pres, of National Sugar Refining Co., 353; F. R. Hathaway of the Alma Sugar Co., 244 ff.; technical testimony by Dr. H. W. Wiley, Chief of Bureau of Chemistry of Dept. of Agriculture, 497–513, arguing that problem was chiefly overproduction, not high American tariff. He thought free trade would aid the trust and ruin the U.S. domestic sugar men. He advocated countervailing duties on German sugar. Germany had 397 beet factories, United States, 44.
U.S., Congress, House, Report 1276 pt. 1, Sereno Payne, March 31, 1902, 57th Cong., 1st Sess.
New York Times, June 13, 1902, as quoted in Hagedorn, Wood, I, 380n; DIA C705–228, Washington Post, June 12, 1902, Thurber testimony.
Wood papers, Steinhart to Wood, June 18, 1902, statement of secretaries of insular government saying they were displeased at unjust attacks on Wood, and deemed the expenditure necessary and made in behalf of Cuba; Wood received literally hundreds of telegrams beseeching him to obtain a reduction in the U.S. tariff. E. J. Varona said that no problem was as urgent in Cuba and F. Gamba, president of the “Centro General de Comerciantes e Industriales” asked Wood to transmit a petition to the President, Wood papers, Varona to Wood, Oct. 3, 1901, Torralba to Wood, Sept. 9, 1901, Gamba to Wood, Oct. 3, 1901, E. J. Chapley to Wood, Oct. 9, 1901, Wood to Roosevelt, Oct. 7, 1901.
Fitzgibbon, Cuba and the United States, 111, 209–213; Portell Vilá, Historia de Cuba, IV, 351, 372–76; U.S. House, Rept. 1276 pt. 1, March 31, 1902. Portell and Roig considered that reciprocity extended US. imperialistic control over Cuba, Martínez Ortiz deemed it generous. Still, men like Sanguily and Cisneros opposed reciprocity and tried to prevent Cuban land sales to foreigners. Free trade would have ruined Cuba at that point in her economic development. Platt papers. Platt to W. H. Putnam, Dec. 5, 1904 and others advising them not to invest in Cuba because the competition of Cubans, Englishmen and Germans was too keen.
Healy, United States in Cuba, 200–206.
Jenks, Our Cuban Colony, 136; Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance of the United States, 1903–04, 400, 399, 401, 1152, 303, 364, 362; U.S. Tariff Commission, Effects of the Cuban Reciprocity Treaty, 1–2.
Tariff Commission, Effects of…Reciprocity, 7–10.
Ibid., 7–8. It is a general tariff rule that a country does not suffer loss of revenue when goods are not imported under a general preferential rule, i.e., preferential rates of duty for countries from which there are no imports do not result in sacrifice of revenue. Each country could adjust in other categories.
Ibid., 9–11, 13.
Ibid., 12; Jenks, Our Cuban Colony, 136.
Tariff Commission, Effects… of Reciprocity, 15.
Ibid., 385, 170–71.
Fitzgibbon, Cuba and the United States, 227, ch. 9. The records disclose no attempt by the Military Government to force the Cubans to pay off the loans they obtained during the Revolution. The matter was renegotiated in 1904 and 1909, resulting in the Speyer loans.
Wood papers, Wood to J. St. Loe Strachey, Jan. 6, 1903.
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© 1971 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Holland
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Hitchman, J.H. (1971). Epilogue: The Fight over Reciprocity. In: Leonard Wood and Cuban Independence, 1898–1902. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0749-3_12
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