El Gallo, El Egregio

Early last Monday morning Havana's roosters crowed in healthy unison. El Gallo* himself, the President of the Republic, General Gerardo Machado y Morales, had just gone to bed and to sleep in the presidential palace. The sun would soon be rising in the wake of the crescent moon. The General had spent the full night, as is his habit, dining, dancing, talking, enjoying himself heartily.

At 5 :30 a. m. the sun was rising. Venus shone with especial brilliancy. At precisely that midhour the General woke up of his own accord. He felt refreshed, vigorous. As a revolutionary against Spain from 1895 to 1898 he had learned to sleep deeply in brief periods. He pattered to his bath, a stocky, powerful man of 57. A secretary followed, reading to him summaries of the night's news. The President sloshed himself, dried himself, shaved himself (the secretary reading the while) and dressed himself in formal morning clothes. Like most male Cubans he detests woolen clothes. But this was a day of days--the 27th anniversary of the Republic's founding and his second Inaugural. There would be a gay time in the old town/- that day and night.

Soon the Cabinet officers convened at the palace. Troops and police in new, bright uniforms were ranged outdoors. The populace crowded the sidewalks. Flags of Cuba and of those two score nations which had sent special envoys to the Inaugural, fluttered everywhere. Cuba always has a breeze blowing. It makes Cuba more comfortable all the year round than is any U. S. city during the U. S. summer.

Among the crowds gawked a lanky, weather-beaten German, Paul Muller, 47- Columbus-wise, he had sailed a 25-foot boat across the Atlantic and arrived at Havana, fortuitously, just in time for the Inaugural. His first act in Havana was to write his German sweetheart a 24-page letter, mostly about the sea and love. Soon he had much more to write to her about, for in Havana he heard many a story, many a scandal about President Machado's administration. Among the authentic stories were: The General governs with iron-hand-in-velvet-glove. Latin-Americans want a decisive personality at their head. They speedily take advantage of any of an executive's weaknesses. President Machado brooks no political opposition and has logrolled Cuba's political parties to his own support. Political opponents are told to get out of Cuba. Hence the presence in the U. S. of Cubans like Dr. Rafael Itturalde, onetime Secretary of War, and Octavio Seigle, business exile (TIME, April 29). Insurrectos are promptly squelched.

The most vicious of them are court-martialed, shot, dumped into the Gulf of Mexico where the sharks quickly eat their cadavers. Foreign agitators are kept in discomfort aboard the Maximo Gomez, an old battleship, until they can be deported.

Ordinary murder brings life imprisonment at the new farm prison on the Isle of Pines. Sometimes long-term prisoners there are prompted to escape. Then they are shot quickly and carefully in the back.

Vicious murderers, like matricides, get the garotte. No prisoner during the Machado regime has been pardoned. Consequently and remarkably, the country is free of serious private crime. Civil justice, as in the U. S., is slow. Captain Walter Fletcher Smith, U. S. citizen, developed some real estate outside of Havana. Years ago the Government expropriated some of his holdings for a public bathing beach. Last week he was accorded $190,000 compensation. The money will be paid in time.

Of Cuba's economics, Voyager Muller learned and saw that the country is in deep depression because of world overproduction of sugar. Since the "dance of the millions" in 1925, when wealth was so abundant that Cuban women would phone their jewelers to send thousands of dollars worth of ornaments to their homes, the Cuban sugar industry has dead-lost 86 million dollars.

The Cuban argument against the proposed increase of the U. S. sugar tariff (TIME, May 20 et ante) goes thus: Cuba, only 90 miles from the U. S. mainland, is the natural U. S. sugar bowl. Continental U. S. can never raise enough sugar cane or beets for its needs. Protected Porto Rico and the Philippines will increase their sugar production until they become one-crop regions, as Cuba has virtually been.

In case of U. S. War and Cuba's shift from sugar to other crops, the chief U. S. supply would be 3,000 miles across the Pacific.

To benefit intrusive capital in Porto Rico and the Philippines the U. S. threatens to destroy one and one-half billion dollars of U. S. sugar investments in Cuba.

Cubans are fatalistic for the most part. Yet a few, driven by General Machado and his Cabinet officers are going into crop diversification and manufacturing. Manana is coming to mean "yesterday" instead of "tomorrow." Cuban industry now promises to be the best deposit for new or shifted U. S. capital. Cluett, Peabody has already started a collar-&-shirt factory near Havana. Some New England cotton goods mills are headed that way. Motor car assembly plants have been started. Cuba can finish goods and ship them to other Latin countries more cheaply than most such finished goods can be exported from the U. S. Preferential tariffs give the explanation. . . .

Such were the matters which Voyager Muller heard last week about Cuba. Few did he comprehend. But unmistakable were the enthusiastic cries of Cuba's populace when General Machado and his retinue motored the few blocks from his palace to his capitol. Then the populace saw in the flesh the man whose bust, portrait, lithograph or photograph is in every room of every Cuban public building, and in many a home. The General was reinvested in office. He made a short speech. Cannons cracked. For another six years he would be Cuba's firm, genial, hardworking, dancing President. Din rode over Havana, rolled down the Island to Santiago.

Through the din thrummed a cry: "El Egregio," "The Egregious," "The Outstanding." Amused as President Machado is with the epithet "El Gallo," used as he is to "El General," complacent as he is with "El Presidente," he is privately most thrilled and delighted with "El Egregio."

*Pronounced Ell Guy-o. It makes "The Rooster." /-Founded 1492, by Columbus' landing.