for these insular Bourbons to be willing
to grant. They socially ostracised Blanco, and before the system was to
go into effect they called a convention at Havana to protest and to
foment against it. The president of the party, the Cuban-born Marquis de
Apezteguia, was indeed in favor of giving autonomy a trial. But he could
not control the party whose other members were almost unanimously
against it. They had defeated and expelled Campos. Now they resolved to
do the same with Blanco. At the convention Apezteguia was rebuked and
repudiated, though left in office. A telegram of sympathy was sent to
Weyler. Speeches were made denouncing the United States, its President
and its Congress. A resolution was adopted condemning and opposing
autonomy, and another declaring that Constitutionalists would not vote
nor take any part in public affairs.

[Illustration: ANTONIO GOVIN

Antonio Govin, born at Matanzas in 1849 and deceased in Havana in 1914,
was a jurist, publicist, orator and patriot of distinction. He was
Professor of Administrative Law at the University of Havana, and was the
author of a number of volumes on law and on Colonial history. He was one
of the founders and strong advocates of the Autonomist party and a
member of the Autonomist cabinet.]

In the face of these circumstances, Blanco organized his Autonomist
Cabinet. The date was January 1, 1898. The place was the historic throne
room of the Captain-General's palace. There were present beside the
Cabinet the various foreign consuls and the dignitaries of the Roman
Catholic Church. A small crowd of the people gathered outside, but the
public in general paid little attention to the event. Yet the Cabinet
which then came into brief existence was a body of men that in other
circumstances would have commanded most favorable attention. The nominal
head, President of the Cabinet without portfolio, was Jose Maria Galvez,
a lawyer and orator, the author of the Autonomist manifestoes of 1879
and 1895. The real head, the most forceful and influential member, not
only, indeed, of the Cabinet but of the whole Autonomist party, was Dr.
Rafael Montoro, the "Cuban Castelar" as his friends used to call him. He
had long been an advocate of real autonomy, he had been the chief
founder of the Autonomist party, he had been a Cuban Deputy to the
Spanish Cortes, he had signed the Autonomist manifestoes of 1879 and
1895, and he had approved the insular reforms proposed by Canovas del