ders from Liberal leaders were posted at all voting places in the
various cities and country districts, directing members of that party
to keep away from the polls, on the ground that the election frauds
which had been arranged by the Conservatives could not possibly be
overcome, and that the correct thing to do was to refuse to vote, as a
protest against the government in power. These were obviously issued
with a view of discrediting in advance an election which the Liberals
could not hope to win. The Conservatives, of course, voted, and, as
might be expected under those circumstances, the Palma government
succeeded itself, with a few changes in the Cabinet, and everything
seemed to promise well for the future.

Within a year, however, threats of coming trouble, whispers of
discontent, and reports of incipient uprisings could be heard in the
cafes and public resorts throughout the island, and the agents of the
secret service warned President Palma that a serious crisis was
impending. This the President refused to credit, staging that there
could be no possible reason for a revolution. The island was prosperous,
work was plentiful for all who cared to labor; there were no conditions
present to justify a revolution or uprising, and suspicions of anything
of the kind must therefore be unjustified. In spite of President Palma's
confidence, however, the plotting went on almost openly. His confidence
in the people was known to all the Liberals, and they took advantage of
it. The first real outbreak occurred before the slightest preparation
had been made to deal with it. One night in the month of July, 1905, a
group of thirty armed men suddenly appeared at the barracks of the Rural
Guards, shot a dozen of them to death as they lay sleeping on their
cots, seized their arms, ammunition and horses, and fled into the
country, shouting the cry of "Revolution against the Palma government!"
General Alejandro Rodriguez, a tried veteran of the War of
Independence, and chief of the Rural Guards, gave an immediate order
that they should be captured, dead or alive, and before ten o'clock the
next morning nearly all of them had been taken and confined in the jails
of Havana, where afterwards they were tried and convicted. These men in
their defense claimed that the president of the Senate, Senor Moru
Delgado, a prominent Liberal leader, had promised to meet them at
daylight, on the morning of the assassination, with a body of three
hundre