nt of the United States will adopt measures necessary to avoid
this danger."

On that day President Roosevelt wrote to Robert Bacon, the Assistant
Secretary of State, enclosing a letter to Senor Gonzalo de Quesada, the
Cuban minister to the United States for publication in the public press,
in which he begged the Cuban patriots to band together, to sink all
differences and personal ambitions, and to rescue the island from the
anarchy of civil war; closing the letter as follows:

"I am sending to Habana the Secretary of War, Mr. Taft, and the
Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Bacon, as special representatives of
this Government, who will render such aid as is possible toward these
ends. I had hoped that Mr. Root, the Secretary of State, could have
stopped in Habana on his return from South America, but the seeming
imminence of the crisis forbids further delay."

Messrs. Taft and Bacon reached Cuba on September 19, 1906. Before
leaving the ship they were informed that the Secretary of State and
Justice of President Palma's cabinet would call at their convenience.
They invited him on board at once and had a short talk with him. They
were informed that immediately on publication of the President's
message, President Palma had directed a cessation of hostilities on the
part of the government forces, and that the insurgents had done
likewise. Messrs. Taft and Bacon then called upon President Palma. They
told him that they regarded themselves as intermediaries and Peace
Commissioners, and did not wish to negotiate with rebels in arms without
his permission. He suggested that negotiations be conducted between the
two political parties, rather than between himself and the insurgents,
and suggested that the Vice-President, Mendez Capote, for the Moderate
party, and Senator Alfredo Zayas, head of the Liberal party, be the
negotiators. He added that General Menocal on behalf of the veterans of
the War of Independence had previously attempted, on September 8, to
bring about a compromise, but without avail.

[Illustration: William H. Taft]

President Palma told Mr. Taft very earnestly and somewhat pathetically
of his efforts to teach his people the knowledge of good government
gained from his twenty years of residence in the United States, and his
association with the American people, and called attention to his
successful handling of Cuban finances, to the economy of expenditures of
his government, to the fact that he had at al