the whole machinery of justice was that of a
decayed colony of a decayed kingdom totally without the respect of the
public and without self-respect.

General Wood began with characteristic promptness to get to the root
of the matter. The principal officer charged with the prosecution of
cases was removed and a mixed commission, selected and appointed by
himself, substituted. As a result in a short time six hundred
prisoners were freed, because there was not sufficient evidence
against them to warrant their arrests. Court houses were put into
repair. Judges with fixed and sufficient salaries were appointed;
officials were set at work upon salaries that were fair and--what is
far more to the point--were regularly paid. Prison commissions
appointed by Wood examined conditions and the prisons were cleaned,
moved to other buildings, or renovated and remodelled according to
modern American methods. {134} The result in less than six months was
that native officials were conducting this work in a self-respecting,
honorable manner, convicting or releasing prisoners in short order and
bringing the idea of justice into respect in the public mind. The
establishment of order was a natural result. Outbreaks and riots
became unknown. The people began to realize as no amount of exhibition
of power on the part of the invaders could ever have made them realize
that peace, order, fair play, and a chance to live had come upon the
land in what seemed some miraculous fashion.

The respect of the individual for the State was born again in the
Cuban mind--born, perhaps it is fairer to say, for the first time in
the heart of this much abused and ignorant people. Once this really
pierced their inner consciousness--the inner consciousness of the
whole people, of everybody poor or rich--these people felt safe and
secure and knew they could take up their enterprises with safety and
with hope of adequate returns which should belong to themselves.

It was so sound to do this wherever possible through the medium of the
Cubans themselves and {135} not through army officials! It was so sane
and clear-visioned a method to begin with this great beam of the
remodeled Cuban house--this building up by the process of individual
observation of confidence in those who ruled them!--and the men whom
General Wood selected to draw the plans were experts in just such
work. He selected them. He passed on their schemes. They did the work.
And to this day he gives