A railroad law was written, and General Wood persuaded General Grenville M. Dodge and Sir William Van Horn to help him to build much of the present railway system of Cuba. Hard modern roads took the place of the muddy routes almost impassable at certain seasons of the year which had been the only means of communication throughout the island. Hospitals and charities were grouped under a new organization consisting almost entirely of Cubans which renovated old hospitals, built new ones, put children first into temporary homes and then did away practically with asylums as soon as the destitute children could be put out among the Cuban families who {146} took them under a newly made law. Thus, in so far as was possible, no child from that time forward grew up with the stigma of an orphan asylum resting upon him or her, but had the chance offered to become in time a self-respecting inhabitant of a self-respecting community. Immense sums were disbursed by the military government in public works, harbor improvements, lighthouses which had almost ceased to exist, post offices and postal systems, telephone and telegraph connections, offices and organizations and an entirely new system of custom houses and quarantine administrations. The account of these in detail is the same story over and over again--the building of a state from bottom to top; and the administration of this state by those people who throughout their entire lives had known nothing of the sort--much less had any voice in its management. Two require special notice because of the tact and judgment required in handling them and because of the vital importance their consummation meant in the final settlement of Cuban difficulties. One was the ending of the long standing war {147} between the Spanish Government and the Roman Catholic Church upon the question of church property appropriated by Spain. No settlement had been made since the concordat of 1861. And when General Wood took command of the Island the Church came to him and said: "What is the United States going to do? Is it war, or peace? Give us our property back, or pay us for the use of it." With infinite wisdom and tact the Governor-General appointed judicial commissions to make an exhaustive study of the situation which resulted in reports showing that the claims of the Church were in the main just and fair, and a settlement was reached by which the State purchased most of the property, and rented for five years the rest, so that time should be given for equitable adjustment. This settled for all time a century-old trouble which alone would have made the setting up of a peaceable and effective government doubtful.