Estrada Palma, according to Mr. Taft's intimation, had erred. History will forever record that he erred chiefly if not solely in assuming, in his own transparent integrity, that other men were as honest as himself. He was, his enemies asserted, weak. But intelligence and justice must discern and declare that his only weakness was in an over-confidence in the people to whose service he had given all the best of his life and in whose loyalty and support he imagined that he could securely trust. He could not, in the greatness of his own soul, bring himself to believe it possible for men, for men calling themselves Cuban patriots, to do such things as those which Jose Miguel Gomez and Alfredo Zayas and Orestes Ferrara and their coparceners did. He was not moved by weakness, but by a desire to protect Cuba from the ravages of sordid revolution and from the unscrupulous exploitation of bushwhacking bandits, and to preserve for the Cuban people and their Republic the good name which had been so fairly and as he thought fully established during the years of his first administration. His place in the annals of Cuba is secure. His rank among the constitutional executives of the world is enviably high. There has been in Cuba or elsewhere no more honest administration than his, and none that more intelligently, unselfishly and untiringly strove to fulfil its every duty to the state. Its untimely fall is not to be charged against any subjective fault of its own, but to the unscrupulous malice of sordid foes, the apathy of the people in whom too great confidence had been reposed, and to the inexplicable betrayal by those who should have supported and protected it but who instead consented to its destruction. CHAPTER XV Mr. Magoon came to Cuba but little known to Cubans and unfamiliar with what was before him. During this second American intervention there were some radical changes in the administration, and more public works were undertaken than President Palma had ventured upon. The consensus of opinion among American officers, all the officers who had accompanied Mr. Magoon, was that the Palma administration had made a mistake in allowing so much money to accumulate in the treasury. It had become a temptation to those who were not in power, and it would have been better to have the money expended along lines that would tend to advance the republic rather than to permit it to accumulate. So it was realized that if it was not expended during Mr. Magoon's administration, it would be spent, and probably largely wasted, if not actually misappropriated, by the Liberals if they should secure control of the government.