Charges continued to be made increasingly of the profligacy and corruption of the Gomez administration. It was charged, doubtless with much truth, that the number of public offices and office holders had been unnecessarily multiplied to a scandalous extent for the sake of giving profitable jobs to the friends of Liberal leaders. It was also intimated that the Government had subsidized the press to suppress the truth concerning these and other charges, and thus to avoid an open scandal which might result in a third American intervention. Taxation was declared to be excessive and oppressive, amounting in some cases to as much as 30 per cent. of the value of the property. Other charges were that public offices, executive, legislative and even judicial, were practically sold to the highest bidder for cash; that concessions for public utilities were similarly disposed of for the profit not of the public but of members of the Government, and that then extortionate prices were charged to the public for the service rendered; that the natural resources of Cuba were thus being parceled out to speculators for cash; that a bill purporting to be for the improvement of the ports had increased four-fold the expenses of those ports, for the enrichment of a speculative company, and that in general the functions of the government were being perverted to the uses and the personal enrichment of a ring of Liberal politicians. As the date of the electoral campaign of 1912 drew near, the conduct of the administration became such as to incur the menace of another intervention. In January of that year an arbitrary attempt was made by President Gomez to thwart the activities and impair the influence of the Veterans' Association, by forbidding army officers and members of the Rural Guard to attend any of its meetings, on the pretended ground that they were engaged in factional political agitation. As the organization was in no sense a partisan affair, but was composed of men of varying shades of political opinion who had the good of Cuba at heart, and who strove to avert the danger of further intervention by making and keeping the Cuban government above reproach, this decree of the President's was sharply resented and was openly disobeyed by many army officers. When on the evening of Sunday, January 14, 1912, many officers and Rural Guards attended a meeting of the National Council of the Veterans' Association, and were received with much enthusiasm, the situation caused so much disquiet that the United States government felt constrained to send a note of warning to President Gomez, stating that it was much concerned over the state of affairs in Cuba; that the laws must be enforced and order maintained; and that the President of the United States looked to the President and government of Cuba to see to it that there was no need of a third intervention.