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Show H MAXIMO GO.EZ. I The spurs of the doughty old chieftain have fff grown cold. He, with Maceo, were the two great jfln ' figures that drew the world's attention when Cuba Bjj was making a last stand against the armies of i Spain. The soul of the latter went out on the HS red crest of war, but Gomez lived to see the arm J of Spain broken on the ocean, all her island pos- Hj U sessions taken from her, and to see Cuba smiling in the sunlight of freedom. Except for him the 1.11 United States would have had a vast deal of Iff trouble with the Cubans after the retirement of Hc i a the Spanish forces. Those half-children and the j i I would-be plunderers who were inciting them to j 1 violence, and who were wild to get control that I : H they might organize a form of government which j j f would have been a practical restoration of the stealing that had wasted the island for a century, j, were hard to control. No sense of gratitude re- Hl j strained them; the task of bringing order out of the chaos there they had no comprehention of; I the necessity of regenerating the island, cleansing k it, and establishing order, they never gave a u thought; their dream of liberty was but an idea of ; 1 uncurbed license, and for a time it looked as j though the United States government would be H l 1 forced to kill a few thousand of them to teach I them a little common sense. I Against those malcontents Gomez used his m, I J utmost strength; and the crisis was finally H; ; J passed in peace. In good time when the j 1 great work was finished, an election was or- 1 dered, a constitution framed, the new officers of P the little state were inaugurated, and then the , f great standard of our country, with new and in- ;i : j jj describable splendors attached to it, was lowered R'j j and carried to the waiting ships. Those ships Hj 1 1 j; weighed anchor and as their solemn guns saluted Bj ! l the new republic they sailed away, and the won- jj .jj dering world saw such an object lesson as it had H' never seen before. l j A It is a pity that Russia did not more deeply 1 I II appreciate that lesson. It would have saved j I the lives of thousands of her people, saved her 1 j I j navy, saved the humiliation that now wraps her j Sj' around like a shroud. H That was more a day of triumph to Gomez 7 f . than to any other man. He had been a central l . l! figure when the war was sore, his judgement Bj ?, K helped to steady an excited and unreasonable peo- H: , C M pie when the day of victory came, and when W the final triumph dawned and a redeemed and re- H jj flj generated country staited, with all the skies clear, H j! ;f to work out its destiny, he was still the central H . j figure and he felt then that the admiration that Hi 1 m had been his was finally supplemented with the MB O full 'love of his people; that his life-work had cul- B jf minated in a fruition magnificent enough not only BSj ' ,'ffj to satisfy the highest ambition, but to crown his old age with a peace that was delicious. He has gone now to his rest and his grave will be a shrine to Cubans through all the future. Astronomers tell us that should some of the suns in space be suddenly darkened their light would continue to come to our planet for scores of years, so high and so far off are they. The life of Gomez was a sun to Cuba. The fires of that sun are banked, but the light will continue to shine back from its grave to all the generations of Cuba that are to succeed him. |
