the two parties, together with a municipal judge who determined the result in case of a difference between the party representatives. So, if officials of the opposite parties. agreed, their representatives in the boards could control the situation. But if it were deemed desirable to secure the cooperation of the judge, that, too, was a simple affair, for municipal judges are political appointees who do not even have to be lawyers. They are therefore menaced with being relieved of their post or transferred, while their appointment in the first place, together with promotions or other favors, is purely a matter of political favor. This factor assisted not only in the illegal refuerzo, but also in presidential control of elections!

But there was plenty of opportunity in which to complete the fraud even if it had not been accomplished by the time of the first scrutiny of the vote. The votes were left in the hands of the judge of the electoral board, with no guaranties whatsoever. So he might open the package and change the vote, or it could be done afterward by postal officials before its delivery at the capital. Meanwhile, it went through a further scrutiny on the part of higher electoral boards. Falsification in these later stages was indulged in only in case the opposite parties could not agree, being especially employed by the government party in a presidential election. According to common report, there was a great deal of fraud at this stage in the election of 1916.

These dishonest practices were the more easily engaged. in because of other evils in Cuban political life that made escape from the legal consequences easy and reward for success alluring. As already stated, there was an appeal from the findings of the lower electoral boards to those higher in the scale, and from them to the courts, but the appeal to the higher boards may be said to have involved a distinction without a difference, and the courts were notoriously corrupt. At best the courts were given to the adoption of legal devices to avoid rendering a decision. As most of the appeals against frauds in the electoral boards came at the time of a presidential election, and as the government party was more likely to have perpetrated them, the judges

did not wish to take the responsibility for upsetting the vote and thus risk losing their posts. Even a conviction for electoral frauds held few terrors, for pardons and amnesties followed crime in rapid succession in Cuba, and election crimes were always forgiven. On the other hand, there was that "compensation for fraud to the political servant" known in Cuba as the "botella" (bottle), which has been defined as "pretended employment, without any work to do"-the soft government job. All these fraudulent practices are without taking into account the factor of intimidation of the voter, already alluded to, which was accomplished not merely by use of the army, the rural guards, and the police, but also by employment of thugs called "matones," or "killers."

Yet another evil flourished to assist the politicians in their control of the vote. Political parties were recognized by the law as having an extra-legal position, without any provision for the control of their internal management, in imitation of the system in the United States. But all sorts of frauds were perpetrated within a party to determine the candidates and their position on the ballot at an election. When, for example, President Menocal found that the majority in his party assembly (as the conventions are called) would be against him, he caused his eight cabinet secretaries to be included as members of the assembly ex officio, and thus dominated the vote. There was no law to stop him, and he had the supreme argument of force on his side. The dominant position of the president in the party assembly is one of the principal causes for the formation of fractional groups. Unable to gain what they want within their own party, some men get out, form an organization of their own, and make headway as a pirate party, to which favors must be granted to keep the balance from swinging in the opposite direction. The most notable instance in recent years was the formation of the Popular Party by Alfredo Zayas in 1919, a maneuver which carried him to the presidency.

The law of 1908 was not responsible for these evils, but it was associated with them in the popular mind. ThereOrtiz, Fernando, "La reforma electoral de Crowder en Cuba," La Reforma Social, vol. 20, pp. 214-225 (July, 1921).

fore, when the bitterly criticized election of 1916 was followed by fraudulent elections in 1918, there was an insistent demand in many quarters for a new law, though its reputed author, the former Colonel Crowder, was held in great respect all the more so, perhaps, in the light of the great reputation he had won in organizing the American army in the World War. So in 1919 President Menocal issued an invitation to this famous officer, now become a general, to come to Cuba and give his advice in the drawing of a new law of elections. Both the Conservatives and Liberals announced their willingness to coöperate in the plan, although the latter (then out of power) set forth, through a committee of their members in the House, that the trouble was not in the laws, but in the failure to observe them. No reform, they said, could do away with an improper conduct of the elections unless accompanied by a preventive action on the part of the United States, for "the evil was in the men in the government, not in the precepts of the law."

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This assertion was in perfect accord with the facts. It is therefore hardly worth while to devote much space to the Crowder election law of 1919, though allusion should be made to a most valuable preliminary work in the form of a new census. The ratio of voters turned out to be 17.2 per cent of the population, instead of the 44.2 per cent previously on the registration lists. The law itself was a bulky document, making a fat volume, but it is primarily interesting for the way it was not carried out. For example, it provided that where the voting ratio in any voting district (barrio, or ward) was one per cent higher than at the last election it was presumptively fraudulent, and if over three per cent, conclusively so. On this basis the following result was obtained. in the elections of 1922:

Thus only 32.4 per cent of the vote was presumptively legal under the terms of the law, and 67.6 per cent was fraudulent. This would seem to imply that the forros still live.

General Crowder also attempted to overcome the 'pirate party' evil by a provision forbidding different parties from carrying the same names as candidates for office. As already mentioned, these groups, called 'parties,' were merely for the purpose of traffic in votes. They were not confined to national politics, but existed also within provinces and even within municipalities, so that the leader could get one or two places in a trade whereby his group would support the larger party in its other candidacies. But President Menocal had this paragraph of the Crowder law amended, following which he formed the Conservative-Popular alliance for the elections of 1920. In that year these two parties had identical lists of candidates. The same thing happened in 1924, but this time the Popular Party joined with the Liberals.

The 'repeating' evil had been so evident prior to 1919that is to say, plural voting by individuals, who, of course, had but a single legal vote that the new law required that each man have a certificate (cédula) showing his right to vote. The idea was to prevent repeating by checking each certificate, since no one without a certificate was to be allowed to vote. But the only effect of this paragraph was to add a new commodity to the Cuban market, for the certificates were sold freely to the highest bidder. In 1922 the market price in Havana was fifty dollars, while from ten to fifteen dollars was the normal range in the country districts.

Despite the efforts of the new law to overcome it, the refuerzo in its worst forms continued unchecked. In the elections of 1922 refuerzos were quite generally sold by political chiefs to candidates for municipal and provincial office, as well as to those who were running for election to the national House. In Madruga, province of Havana, seven Liberal, five Conservative, and two Popular candidates for representative, together with several aspirants for provincial and municipal posts, formed a coalition to buy

up the electoral board. Each candidate for representative contributed $1500, and nine others gave $500 apiece, while the rest got on the ticket free, for personal reasons. In all, the sum of $22,500 was paid, of which each of nine 'college,' or voting district, boards got $500, while the municipal electoral board got $18,000. The work was done by substituting false ballots for the real ones. Yet the case was by no means unique; such things probably happen in every election in each voting district, and were notorious in the elections of 1922.5 What with forros, the refuerzo, and the sale of voting certificates, those elections were possibly the most fraudulent ever held in Cuba.

Another feature of the law, supplemented by a law of June 11, 1921, had led to the hope that the evil political machine could be overthrown through a free reorganization. of each party prior to an election. The politicians found an easy way to get around that by a law of January 2, 1922, against the reorganization of political parties. President Zayas allowed the bill to become a law without his signature -a procedure often followed by him in the case of undesirable legislation that should be vetoed. According to this law, the men comprising the existing executive committee of each party (so framed as to include the Liberal, Conservative, and Popular parties only) were to nominate all municipal, provincial, and national candidates for the elections of 1922. Great care was taken to see that these committees should be composed of the 'right men.' For example, provincial executive committees were to appoint municipal executive committees in localities that did not have them, and all vacancies on existing committees were to be filled by members of the committees themselves. The lists of candidates selected by these committees were to be printed on the official ballot.

And yet the elections of 1922 are often styled 'good,' because there was no armed interference by the president,

The writer has personal knowledge of what happened at one of the sugar mills. Just two men went to the polls, but when the announcement was given out it seems that three hundred had 'voted.'