Then began what Mr. Taft always refers to as “those awful twenty days.” The people were divided into various warring factions, the result, largely, of political habits inherited from the old Spanish regime wherein a new party arose on the slightest provocation, basing its antagonism to the others on nothing finer nor more patriotic than individual desire for political patronage.

President Palma still held the reins of government, but camped just outside Havana were twenty thousand men under arms ready at any moment to open hostilities. These insurgents, as well as the party in power, had appealed to the United States for intervention, but neither faction had any intention of accepting any form of compromise which did not include all their demands.