Military Occupation: Charles MagoonCharles Edward Magoon (December 5, 1861 – January 14, 1920) was an American lawyer, judge, diplomat, and administrator who is best remembered as a governor of the Panama Canal Zone, Minister to Panama, and an occupation governor of Cuba. He was also the subject of several small scandals during his career.
As a legal advisor working for the United States Department of War, he drafted recommendations and reports that were used by Congress and the executive branch in governing the United States’ new territories following the Spanish–American War. These reports were collected as a published book in 1902, then considered the seminal work on the subject. During his time as a governor, Magoon worked to put these recommendations into practice.
Early life
Magoon was born in Owatonna, Steele County, Minnesota. His family moved with him to Nebraska when he was still a small child. In 1876, he enrolled in the “prep” program at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and studied there for two years before officially enrolling in 1878. He left school in 1879 to study law independently with a prominent law firm. In 1882, he was admitted to the bar and practiced law in Lincoln, Nebraska. Eventually, he was made a partner in the firm. He also became the judge advocate of the Nebraska National Guard and continued to use the title of “Judge” throughout the remainder of his career.
War Department and the “Magoon Incident”
By 1899, Magoon was sought out to join the law office of the newly created Division of Customs and Insular Affairs, later renamed the Bureau of Insular Affairs, in the U.S. Department of War under Secretary of War Russell A. Alger.
Legal and political controversy had arisen regarding whether the people of the newly acquired territories were automatically granted the same rights under the United States Constitution as American citizens. Magoon prepared a report to Alger in May 1899 that would have established the official departmental policy as “the Constitution follows the flag.”
Under this view, the moment the treaty transferring the territories to U.S. sovereignty was signed, the residents of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and other territories became subject to all the rights granted by the Constitution. For the new territories following the Spanish–American War, this would have been from the signing of the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898. With the resignation of Secretary Alger, this incomplete report was not released to Congress.
Cuba
In 1906, Cuba was in the midst of a constitutional crisis as a result of a disputed election and an attempt by elected President Tomás Estrada Palma to stay in power after the conclusion of his term. This led to a revolt, and the U.S. military sent in 5,600 men to reassert control over the country.This was permitted under the Platt amendment of 1901, a bill stipulating the degree of United States intervention in Cuba, which was negotiated with the Cubans during the U.S. occupation of 1899–1902. After a brief period of stabilization by Secretary Taft, Magoon was appointed governor under the Constitution of Cuba, effectively with absolute authority and backed by the U.S. military.
On October 13, 1906, Magoon officially became Cuban governor. Magoon declined to have an official inauguration ceremony, and, instead, news of the appointment was announced to the Cuban public via the newspapers. In his written appointment address to the country, Magoon indicated that he would “perform the duties provided for by the … constitution of Cuba for the preservation of Cuban independence”. He was there, in short, to restore order and not to colonize.
Wreckage of the USS Maine
During Magoon’s time as governor, the remaining revolutionaries were defeated, and his attention was turned inward to infrastructure. He coordinated the construction of two hundred kilometers of highway. He called for the reorganization of the Cuban military into a formal army, rather than a Mexican-style “rural guard”. More controversially, he called for the removal of the sunken USS Maine, the ship whose destruction led to the Spanish–American War, because it was interfering with traffic in Havana’s harbor. In his yearly report to the secretary of war, Magoon reported that many Cubans held the popular belief that neither the United States nor the US-backed Cuban government had explored the wreckage because evidence might be found to suggest that the ship was not sunk by a torpedo, as was the official report—something that would cast doubt on the justification for the United States’ war against Spain. The removal of the ship would not happen while Magoon was in office; it was to be authorized by Congress in 1910.
While he was well regarded in the United States, Magoon was not popular amongst Cubans. He reaped a vast number of lurid accusations at the hands of Cuban writers who described him as a “man of wax”, who was “gross in character, rude in manners, of a profound ambition and greedy for despoilment”. The Cuban scholar Carlos Manuel Trelles later wrote that Magoon “profoundly corrupted the Cuban nation, and on account of his venality was looked upon with contempt.” Other Cuban historians point to the fiscal wastefulness of Magoon’s tenure, which “left a bad memory and a bad example to the country” and returned Cuba to the corrupt practices of colonial times.
On January 29, 1909, the fully sovereign government of Cuba was restored, and José Miguel Gómez became president. No explicit evidence of Magoon’s corruption ever surfaced, but his parting gesture of issuing lucrative Cuban contracts to U.S. firms was a continued point of contention. Several months later, Magoon received an official commendation from President Taft for his excellent service in Cuba.
Following his service in Cuba, Magoon retired from public service and vacationed for a year in Europe before returning to the United States. Speculation at the time pointed to him taking a position as ambassador to China, a special commission on stability in Central America, or a Cabinet position. Ultimately Magoon did not take up any of those new responsibilities and formally entered retirement. He died in Washington, D.C., in 1920 after complications from surgery for acute appendicitis.
Sources:Wiki/InternetPhoto/TheCubanhistory.com
Military Occupation: Charles Magoon/The Cuban History/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor