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On Saturday night the Junta reluctantly met to elect a Provisional President. Soon after midnight it settled on Commissioner Grau San Martin. At noon next day, all in white, he stepped out on the second floor balcony of the Palace. With him was his only important non-Junta supporter, Miguel Mariano Gomez, head of the Marianista faction. Absent was the entire diplomatic corps. President Grau San Martin swore a simple oath "to comply with all parts of the revolutionary program already decided upon and to respect all interests already established." But this show was no great success. Only 3,000 of Havana's critical crowd gathered in the square before the Palace to see the latest inauguration. Other thousands came up, took one look and went on. One of President Grau San Martin's first callers was Col. Ferrer with the word that the officers would support no President who had not received U. S. recognition. Barricaded in the National Hotel the officers issued a statement: "The public al ready has forgotten the patriotic work we did in getting rid of the Dictator Machado when the enlisted personnel had not the nerve to do this alone. We are willing to return to our commands as soon as all the enlisted men announce their willingness to return to their ranks." Out in his Vedado suburban home which resembled an armed camp, ex-President Menocal received correspondents. "The present government," said he, "can last only a short time. It is composed of men who broke their solemn promise to set up a government representative of the entire island, made when the various factions conferred on Saturday. The promise was broken before they had officially entered office.
"The student element [ABC] once had the sympathy of the Cuban people, when they were denied by Machado the education to which they were entitled. Now they have forgotten all this and are irresponsible children who have assumed the prerogatives of men. Children cannot dictate the Government of Cuba."
Against the officers the new President had the one potent weapon to hold all Cubans together: Cuban fear of U. S. intervention. Early in the week Commissioner Carbo had declared that "the presence of U. S. battleships in Cuban waters does not mean a threat to Cuban sovereignty.'' But when the U. S. S. Indianapolis carried U. S. Secretary of the Navy Swanson into Havana Harbor, an unknown Cuban fired a pistol at it. And last week the great, grey battleship Mississippi was steaming slowly back & forth off Morro Castle. President Grau San Martin changed the new government's tune. The streets suddenly blossomed with banners: "Down With Yanqui Imperialism!" Col. Batista said: "I will say only that we are now under the Cuban flag."
A somewhat lonely lump in Cuba's pot of ajiaco criollo, President Grau San Martin began to pick a Cabinet. He put in a customs house man, Jose Barquin, as Secretary of the Treasury; an obscure doctor, Antonio Guiteras, as Secretary of the Interior; the son of the famed discoverer of the yellow fever mosquito, Dr. Carlos J. Finlay as Secretary of Sanitation and Public Instruction; a rich architect and engineer, Eduardo J. Chibas, who was a de Cespedes man, as Secretary of Public Works. Meanwhile last week the rest of the hash was still boiling.