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Meanwhile in Havana the Congress, closely guarded by 300 soldiers, had accepted from War Minister Herrera resignations signed by Sr. Machado and other members of his Cabinet which had the effect of making General Herrera for about 30 minutes the Provisional President. Not acceptable to Ambassador Welles or to the Cuban army officers who had staged the coup d'état, General Herrera waited only for Congress to rush through a bill permitting him to hand the Provisional Presidency over to a "civilian neutral" and retired Cuban diplomat, quiet, scholarly, short-statured Carlos Manuel de Cespedes (pronounced "Sess-pay-dess").
Aristocratic Dr. Cespedes will serve only as a stop-gap President. The regular Cuban Presidential election is scheduled for next year. His name is popular in Cuba because his father, also Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, headed a brief revolutionary regime in 1868 (30 years before the U. S. helped Cuba to win independence from Spain) and has been called "the Cuban George Washington." His family were forced to flee Cuba after the revolt and Dr. Cespedes was born in New York just 62 years ago last week. Popular in Washington from 1914 to 1922 as Minister of Cuba, he knew Franklin Delano Roosevelt well as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. In 1925 during President Machado's first (and happier) term, Dr. Cespedes served briefly as Cuban Secretary of State, resigned for private reasons. Though a member of the Machado Liberal Party he was acceptable to all Cuban groups last week chiefly because in recent years he has held rigorously aloof from Cuban politics.
Since no public building seemed a safe place to inaugurate Provisional President de Cespedes he gave an inaugural garden party at 9:30 a. m. on the wide terrace of his handsome house. Flashing-eyed Cuban ladies embraced each other and their escorts with patriotic fervor as eight judges of the Cuban Supreme Court arrived majestically in their black robes. No foreign envoy, not even U. S. Ambassador Welles, was present. Amid sizzling heat Dr. Cespedes. perspiring in formal morning clothes, took this brief oath: "I swear faithfully to fulfill the duties of President of the Republic and enforce the Constitution and the laws!" Going inside from the garden terrace he signed the oath, exclaiming as he laid down his pen, "Viva la Republica Libre!"
Significant Battleships. Directly after his inaugural Provisional President de Cespedes, still sweating profusely, changed into a suit of white linen, enlivened by glistening tan shoes and an orange-striped shirt. "The people of Cuba desired the re-establishment of normal conditions," he told U. S. correspondents in perfect English, "and they acted almost unanimously in the quick, effective manner necessary to their aim."