The idea that American recognition of the Mendieta government would prove to be a magic cure-all for the ills of Cuba has been pretty thoroughly punctured by the news that all constitutional guarantees have been suspended as a result of a general strike. There is very little evidence that Mendieta has or ever had the confidence of the country. He owes his accession to power solely to the discriminatory use which the American government has made of the weapon of recognition in order to discredit his predecessors and force their overthrow. The plain fact of the matter is that Cuba just barely tolerates a conservative government, for the country has become radical at heart due to the desperate economic plight of recent years. The situation since the occasion of Mendieta has improved very little if at all. Business is still practically at a standstill, the agricultural regions have undergone inconceivable suffering, and the workers are not unnaturally turning to radical social remedies, not particularly as the best way out--for there seems to be no way out--but as the only possible means of alleviating their present misery. In the face of this there was but one way in which the American supported Mendieta government could hope to keep its head above water, and that was to improve the economic situation with American aid. This it has failed to do; and the Cuban people have inevitably turned back to their former remedies.

What this is going to mean for the conservative government is pretty well foreshadowed by the general strike which has now paralyzed the island and threatens momentarily to develop into an actual revolt; and there is no doubt that the revolution will come. Once it starts Mendieta is certainly doomed, for the forces of conservatism are hopelessly outnumbered. The fall of Mendieta is going to put the Roosevelt Administration right back in the impossible position which it found so uncomfortable in the last days of Grau San Martin. The only inference is that any policy which is consistently productive of nothing but failure should be abandoned. It remains to be whether in the event of a new upheaval in Cuba Mr. Roosevelt will have the strength of will to toss the demonstrably unworkable and outmoded Stimson Doctrine into the ashcan which it would certainly grace-better than it does the minds of State Department savants, and recognize as graciously as possible any government howsoever radical that is established. Such an attitude would have a salutary effect that would make the settlement of the fundamental problem of the fate of foreign capital in Cuba immeasurably easier. NEMO.