Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 1901 — People and Events [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

People and Events

Cuba'4 President. Tomas Estrada Palma, the leading candidate for president of the new Cuban republic, has been ever associated with the cause of Cuba Libre, and was fora long time the manager of the junta in New York. His life has been an active one, spent in the service of his country and devoted to the principles of liberty and political equality he imbibed from the study of American institutions. A native of Cuba, he is descended from an ancient family of Castile. He was born at Bayamo in 1835, studied law in Spain and determined when a youth to free Cuba from the yoke of the dons. In 1877 he partly realized his ambition when he was elected president of the Cuban republic. He now bids fair to be made the head of a republic which will be more than the dream of a patriot After his election he served In the field during the ten years’ war, in which over 200.000 Spanish soldiers

fell. At the close of that strife he refused to swear allegiance to the king and exiled himself in Honduras, where he married and became postmastergeneral and otherwise conspicuous as a statesman. In 1883 he came to America, established an educational institution, and as soon as the last revolution appeared threw himself into it heart and soul.

TOMAS ESTRADA PALMA.