Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring

A tireless historian and cultural promoter, he was appointed on July 1, 1935, Historian of the City of Havana and the Office was organized three years later.

He was author of books and pamphlets, as well as editor of various volumes, including the first Cuban edition of "The Golden Age" (1932), preceded by his study "Martí and the Children."

Beginning in 1935, he began publishing "clear, simple works with free distribution on diverse historical topics": the "Notebooks of Havana History," which appeared continuously until 1962.

He was born in Havana, Cuba, the son of the marriage formed by Emilio Roig y Forte-Saavedra and Mercedes Leuchsenring y Azoy. His childhood took place on the Santa Teresa estate, in Managua, property of his parents.

1895-1896

During these years he visited mambí camps in the company of his father, who provided economic and material aid to the revolutionary cause. From this period, he always kept a small Cuban flag, which he wore at this time pinned to his small mambí hat.

1896-1906

He completed primary and secondary education at the Colegio de Belén, where he became an outstanding student in Trigonometry, a subject taught at that time by mathematician Joaquín Santillana, S. J. He obtained his Bachelor's degree in 1906.

1905

He began his journalism work in Havana newspapers and magazines. He publishes his first article, "Travel Impressions" in the Diario de la Marina (November 28), under the pseudonym Hermann (a choice inspired by his reading of Hermann Suderman's work). He collaborated in this newspaper from that date on with articles of literary interest, travel impressions, and book reviews.

1908

He was one of the editors of the Law Students Magazine, which he managed from July 12 until December 1909. Beginning in March 1910, he took over the direction of this publication, which from May would be called Journal of Law. He held this position until the end of that year. For this magazine, he wrote legal, literary, and historical articles, and wrote the sections: Miscellany, Review of Reviews, Notes, and Bibliography.

He was elected Secretary of Correspondence of the Liberal University Association, presided over by Eusebio A. Hernández (November).

1909

He was part of the Propaganda Commission of the Progressive Liberal Youth that supported the candidacy of José Miguel Gómez. He collaborated in El Tiempo, a weekly bulletin of Cuba and America.

1910

Beginning in January of that year, he directed the magazine Emilio Roig's Office. Magazine of his Business. An information and advertising vehicle that exposed the specialties of the house founded by Don Emilio Roig y Roig in 1889, and which in 1900 would be inherited by his sons. The articles in this magazine dealt entirely with the business of the house presented in bilingual articles in Spanish and English: administration of property and capital on the island and additional branches, the capital section in first mortgage, purchase and sale of properties, capital investment in manufacturing, various information and collection of all types of credits and accounts. This illustrated magazine, at the exclusive service of a commercial firm, was the first of its kind in Cuba. Its typography was handled by the Avisador Comercial Printing House.

He collaborated in the Havana magazines Helios and Alma Latina.

1912

He wrote the "Legal Annotations" for the Legal Review of Havana (beginning in May). He collaborated in La Última Hora with his section From Cuban Life (July 21) and in the Havana magazines El Fígaro, El Teatro, and Cuba and America.

His article "Can One Live in Havana Without a Cent?", under the motto of "Witch Soaper," was awarded on July 18 in the Literary Contest called by the magazine El Fígaro, for considering it a true article of customs. It was published by this magazine in its August 4 issue. (The jury for this contest was made up of Federico Villoch, Enrique Hernández Mijares, José M. Carbonell, Félix Callejas, and Max Henríquez Ureña.) This article sparked an extensive controversy in the press of the time. Roig was accused of plagiarism by a certain Paco Mantilla, El Andaluz (contributor to Cuba and America), who ultimately withdrew his false thesis; other journalists rambled about customs literature and humor in trying to place the article in one of the two genres. Max Henríquez Ureña in his "Literary Epistle on Customs and Humor," published in La Última Hora, September 1, 1912, qualifies it as an exemplary article of customs and a clear example of a humorous article.

1919

He gave a lecture at the Cuban Society of International Law on "The Armed Occupation of Santo Domingo by Americans and the Right of Small Nationalities." He denounced this act as an attack on law and freedom violated by unpopular governments, which relied on the support of foreign powers to consolidate their hold on power.

In this lecture, which was the third of the second work session held on January 28, at the Academy of Sciences, on the occasion of the third Annual Meeting of the Cuban Society of International Law, he defined what would be the main task of his life: the defense of the rights of the peoples of America. In the fourth session, he declared that "no American nation... would have the right nor could exercise acts of domination, sovereignty, or intervention over another nation on the continent," an amendment that he proposed to the project, on fundamental bases, of International Law.

His intervention in favor of the sovereignty of Santo Domingo was published that same year as a pamphlet, under the title: "The Occupation of the Dominican Republic by the United States and the Right of Small Nationalities of America." This work, which constitutes his first anti-imperialist denunciation, merited countless notes from the Cuban and Latin American press, as well as articles by Carlos Loveira and Enrique José Varona, among other notable figures, who published their respective chronicles on August 31 in El Heraldo de Cuba, and in that same month's issue of the Social magazine, respectively.

He resigned from being part of the Statutory Commission of the Nationalist Party, in a letter addressed to Dr. José Manuel Carbonell, secretary of said Party. He affirmed in it that he wished to continue belonging to the Liberal Party and that, therefore, he defended the candidacy of General José Miguel Gómez.

1920

He took over the role of editor-in-chief of Social, a magazine he had been collaborating with since 1916.

He took part in the fourth Annual Meeting of the Cuban Society of International Law and proposed asking the American Institute of International Law to discuss in its next session the scope and interpretation that the Monroe Doctrine should have for the future.

He proposed, within the Bar Association, to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Dr. José Antonio González Lanuza, which occurred on June 27, 1917. (A wreath of flowers was placed on the tomb of this eminent jurist at the Columbus Cemetery by friends and admirers. Dr. Alfredo Zayas y Alfonso made a speech.)

He published The Monroe Doctrine and the League of Nations Covenant, an extraordinary document containing the preamble of the proposal he made to the Cuban Society of International Law, by which he requested a clarification of the Monroe Doctrine.

Beginning from this date, he collaborated in the Havana newspapers El Mundo, El Tiempo, and La Lucha.

1921

He traveled to the United States on the steamship Ulúa, and to Europe on the Aquitania. He traveled through France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, England, and Spain.

Commissioned by the Secretary of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, Dr. Francisco de Zayas, he conducted research in Spain on José Martí's stay in that nation. In Paris and Madrid, he gathered information for Social and appointed correspondents for this magazine. In Spain, Alfonso Reyes, who held his country's Legation in Madrid, accepted the role of correspondent; and in France, Carlos de Velasco and François G. de Cisneros (Federico de Ibarzábal would replace Roig as editor-in-chief of Social).

He returned to Cuba in November. The Academy of History appointed new academicians for the existing vacancies, and agreed that Roig would occupy the position of Alfredo Aguayo (December 29).

He wrote for the magazines Cuba Contemporánea and Mexican Journal of International Law, as well as for the newspaper El Heraldo de Cuba.

1922

He held the position of secretary of the Journal of International Law, organ of the American Institute of International Law. He was elected secretary of the Cuban Society of International Law.

He took part in the fifth Annual Meeting of the Cuban Society of International Law by reading the annual report of said Society. He related the Society's work and highlighted the importance of its activities for Cuba, whose special situation needed to seek its defense in the rule of law. He also delivered, at this fifth Meeting, his discourse on "The Platt Amendment in Its Original Interpretation and Its Later Applications"; this lecture is published that same year.

He was part of the panel for the Prize for Ideas, instituted by the Municipal Magazine of Havana.

He was part of the National Codifying Commission charged with drafting the Civil Code. He acted as secretary in the Meeting where Erasmo Regüeiferos and Manuel Gutiérrez Balmaseda were elected president and secretary, respectively, of this Commission.

1923

He was one of the editors of Cuba Contemporánea (January). He was linked to this magazine not only through his active collaboration since 1921, but through absolute identification and close solidarity with the ideals it steadfastly maintained since its founding.

He held the position of secretary of the Board of Governors of the newly founded Cuban Folklore Society, presided over by Don Fernando Ortiz. He was part of the Phalanx of Cuban Action, an organization of ephemeral but not irrelevant life, which was a link born from the Protest of the Thirteen, also led by Rubén Martínez Villena (April 1).

At the solemn opening session of the sixth Annual Meeting of the Cuban Society of International Law, he was responsible for reading the annual report as secretary of this Society (April 23). In addition, at the closing session, he lectured on "Analysis and Consequences of American Intervention in Our Internal Affairs" (April 27); this discourse was published that same year. As an epilogue, he submitted to the consideration of this sixth Meeting the following propositions, which were accepted by acclamation: 1) Organize a tribute at the University of Havana to Dr. Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante. 2) Congratulate Dr. Cosme de la Torriente for his work in the Tribunal of the League of Nations. 3) Declare that the Cuban Society of International Law would welcome Cuba's recognition of the Mexican government. 4) Dedicate a session of the next Annual Meeting to studying Cuba's political status.

He published a small collection of articles on Cuban customs under the title of one of these articles: "The Gentleman Who Lost His Lady" (published in Costa Rica by J. García Monge). He collaborated in the Havana newspaper La Discusión.

1926

Beginning this year and from the pages of Carteles, he demanded for Cuba a radical transformation in favor of the rule of law, equity, and social justice. He opposed Machado's continuism and courageously denounced the dictatorship of this period. Through this magazine, he maintained a successful campaign in favor of equal civil rights for women. For this reason, he published letters on civil feminism by Juan Marinello Vidaurreta, secretary of the Civil Law Section of the National Codifying Commission.

He also began, in this same publication, the section "Gossip" under the pseudonym The Curious Chatterbox (November 7), which he would maintain until August 16, 1953. In it, he studied and criticized our public and private customs.

He received tributes of gratitude from the various student associations at the University of Havana and from the Directory of its Federation for his combative journalistic work in Carteles, in favor of the prestige of said institution.

He gave a speech at the breakfast offered at the Telegraph Hotel to the Cuban press by the Mexican minister in Cuba, Mr. Juan de Dios Bojorquez.

He received a visit to Havana from Don Ramón del Valle Inclán.

He was responsible for the annual report of the ninth Annual Meeting of the Cuban Society of International Law, in which he referred to Cuba's international life and cited the most outstanding facts. In the fifth session (April 14), he lectured on "Mexico: Its Three Most Important International Problems Today."

He led the minority protest directed to Primo de Rivera for the deportation to Chafarinas of Dr. Luis Jiménez de Asúa. He participated in the excursion to Mexico organized by Manuel Gutiérrez Escalada, editor of the Book of Cuba.

He presented a motion on behalf of the Cuban Society of International Law regarding the modification of the Platt Amendment, due to Gerardo Machado's deceptive proposal to replace it with a Treaty of Alliance between the United States and Cuba before the end of his term. The Society thus tried to prevent the hidden guardianship that the Amendment meant.

At a session held by the Rotary Club (September 2), he denounced the great need to review this appendix to the constitution, which he proved with solid arguments. Moreover, he fixed and determined Cuba's rights to be an absolutely independent people; and he related our liberation exploits, without omitting America's participation, and its imposition on Cubans of the aforementioned Amendment.

He gave a speech on "Catalonia's Right to Its Freedoms," at the Catalan Center (September 11), which was published that same year. He attended the first session of the Hispano-Cuban Culture Institution, at the Economic Society of Friends of the Country (November 22).

He served as secretary, for Cuba, of the International Commission of Intellectual Cooperation (C.I.C.I.).

He collaborated in the magazines La Nota Rotaria, Venezuela Libre, La Nova Catalunya, Bimonthly Cuban Review, and Cigar Roller Bulletin.

1927

He signed a protest led by Enrique José Varona over the landing of American Navy troops in the sister Republic of Nicaragua.

He was honored at the Roosevelt Hotel by employees of the Union of Graphic Arts, of Social and Carteles, along with Conrado Massaguer and Alfredo T. Quilez.

The Havana Delegation, at the proposal of the cigar rollers from the La Corona factory, proposed to the First Ordinary Congress of the National Federation of Cigar Rollers of Cuba, held in Santa Clara, that his articles on the social and labor problems of Cuba, published in Carteles, be edited in the form of a pamphlet under the title Social Problems in Cuba. This motion was approved unanimously (January 31).

He received in Havana, as a member of the Minority Group, the French poet Paul Morand.

(In the February issue of Social magazine, Conrado Massaguer's caricature "Saturday Dessert" appeared, which was featured at the VI Humorists' Salon, and perpetuated for posterity a lunch of the minorities.)

He was part of the cabinet of Miguel Mariano Gómez as Inter-Municipal Commissioner.

Beginning this year, he managed to type the first seven cabildo books; but it was not possible for him to publish any due to the economic difficulties faced by the municipal administration.

He severely criticized the inaugural words of State Secretary Dr. Rafael Martínez Ortiz, at the tenth Annual Meeting of the Cuban Society of International Law, who stated that the Cuban president's trip to the United States had been only to invite Mr. Coolidge and his Secretary of State, Mr. Kellog, to the seventh Pan-American Conference, which would take place in Havana in 1928. The Latin American nations that had chosen Havana as the venue received this indiscretion with great displeasure.

He also presented at this tenth Meeting the topic "Martí's Nationalism and Internationalism," a conference that he published that same year.

He signed a manifesto to the country, led by Enrique José Varona, against the extension, against reelection, and in favor of the reorganization of political parties. He also signed a legal argument to the Senate against an extension project, which was supposed to be an amendment to the constitution.

He protested with a group of anti-extension and anti-reelection personalities against banker Thomas W. Lamont, who on behalf of J. P. Morgan & Co., supported and encouraged Machado to remain in power through reelection, or through the extension project voted on by the House of Representatives.

He published a note in Social magazine showing his complete disagreement with the prologue of Alberto Lamar Schweyer's work, titled Biology of Democracy. In this work, Lamar proclaims the failure of democracy and exalts the advent of dictatorships. This note of disagreement caused Lamar, in a letter to Ramón Vasconcelos, published in El País (May 4, 1927), to hurl harsh words at Roig and assert the non-existence of the Minority Group. Because of this, Roig commissioned Messrs. Ruy de Lugo Viña and Octavio Seigle to demand from Lamar a public retraction or, failing that, a reparation by arms. Lamar preferred the former.

Due to Lamar Schweyer's assertion, he signed with the minorities the historic manifesto that defined the Group: "Against false and worn-out values; for vernacular art and, in general, for new art in its diverse manifestations; for the introduction and popularization in Cuba of the latest doctrines, theories, and artistic and scientific practices; for the reform of public education and against corrupt systems of opposition to professorships; for university autonomy; for Cuba's economic independence and against Yankee imperialism; against unipersonal political dictatorships in the world, in America, in Cuba; against the excesses of pseudo-democracy, against the farce of suffrage and for the effective participation of the people in government; in favor of the improvement of the farmer, the sugar grower, and the Cuban worker; for cordiality and Latin American union." For this manifesto, he suffered imprisonment along with José Antonio Fernández de Castro and Alejo Carpentier, accused of being revolutionaries and communists by the tyrant Machado.

He presented a motion on behalf of the Cuban Society of International Law (September 23) in favor of celebrating a national tribute to Dr. Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante, for which he made public the initiative of the Faculty of Law of the University of Havana to name its chair the Bustamante Hall, publish his work in Spanish, French, and English, and recommend for the Nobel Peace Prize such a worthy Cuban jurist.

On the occasion of the visit to Cuba of Pedro Albizu Campos, president of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, he constituted, together with other illustrious Cubans, the Cuban National Committee for the Independence of Puerto Rico, in which he served as vice president, under the presidency of Enrique José Varona.

He collaborated in the Havana newspaper El Heraldo.

1930

Beginning in January, he developed in Carteles magazine the topic of dictatorships in Europe and America. He held that the firmest basis of dictatorships in our continent, subjected to Yankee imperialism, had been Washington's support. He denounced the political evils that plunge Latin America into absolute misery.

At the closing session of the XIII Annual Meeting of the Cuban Society of International Law, he lectured on "Interventionism, the Evil of Evils of Our Republic," analyzed the disastrous consequences that the Platt Amendment had brought to Cuba, and its misuse by governments and politicians, always in favor of their personal interests, and to the detriment of Cuba's sovereignty and freedom (May 9).

He began in Carteles magazine a survey titled "What Do Young People Think?" to make known the ideas and desires of Cuban youth, as well as their intellectual and moral values (June 22).

He lectured at the Havana Cigar Rollers' Society on "Interventionism, the Evil of Evils of Republican Cuba" (June 26). On this occasion, Antonio Penichet, in introducing Roig, highlighted his journalistic campaigns in favor of workers and against imperialism.

He presented to the Permanent Commission of the Cuban Reporters' Association a draft declaration of principles in favor of the right to freedom of speech and expression of thought, which was accepted unanimously.

He was part of the Organizing Committee for the Tribute to Enrique José Varona. (In a manifesto titled To the People of Cuba [September 15], he urged the raising of funds to pay for the printing of Varona's works.)

He signed a document titled: Committee for the Freedom of Student Manuel Cotoño Valdés, who upon returning to Cuba had been detained for having belonged to the Student Directory against the extension of powers (September 18).

He signed a protest manifesto, with other writers and artists, over the outrage committed against university students, where Rafael Trejo lost his life (September 30). (The Committee Organizing the Tribute to Varona resolved to suspend said tribute and join this protest.)

Accused of charges for this protest, he was released as there were no reasons for his arrest.

He went to El Príncipe Castle when Juan Marinello, among other prisoners, was released due to the September 30 events (October).

He presented to the Pan-American Congress of Municipalities, with Enrique Gay Calbó, César Rodríguez, and others, a proposition aimed at achieving the objective that cities, as urban centers, be inviolable, and not be taken as military objectives for aerial or naval bombardment.

He collaborated in Repertorio Americano magazine of Costa Rica, and in the Cuban newspaper El País.

He was part of the Commission of Newspaper and Magazine Directors that approved a declaration of principles, drafted by him, due to the censorship imposed by Machado. The document maintained and clarified the foundations and scope of freedoms of speech and expression of thought through the press.

(At Roig's urging, Carteles published a weekly note of protest against the censorship imposed by the tyrant Machado.)

1931

Carteles published his photograph, whose text warned of the arrest order that hung over him (January 11).

Under the pseudonym Juan Matusalén Junior, he collaborated in Carteles from March 29 of that year until March 19, 1933. (He used this pseudonym again in this same magazine in the months of August and September 1953.)

He was dismissed as Inter-Municipal Delegate and replaced by Juan Martín Leiseca. Machado's misgovernment created the Central District of Havana by Law of February 19 and appointed José Izquierdo y Juliá as mayor or chief of such District. During the time this District and its mayor lasted, until August 12, 1933, his historical-cultural work, as well as the publication of the Cabildo books, remained completely paralyzed.

The true reason for his dismissal was not due to the creation of such District, as was wanted to be seen, but to his campaigns against the Machado regime.

Beginning this year, due to the political persecution he suffered, he used different pseudonyms to continue his journalistic activities.

On June 14, the last of his articles on Cuban political problems appeared in Carteles, begun in 1927, refusing to submit to prior censorship.

He sent a telegram of congratulations to Don Fernando de los Ríos for the proclamation of the Republic in Spain (April).

He wrote the section Trivia for Carteles magazine under the pseudonym U. Noquelosabe. (This section, which began on August 30 of that year and which he maintained until July 3, 1932, would reappear on March 4, 1951, until July 29 of that year.)

He signed a protest document titled "To Spanish Intellectuals" to prevent the erection of a statue to the tyrant Machado in Madrid.

He continued his clandestine collaboration in Carteles under the pseudonym Enrique Alejandro de Hermann (September 20), which he would use continuously until March 5, 1933. Later, he used it four more times in this same magazine in the years 1936 and 1937. He resumed this pseudonym on September 6, 1953, and used it until December 27 of that year.

(In December, the original volume of the Cabildo Book from the time of English rule in Havana, which Roig had published in 1929, was removed from his corresponding Archive. Immediate judicial proceedings were futile.)

He published Interventionism, the Evil of Evils of Republican Cuba; a conference read at the XIII Annual Meeting of the Cuban Society of International Law (May 9, 1930) and at the Resistance Society of Cigar Rollers of Havana (June 26, 1930).

1935

He was tried as a contributor to the case against the editors and writers of the Masas magazine directed by Juan Marinello. This collective was accused of sedition and insult when the Urgent Court number 1 estimated that this magazine carried out a campaign contrary to republican institutions. The defenders demonstrated that Masas only attacked Yankee imperialism. As a contributor, Roig is acquitted, but the director Juan Marinello and his writers were sentenced to six months in prison. He requested amnesty for this board and in his statements defined that anti-imperialist work did not represent a danger to the nation, nor an attack on its fundamental institutions, but a nationalist ideal and fervent Cubanness (February).

He published "Anti-Imperialist Internationalism in José Martí's Political and Revolutionary Work," in the book Tribute to Enrique José Varona, published by the Direction of Culture and the Secretariat of Education of Cuba. That same year, this study is published as a pamphlet, constituting an authentic facet of Martí's anti-imperialist thought related to Cuban consciousness.

He was appointed Historian of the City of Havana by municipal mayor Dr. Guillermo Belt Ramírez (July 1). Upon taking this position, he was interested in giving popular projection to his functions. For this reason, he began the dissemination of knowledge of our country's history; and for that purpose suggested to Dr. Guillermo Belt the convenience of publishing, by the Municipality, clear, simple works with free distribution on diverse historical topics. The mayor accepted this suggestion and issued a decree (August 28) by which he ordered the edition of Notebooks of Havana History and the appointment of the Historian of the City for the direction of this historical dissemination publication, which reached No. 75. (It appeared continuously until 1962, in volumes of 80 to 200 pages each, and editions of 1,000 copies.)

Commissioned by mayor Belt, he proceeded to compile data on the monuments and historic sites of the capital, among them, the monuments to Christopher Columbus, in the courtyard of City Hall, that of Ferdinand VII and others; also, he was in charge of writing a report on the history of Plaza de Armas for its restoration, and of undertaking the project and cost of the monument to Victor Hugo in the park located on H Street, between 19 and 21.

He was part of the Public Monuments Protection section of the National Tourism Corporation.

At his instance, the municipal mayor ordered a decree for the placement on the pilaster that exists in front of the Fountain of India, in Plaza de Fraternidad, of the plaque where the history and significance of this monument is narrated. He wrote the inscription for it and presented the project and cost of the work. This plaque was placed in March 1936.

He was part of the Urban Commission proposed by Gustavo Gutiérrez for the nomination of candidate for mayor of Havana, Dr. Guille Tapia.

At the request of mayor Belt, he wrote a preceding report to the Decree-Law by which the old names would be restored to the streets of Havana.

He began distributing the first Notebook of Havana History titled Tribute to the Illustrious Habanero Priest José Agustín Caballero y Rodríguez on the Centenary of his Death) 1835-1935 (October 4).

He served as vice president of the National Association Against Racist Discrimination presided over by Don Fernando Ortiz.

He was part of the Organizing Committee of the National Committee Pro-Abyssinia.

By his initiative, the society Friends of the National Library was established, with the purpose of rescuing this institution from the disastrous state it was in and placing it at the height required in a cultured and civilized country (December 13).

He published History of the Platt Amendment, an Interpretation of Cuban Reality. This work, which summarizes the inordinate ambition and hostility of the United States against Cuba's independence, was cataloged by the press as "a sensational book." It is an impartial study in its historical, political, economic, and social aspects of the Cuban case from 1805, when the first American intentions to seize Cuba appear. In this work, he criticizes the process of absorption and Yankee imperialist exploitation of the Island and presents a picture of the most transcendental Cuban political events, internal and external, since 1902.

He also published Old Havana; Plaza de Armas (second Notebook of Havana History), and Notes for a Program of Good Municipal Government in Havana. In this pamphlet, he advocated for the protection of children; child education; public health; social assistance; matters related to urban planning; and other aspects, such as the racial problem, wages, transportation, burial service, etc. A true social program that responded to the interests of the people.

He collaborated, beginning from this date, in the magazine University of Havana.

1937

He inaugurated the Enrique José Varona library at the Municipal School General José Miguel Gómez (January 27).

He gave a speech in Guanajay, on the occasion of the inauguration of a monument to Martí in that city. That same day, he gave a lecture "Martí at the Liceo de Regla," at this institution (January 28).

By agreement of the Municipal Tourism Commission, 40 plaques with explanatory inscriptions were placed on monuments and public buildings, whose writing was his responsibility. These plaques were displayed during the February Festivals.

He signed "Appeal to all Cubans," as a member of the Honorary Committee of the Association of Aid to Spanish People's Children.

The second volume of his History of the Platt Amendment appeared, where he criticizes and analyzes the latest political and international Cuban events. In this volume, he studies the process and scope of the economic absorption and exploitation of Cuba by American, English, and Spanish capital. It includes 24 appendices with the basic documentation of relations between the United States and Cuba, and extensive and useful general alphabetical tables of names and subjects of the work.

He gave a speech at the tribute to the memory of Pablo de la Torriente Brau, at the Auditorium Theater, which, according to the press of the time, resulted in a rigorous study on different aspects of Torriente Brau's personality (April 19).

He closed the lectures on Illustrious Habaneros, the first series of Lectures on Havana History.

He signed, along with other Cuban intellectuals, a letter to Mr. León Cortés Castro, president of Costa Rica, for the freedom of Joaquín García Monge, director of Repertorio Americano magazine, and writer Francisco Marín Cañas (May 4).

He collaborated in organizing the first Book Fair of Havana, inaugurated on the grounds formerly occupied by the Prison (Paseo de Martí and Malecón) (May 29-30).

His report to mayor Antonio Beruff Mendieta was approved for the celebration by the Havana municipality of the centennial of Cuba's first railroad (that is, the one from Havana to Bejucal, inaugurated on November 19, 1837).

From the pages of Carteles, he advocated that the monument to Martí be a monument to the memory of the Apostle, and that it also have great public utility.

In a letter dated August 3 and addressed to Conrado Massaguer, he resigned his position as Literary Director of Social due to the nature of society, elegance, and frivolity that this magazine had assumed. However, he continued as a contributor.

The mayor of Havana, Beruff Mendieta, ordered that an official location for the Office of the Historian be installed in City Hall, who would also be custodian of the cabildo books, the royal decree books, and the books of minutes of municipal boards (August).

In a report to mayor Beruff Mendieta, he recommended the placement of commemorative plaques, according to the idea launched by Rafael Marquina, in the courtyards of City Hall of Plaza de Armas, and in that of the old Palace of the Counts of Casa Bayona, in Plaza de la Catedral.

He drafted the bases for the poetry contest to engrave the best ones on said plaques. At the end of December, Angel Augier's poem titled "In the Light of Your Moved Shadow..." was awarded, dedicated to the courtyard of the Palace Hall, and the other prize was left vacant.

As secretary of the Committee for the Centennial of Cuba's First Railroad, he made known in the press a broad program of the municipal administration for the commemoration of this centennial (September), whose commemorative acts were celebrated in Havana and Bejucal (November 13-19).

He acted as secretary of the Committee for Tribute to Nicol Estévanez, presided over by mayor Antonio Beruff Mendieta and Benigno Souza.

He participated in the meeting organized by the Spanish Republican Circle in defense of democracy in China (November).

He gave a lecture titled "Cuba, Victim of the Yankee Ripe Fruit Policy," as part of the series of Concerts and Lectures for Popular Dissemination, organized by the Tobacco Workers' Union Culture Commission (November 14).

He gave a speech at the Acera del Louvre, on the occasion of the unveiling ceremony of the plaque dedicated to the memory of Nicolás Estévanez (November 27). (From this date on, this event would be celebrated every year by agreement of the Municipal Government.) (In this speech, Roig spoke in defense of the Spanish Republic and against Franco's Spain, for which the Diario de la Marina, in a brief note published on November 28, characterized him as an outstanding sinecurist in all of Cuba's political situations and of speaking "in pure red," and against the reactionary press.)

Roig challenged this note in a letter addressed to the director of the Diario de la Marina, which was published in almost all Havana newspapers on November 3 (see note no. 684), including the Diario de la Marina itself. In this same newspaper and with this same date, Paolo Nicolai says he does not understand how Roig managed to harmonize his official condition of historian with the "outrages and histrionic gestures" that earned him the frenzied applause of some "the poor." But the Diario de la Marina had published his letter with an ironic note where it offered to pay for a trip to