CUBA: Dollar Customers

Not many Cubans have seen comic strips of Andy Gump. But every important Cuban banker knows, at least by sight, Governor Eugene R. Black of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Ga. Mr. Black is very tall, very thin, half-bald, full of gumption. He exports U. S. dollars to Cuba. Three years ago he filled a rush order for $40,000,000—several freight cars full—and got the dollars to Havana in time to save runs on several banks. Under law of Nov. 7, 1914, the Cuban peso has exactly the same value as a U. S. dollar, and in practice pesos and dollars circulate interchangeably all over Cuba. Last week Atlanta’s Gumpish Governor Black—he does not mind allusions to the famed resemblance—prepared a rousing welcome for a Good Will Delegation of his Cuban dollar customers. Two hundred and fifty strong the Cubans sailed from Havana, accompanying two sturdy bronzed teams who were to play foot-and basketball with Georgia Military Academy this week. Mayor Ragsdale Barker of Atlanta sped 100 miles to Macon to greet Mayor Miguel Mariano Gómez of Havana. Señor Gómez’s father was the late, great General José Miguel Gómez, President of Cuba (1909-13)—not to be confused with General Juan Vicente Gómez of Venezuela, senile but still potent Dictator. Atlanta’s Journal gossiped that Señora Gómez who accompanies the Mayor “is reputedly one of the most beautiful women of Cuba,” added with discreet reticence, that Cuban “President Machado’s family will be represented by his youngest daughter, Señora Rafael Jorge Sanchez.”

The delegates will be shown such impressive sights as the Coca Cola factory (world’s largest individual consumer of Cuban sugar). Finally Governor & Mrs. Lamartine Griffin Hardman of Georgia are giving a banquet toastmastered by Reserve Bank Governor Black. He, more than anyone else, has steadily built up goodwill and good business with Cuba, until today Atlanta leads all U. S. inland cities in the carloads of local goods she despatches via Key West to Havana. Famed for his ready running wit, Banker Black is reputed never to crack the same banquet joke twice. But his orations have a rhythm. They usually start with a reference to the Federal Reserve System as “a great reservoir of credit,” proceed to stress the industrial rather than the agricultural triumphs of the New South, invariably allude to the beauty and grace of ladies in general and those present in particular, and are apt to wind up with a smashing anecdote about “Gussie” (Mrs. Black).