Attack On US Stirs Cuban Assembly.

New York Times 100 years ago today, March 15, 1913:
Speaker Obtains an Inquiry Into Whether Our Amnesty Protest Hurt Island's Sovereignty.
NEW AMNESTY BILL PASSED
Is Restricted to Pardoning Negroes Involved in Late Revolution and Political Prisoners.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    HAVANA, March 14.— After the reading of President Gomez's veto of the Amnesty bill to-day the House passed a new bill granting amnesty to negro prisoners and others guilty of political crimes before Jan. 1.
    Speaker Ferrara, who made a hot speech resenting foreign interference, introduced a resolution, which was passed, appointing a commission to investigate "if it is true that the Government of the United Slates has made demands from Cuba which may be regarded as injuring her sovereignty."

    HAVANA, March 14.— The message of President Gomez vetoing the Amnesty bill was read in both houses of Congress this afternoon. The message did not contain the slightest reference to the recent frequent energetic remonstrances from Washington concerning the bill. It merely stated that President Gomez, after a most careful study of the measure, saw inconsistencies in various chapters which possibly would lead to legal controversies. Therefore, the Executive thought it best to veto the measure.
    The message recommended the preparation of a new bill which would extend amnesty to the prisoners taken in the recent racial revolution in the Province of Oriente, and also to certain offenders against the laws regulating the press, but exempting from amnesty those charged with offenses against the representatives of foreign powers.
    Col. Oreztes Ferrara, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, lauded President Gomez for basing his objections to the bill on inconsistencies in the law and ignoring the American objection to the measure, of which, he said, the House officially had no knowledge. Col. Ferrara then offered a motion to lay on the table that portion of the Presidential message relating to general offenses and accept immediately the suggestions regarding political offenses, especially the one including amnesty for the prisoners of the late insurrection, and to send the bill to the Senate. This motion passed almost unanimously.

Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, March 14.— The action of the Cuban lower house or Congress today in passing another amnesty bill, restricted this time to the negroes imprisoned for their participation in the revolution in the eastern part of the island last year, and to those imprisoned for political offenses, caused no surprise in Washington.
    This Government, it is believed, will not be satisfied with such an adjustment of the matter. It is too early to say whether another demand will be made on the Cuban Government, but it is likely that the Cuban Congress will be asked to make assurance doubly sure by repealing the first amnesty act. This appears to be necessary from the fact that President Gomez signed that act, which in all probability gives it a status as a law that could not be overcome by his veto.
    The Constitution of Cuba, in effect, is similar to that of the United States as to the adoption and promulgation of laws. Under the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, an act becomes effective as soon as signed, and does not depend on promulgation by the State Department to go into effect.
    There is an apprehension here that ultimately — probably when some of the men who have been profiting by graft under the Gomez administration are prosecuted — the question will be taken to the Supreme Court of Cuba, that so much of the first amnesty act as was not repealed by the terms of the second act became law, and that the objectionable pardons embraced in the first act have actually been granted by the Congress. In that event the United States would be powerless to act, and the Menocal Government would be unable to prosecute the offenders.