Soldier; diplomat; lawyer; statesman.

Cosme de la Torriente y Peraza (son of Leandro and Maria Ignacia) was born on the estate of his father, "La Isabel," near Jovellanos in the Province of Matanzas on the twenty-seventh of June, 1872. He was educated in the Institute of. Matanzas where he completed the course for the Bachelor's degree and at the University of Havana, where he pursued the studies for the law until 1895 when he joined the Revolution which broke out on the twenty-fourth of February of that year. He had obtained the degree of Licentiate in Philosophy and Letters in 1892, for he had pursued this course simultaneously with that of law, and he obtained the degree of Licentiate in Law on his return from the battlefield at the close of 1898.

When the Revolution began in 1895 Torriente was active in the revolutionary clubs of Matanzas, and in March of that year he embarked for the United States to take part in the filibustering expeditions there being organized. He was a participant in several of those which were captured and in consequence was imprisoned let different times, at Washington, Delaware, at Nassau in the Bahamas, and at New York. Finally he joined the famous expedition in the steamer Bermuda under the command of General Calixto García, which landed successfully in Baracoa, and he served throughout the rest of the war under Generals Máximo Gómez, Calixto García, José Maria Rodriguez, Francisco Carrillo, and José Manuel Capote. He served as Representative for Pinar del Rio in the Constituent Assembly of Yaya, Camagüey, returning to the field on its dissolution. When the war closed he had gained the rank of Colonel on the General Staff having taken part in the attack and siege of Santiago de Cuba as Chief of Staffs in the Division commanded by Major General José Manuel Capote. He took part also in the fighting along the Gibara-Holguin line between the forces of General Calixto García and the Spanish General Luque, which continued until August seventeenth because the opposing forces were not aware that the Peace Protocol had been signed in Washington on the twelfth.

When the Spanish sovereignty ceased General Ludlow, the Military Governor of Havana, appointed Torriente Secretary of the Civil Government and later Acting Governor of the Province. In August, 1899, he was appointed Magistrate of the Provincial Courts (Court of Appeals) of Santa Clara and in 1900 he assumed similar duties in Matanzas, his native Province. There he remained until 1903 when President Estrada Palma appointed him Secretary of Legation at Madrid, where he served as Chargé d'Affaires until some time later when he was appointed Minister, and also Envoy Extraordinary, to represent the Republic of Cuba at the wedding of King Alfonso who conferred upon him on that occasion the Grand Cross of Isabel the Catholic. When the anarchist attempt then made upon the lives of King Alfonso and his bride occurred, the Cuban envoy and his wife were among those nearest to the royal pair and like them escaped unhurt although about a hundred people were killed or wounded.

In 1906 when the revolution broke out against President Estrada Palma, and an American Interventional government took charge of the country, Torriente resigned his charge although he was the only Cuban diplomat who did so, preferring not to act as foreign representative of the provisional government. The first and only Treaty ever made between Cuba and Spain--that is to say between the former Colony and her former sovereign--the Treaty of Extradition now in force, was negotiated by Torriente and bears his signature.

Since 1906 he has devoted himself to the practice of the legal profession and to public affairs. During the administration of President Gómez he held for a time the office of Civil Service Commissioner, the Commission consisting then of three members, two of the places being held by Liberals and one by a Conservative, Torriente, until the beginning of 1912 when he resigned. On his return from Spain he was one of those who founded and organized the National Conservative party which he served for some years as General Secretary, later as Vice-president, and finally as President which honor he laid down at the end of I9I4, but still continues to be Honorary President of the party.

In 1908 he was candidate for Senator from his native province and in I9I0 for Representative and was later elected Senator for the term of eight years beginning in April, 1918. He was the first Secretary of State in President Menocal's administration. Among matters of international importance which came under his charge, and were determined in accordance with his opinion and counsel, was the question of claims made by England, France, and Germany for damages suffered by their subjects during the War of Independence and known as the " Tripartite Claims, " and the case, no less famous, of the Ports Company of Cuba, known as the "Compañía del Dragado. " In regard to the latter question it was the judgment of the Cuban Government, sanctioned without dissent by the Supreme Court of Cuba, that it was the most important case of its kind that had arisen in Cuba and possibly in any country in America and offered more difficulties than any other in its study and solution.

Señor Torriente is the first Vice-president of the Association and also of the National Council of Veterans of the War of Independence; Vice-president of the Cuban Society of International Law, and one of the four members for Cuba in The Hague Tribunal of Arbitration; he is a member also of the High International Commission for Uniform Legislation which holds its sessions in Washington. He is the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Senate of Cuba.

On the declaration of war by Cuba upon the Imperial Governments of Germany and Austria, Senator Torriente took an active part in presenting and urging the principal laws dealing with the war, among them the act for Aid to the Allies which was due to his initiative and became law on the fifteenth of May, I9I8. By this there was granted a credit of $2,400,000 annually, to support the civil populations in the war zones of Europe and to succor the soldiers who were victims of the war, and their families. He was President of the Cuban National Committee created by the law of Propaganda for the war and of Aid to its Victims. In recognition of his labors and efforts the French Republic has conferred upon him the decoration of an Officer of the Legion of Honor and he has received the thanks of the Government of Great Britain.

Senator Torriente is a Member by Merit as also Corresponding Member of the Royal Hispanic-American Academy of Science end Art of Madrid: Honorary Member of the Faculty of Political and Administrative Science of the University of St. Mark of Lima, Honorary Corresponding Member of the Royal Geographical Society of Spain and he was elected in April, 1919, Corresponding Member of the Hispanic Society of America.