CHAPTER II

THE CUBA OF 1899-THE POLITICAL AND INDUSTRIAL SITU

ATION-THE FUTURE

T

HE saying that Havana is not Cuba was never

more true than in the first few months after the

war with Spain had ended. The war left few scars in Havana and in the other cities of the island (not including Santiago), except as were revealed in graveyard records, and in the applicants at military stations for food. In the country the war spread a blanket of devastation. As one went over the island on railroad train or in volante or on horseback, there was evidence on every side that the war was one of torch and famine rather than of powder and shot. The island was simply desolate,

Outside of cities of impressive architecture, and of towns and villages of huddling hovels, the country, except for a few miles around the cities of Santa Clara and Pinar del Rio, was bare of men and beasts, and almost bare of birds. The traveller even saw few flowers. Fruit trees were cut down and destroyed as a war measure. The fertile ground was rank with vegetation. Although the Spaniards had gone and the horrors of reconcentration were over, the people would not

return to the country in the first few months of American control. There were no huts there; no seed, and no tools with which to till the soil; no cattle, without which agricultural work cannot be done in Cuba; no food;

and so they stayed in towns and villages, worked in tobacco-fields and on sugar-plantations adjacent to cities and towns, ate what they could get, and wondered what the future would bring forth.

If there was one sight more pitiful in Cuba than any other, it was the women in black. Frequent as they were in Havana, where perhaps in some remote part of the city they even ventured to hold out their hands to you as you passed-women of refined appearance, too— the women in widow's weeds were the commonest sight in the small towns and cities. It was hard to tell where they got their mourning garments. It is no exaggera

tion to say that of a dozen women on a street in any Cuban village nine were in mourning. And their faces, sad with grief and thin with hunger even months after the war had ceased!

But there was a look of hope in the eyes of most of the widows-a forlorn hope, however, in many cases. The maidens early in the year were becoming cheerful, and as one went through the streets he heard occasionally snatches of a song they sung. It was one song, one tune, almost invariably. It was the Cuban National Hymn. The significance of that? Truly it was something for the United States, engaged in the work of reconstruction, to find out; as truly as was the meaning of thousands upon thousands of Cuban flags flying from huts all over the island-flags that it took bread to buy.

And then there was a still brighter side to the picture -the laughter of children. I remember that three days after the reporters reached the scene of the Johnstown flood one of them began his story, "The dogs are barking again in Johnstown," meaning that normal conditions were returning. So I might say of Cuba, the children were laughing and playing again. One could hear their shouts everywhere. On the streets and open spaces it was "One Strike," "Foul," "Third base,” “Slide,” as they played baseball furiously, and used American terms exclusively. At night, in the plazas of the cities, they played the Cuban game for ring-around-a-rosy to the music of American military bands. It was one of the commonest sights in Matanzas to see an American soldier trailing through the streets with two or three children, perhaps one perched on his shoulders, trading

English for Spanish words. The Spanish soldiers struck the children. Some of them the Spaniards maimed out of pure wantonness. The American soldiers coddled them, played with them, and everywhere you went it

was "Good-bye," meaning "How do you do?" from the lips of the children when they recognized you as an American, and your hand stole into your pockets for pennies instinctively.

Never shall I forget how I was stumbling at night about a gloomy street in Matanzas, looking for General James H. Wilson's palace-I had lost my way-when an urchin of eight loomed up right in front of me and halted me.

"Good-bye!" he said.

"Good-bye!" I replied.

"Good-night!" he said.

"Good-night!" I said.

Then taking off his cap, the lad swung it in the air, and cried, "Dree cheer for de red, white, and blue!"

Lukewarm as I had tried to be about annexation, I could have caught that boy in my arms and hugged him, had he not darted away in a burst of merriment.

As one went through the island and caught glimpses of block-houses surrounding every settlement, big and little, and as his eye lighted upon the enlarged grave