robbed the people of everything they possessed-poultry, livestock, vegetables, fruits-everything. CUEVITAS.-Spanish troops left here on December 17. They stole everything they could find every night; even broke into houses. CUMANAYAGUA.-About 800 to 1000 Spanish troops left here on December 11; they stole right and left everything and everybody. worst manner. MACAGUA.-The Spanish soldiers behaved in the blackest and When travelling by train and they saw a herd of cattle, the train would be stopped, such quantity as they needed for use would be killed, and the remainder ruthlessly shot and left lying along the track. And that feature of Spanish conduct could be extended indefinitely. Let me make another quotation from these notes, which General Wilson jotted down roughly: Nobody seems to have yet understood how far-reaching was the effort of General Weyler to starve the Cuban people. He took occasion to send to every town a garrison whose business it was to sweep in all the cattle and other live-stock, and consume it, as well as the garden products; and also to destroy the bananas in the field, leaving the people absolutely without anything to eat or the liberty to procure more by cultivation or purchase. In explanation of the fact that no farm-houses are to be seen, General Betancourt says that while the custom of the people used to be to live in the country, the war resulted in the burning and destruction of all the houses, and the people were all forced into the towns. To illustrate the causes for deep resentment on the part of the Cubans who were left, and the possible desire for revenge on Spanish sympathizers, let me relate an incident of an aggravated kind told to me by an American missionary, and vouched for by him as correct, as the result of personal investigation. Just before the reconcentration order went into effect in Santa Clara, a Spanish lieutenant and a detachment rode out into the country one morning. They passed a peasant who the lieutenant thought did not show him sufficient respect. "Tie that man up!" said the lieutenant. After that was done he said: "Bring out his wife and his daughter there." The soldiers did so. The girl was fourteen years old. Then, by orders, the soldiers began to hack at the man with their machetes. The woman fainted. They revived her; and then, as the missionary told it, "it was hack and faint, hack and faint, until the man was killed." The detachment went on, and the widow the next day came to town to ask permission to give her husband's body decent burial in town. The Spanish authorities. were very sympathetic, and even gave her written permission to do as she wished. The lieutenant and detachment came back, just as the widow went for the body. "What did they do with the body of that man killed here yesterday?" asked the officer. "Here is his widow," said a man who was acting as her escort," and she has written permission to give the body burial." ant. "That is the way they treat me, is it?" said the lieuten"Tie the woman up! Tie up her daughter!" Looking at the woman closely, he said, with a refine ment of cruelty that probably only a Spaniard could show: "There will soon be another Cuban to take that man's place. Kill her and her daughter!" and they did. And so, to conclude, I was forced to believe that ninety per cent. of the people in the island of Cuba wanted annexation of some kind to this country; that the war fever was still in the blood of the soldiers; that there was a love of country which had not yet been fathomed; that the grief-stricken women had a strong feeling of resentment; that the Cuban Assembly and the party it represented, so far as there was one, had not capacity for self-government as we understand it. So it might be said that the real desire of the people of Cuba was for union with this country. That, bluntly, was what they wanted. The problem was, what we wanted to do about it. One of the foremost champions of the recent revolution said to me: "I am now asking my people whether they would prefer freedom under the American flag with security, or freedom under the Cuban flag without security." A former Spanish Senator, a man who accepted the new order of things, frankly said to me: "Even if we were perfectly harmonious here, we could not establish a government for a long time. We are in a passive state. There is no co-ordination of forces yet. We must wait until some party with strength comes to the front, or your people must take us into your federation." Whatever was to be the result, it was evident that American occupation was to last for some time. If there should arise a final determination by the people of this country to annex Cuba, it must be done through tact. |