thousands of innocent planters were murdered and robbed. But Weyler went still farther than that, for he compelled a few wealthy planters to take troops to their plantations, and there support them, while all other inhabitants, no matter how impoverished they might be, were compelled to concentrate themselves in the garrisoned towns. These people brought from the farms were called reconcentrados. A few—here and there a family—were able, after mortgaging their land, to raise enough money to buy food. The small landholders, the Guajiros, who held a few acres only, and lived from hand to mouth, together with the laborers or peons, were without any resource for obtaining even the commonest articles of food, save only as the rich gave them in charity. In this way tens of thousands of helpless people were brought to the garrisoned towns, to sit down in idleness, leaving the fields to lie uncultivated and the supplies of vegetables to cease. In short, this was an order for the starvation of perhaps half the population. For the men who came to town one may feel but little pity. It was often said that if they lacked the courage to go to the mountains and join the insurgent bands in the fight for independence they deserved no sympathy. That is an iron dictum, but if it be accepted, there yet remain the thousands of women and children 1 who could not fight and who were not permitted to cultivate the soil-who were compelled to lie down and die. Of the atrocities perpetrated by the Spanish soldiers in bringing these unfortunates to the towns-how unarmed men were shot for the pleasure of seeing them quiver and die, and how women were outraged no adequate account has ever been given nor ever can be, nor ever ought to be. The foraging ants that ravage the tropics in search of insect prey are not as cruel as Weyler's soldiers were, for the ants instantly kill their victims, while Weyler's were reserved for the, slow torture of starvation, where mothers were compelled to look upon dying children and children upon dying parents, helpless to avert the fate that awaited all. However much the numbers of the Cuban army were exaggerated in the public prints of the United States during 1896 and 1897, the stories of the suffering under Weyler were never half told, simply because no man was able to portray them as they were. Words failed. Having garrisoned the important towns, built block-houses along the railroads, and two lines of tiny forts connected by barbed-wire tanglements (trochas) clear across the island, Weyler sat down to watch his victims die. The country that he controlled was what lay within range of his Mauser rifles, and not a yard more. The insurgents, though in small bands, and wretchedly armed, ranged the interior at will. Of systematic effort to hunt the insurgents from their retreats, there was absolutely none, and the forays that were made at rare intervals were worse than useless for the intended purpose, for they resulted in little more than the devastation of the plantations visited, while every injury done to Cubans was sure to bring reprisals in some form. The Spaniards did manage to kill two or three leaders. José Marti and General Maceo became victims. But no head was made in wiping the insurrection away. The only thing accomplished was the all but utter prostration of every form of peaceful industry throughout the island, and the gradual extinction, by cruel starvation and murder, of such of the Cubans as came within the Spanish power. The English author of "Cuba, Past and Present," who refers to us as "the easily excited Americans," on "the very verge of hysteria," in speaking of Weyler, says: "His desperate struggle to stamp out the revolt seems to have driven him to frenzy. He might be Cæsar Borgia come to life again. He conceived it his duty to extinguish the civil war at any cost, and he used the self-same methods which made the fame (or shame) of Hernando Cortez. Since the days of Alva the horrors he perpetrated have rarely been equalled in human history." That was in Cuba, an island, lying just ninety miles off our coast, and entirely "within the economic orbit of the United States." Its prostrate people appealed to us for help. At that cry some who dreaded the influence of war, and the results of interfering with any matter beyond our own borders, replied that the Cubans were as cruel as their masters, which was true; that they were incapable of self-government, which seemed altogether probable; and that therefore we ought not to interfere. But others—characterize them as you will—replied: "If what you say of the Cubans be true, then we must interfere if it be only to drive from the Americas the barbarous government that could produce such a people." And when these spoke the nation and the civilized world applauded. There must be a stage in misgovernment which will justify the interference of by-standing nations," wrote Mr. Anthony Trollope, while in Cuba fifty years ago. And to this may be added the words of John Ruskin in his essay on "War:" "I tell you that the principle of non-intervention, as now preached among us, is as selfish and cruel as the worst frenzy of conquest, and differs from it only by being not only malignant but dastardly." CHAPTER II TEACHING SPAIN TO DESPISE US WHEN OUR SENSE OF HONOR WAS SO LOW THAT AMERICAN SHIPS How we tried to restore order in Cuba before we resorted to armed intervention shall be told farther on. It is necessary to relate first two incidents in what is known as the ten-year war between the Spanish and the Cuban insurgents. Two American ships were seized by the Spaniards under circumstances that warranted war on our part, but we showed extreme forbearance in both cases, with the result that the Spaniards came to regard us with a hearty contempt. There is an old proverb which says, "when you clinch the devil you must use your claws." applies here. It If we had been firm in asserting our rights in 8 |