Howard, 0.

H«H»«

The situation

in Ouba 1897.

Burlington,

Vt.

[1397]

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Presented by the Author

Arts

••/

S9J.

The Situation in Cuba
1897

«£

A descriptive address delivered by Captain Guy Howard,
U. S. Army, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society
of the University of Vermont,
January 18th, 1897

«£

HOBART J. SHANTvEY & CO.
BURLINGTON, VT.

Copyrighted 1897 by Gtjy Howard.

FREE PRESS ASSOCIATION, PRINTERS, BURLINGTON, VT.

The Situation in Cuba*

The Island.
Almost directly south of us, at Burlington, Vermont,
lies Cape Maisi, the east end of Cuba. The western end
of the long narrow island is due south of Kalamazoo,
Michigan, which is one hundred and forty miles west of
Detroit. Seven hundred and thirty miles is its extreme
length, measured along the back bone of the island, which
may be said to have a slight curvaturcof the spine. It is
twice as long as the State of Pennsylvania. The north
coast of Cuba is just within the tropic, where at our mid
summer the sun at noon is in the exact zenith.
Havana the capital, is ninety miles, twenty degrees
west of south, from Key West, Florida, our southernmost
port, and the shore of the island near Havana is the
nearest point to the1 United States.
Contrasting with its extreme length, which we must
constantly have in view to understand several of the pecul
iarities of war there, is its narrowness. The western part,
iL,a Vuelta Abajo, the lower turn, as the Cubans popularly
call it, is less than thirty miles wide. The rest of the
island, suddenly broadening to seventy-five miles,
maintains that width through the section known as T^a
Vuelta Arriba, the upper bend, and via the provinces of

4
Santa Clara and .Puerto Principe to the Tierra Adentro,
freely translatable, the interior, though the name is applied
to the eastern fifth of the island, which there has its greatest
breadth, reaching one hundred and ten miles. These names
are popular designations like New England or The West,
as used by us.
Within the Tierra Adentro and almost conterminous
with the section so called, is the province of Santiago de
Cuba. Besides the three official provinces, Santiago de
Cuba, Puerto Principe and Santa Clara, which I have
already named, there are three others in the following
order to the west end of the island, — Matanzas, Habana
and Pinar del Rio (the Pine Grove of the River).
Cuba is five times the size of Vermont, and, having
about five times the population, the density of population
is the same.
One-fourth of Cuba, including many of the coral isles
near the coast, large salt marshes along it and the more
rugged eastern mountains, is uninhabited. This leaves
for the other three-fourths, say thirty thousand square
miles, a fairly numerous population, viz: sixty inhabitants
to each square mile. Less than half of our States exceed
that density. Population.
The population consists of whites, mulattoes and
blacks. In our country little distinction is made between
the latter two classes, but in the West Indies, especially
in Santo Domingo, some of the severest contests have

5
been on account of the strife for power fought out between
the browns and blacks. So for the purpose of convenient
classification, ignoring mulattoes as such, the line between
the Cuban whites and blacks is to" be drawn well into the
shadow. Usually in Cuba, General Antonio Maceo would
not be classed as a negro, though with us, having some
negro blood he would be spoken of as of that race. The
whites then, understood as above, are two-thirds of the
population, viz • twelve hundred thousand in number.
These are rigidly divided into two classes, the "peninsu-
lares" and the "insulares." The former are natives of
Spain, the peninsula, though a few are children of Spanish
parents who have been born in Cuba. They all look upon
Spain as their home, and hope, when their finances will
permit, to return there. Many of them are men whose
families are in Spain, for Spanish women rarely emigrate.
The "peninsulares" can be estimated 'at about two hun
dred thousand persons, and are Cuba so far as Cuba is
known at Madrid.
The million "insulares" are those who though chiefly
of Spanish origin trace it through Cuban ancestors, in some
cases up to nine or ten generations. They are Cuba so far
as Cuba is known in the United States.
The blacks are about five hundred thousand full
blooded descendants of the African slaves originally taken
there by Spanish masters.
As under the form of slavery existing in Spain at the
discovery of America some opportunity was given the
slave by extra labor to purchase his freedom, early in the

history of Cuba free negroes appear, and they had by the
beginning of this century reached the number of one hun
dred thousand.
Slavery was finally abolished in 1886, the Spanish
Cortes having sixteen years before passed an act of
gradual emancipation, but which was not put in operation
for ten years.
Another class, of no political significance however,
of whom there are claimed to be thirty thousand in Cuba,
are " coolie laborers " of the Mongolian race, men without
families, each bound by contract for a term of years. If
they live out their contracts, they return to their Asiatic
homes at the expiration of one or more contract periods.
Physical Geography of the Provinces.
Pinar del Rio, the most western province, extends
from Cape San Antonio one hundred and seventy-five miles
almost to Havana. The western part is a marsh, the Cape
being a sandy point. The southern half of the rest of this
province is a gently undulating plain with a rich though
light siliceous soil so valuable for the production of
tobacco that in its cleared parts this district contains the
richest tobacco-plantations on the island.
From the head of the Rio Mantua to Guauajay is a
strip, seldom ten miles wide, of forest covered hills
with steep sides and sharp crests, in comparison with many
parts of which for impassibility the historical"wilderness"
of Virginia is open country. These heights rarely reach

thirteen hundred feet, but a thousand feet is a difficult
climb where tangled vines and tropical undergrowth have
to be cut out even on an old trail if it is left unused a
week, where the angle of ascent is exceedingly steep and
the path reachable by the bullet of an unseen enemy at
any opening. North of this succession of little mountain ranges on
the western half is a coral fringed coast defended by an
archipelago of small islands and hidden coral reefs, and
along the eastern half are high wooded shores and good
harbors. The population of this province is about two hun
dred and twenty-six thousand, its area five thousand
seven hundred and seventy -seven square miles, about the
combined area of Connecticut and Rhode Island. You
see that province alone gives quite a field for military
marchings. Habana the next province east is small in area, the
main land fifty miles long and thirty broad, and the largest
in population, four hundred and fifty-two thousand. It
includes the Isla de Pinos off the southern coast, not much
smaller in area than the remainder of the province, but its
part of the population is only two thousand. The city
of Habana, usually with us written Havana, with some two
hundred thousand of population is the capital of this prov
ince and of the island.
In all the island in fact, but particularly in this prov
ince, over the metamorphic and primeval rocks are lime
stone deposits within which seeping water has dissolved

the limestone and formed long underground galleries and
caverns of wonderous size. Twenty miles southwest of
Havana lies the Laguna de Ariguanabo, six miles long,
the largest of the inland lakes of which there are very few.
It is drained by the Rio San Antonio, which, after passing
through the town of the same name, disappears into the
earth by way of a cavernous hole under a spreading silk-
cotton tree.
The distance from the central divide throughout the
island is short both north and south to the salt water and
so the rivers fall rapidly and when navigable are so only
a short distance from the sea. They are many, but
except tactically of no military value. Waterfalls, natural
bridges, reappearing rivers after journey ings beneath the
surface, are quite numerous.
The province of Matanzas comes next, of about the
same size as Habana including the Isle of Pines, and with'
two hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants. Its capital,
the city of Matanzas, fifty thousand population, has a fine
harbor. Some three miles from the city, near the shore
for the sea bathing and at the mouth of the beautiful caves
of Bellamar, was a well-known tourist hotel which has been
destroyed by the torch of rebellion.
The industry of this province is chiefly sugar. A
general rule is that the coast valleys produce sugar, the
land lying a little higher tobacco, and then are the never
ending forests above, it is estimated that there are in the
island thirteen millions acres of tropical forest which make
up nearly half its entire extent. Of these Habana and

Matanzas have the least proportionally, being the most
thickly populated and extensively brought under cultiva
tion. Santa Clara province, the next, is the most truly rep
resentative part of the island. It was one of the first set
tled. Its soil is rich. It is generally a plain some ninety
feet above the sea level, but it has marshes and small
mountains as well, mines of copper and deposits of asphalt,
besides the sugar and tobacco plantations and factories.
The part south of all of Matanzas is a swamp, the
Cienega de Zapata, (the shoe shaped swamp) sixty miles-
long, of whose stagnant waters a recent writer says : "The
currentless channels of former rivers are observed here and
there among the mangrove thickets, which are dotted by
many lakes, some covered with leaves of myriad lilies,
and others reflecting as from a mirror the fiery heat of the
southern sun. In some spots the ground is firm enough to
support a clump of trees, but most of the surface consists
of quagmires or boggy expanses inaccessible to man or
beast."* The mangrove's roots form a cone from below
the surface of the water and the trunk starts from above.
Formerly the name of "the four towns " and after
wards " the five towns " designated Santa Clara province
and most of the one east of it. The original towns, now
cities, were Trinidad, 12,000 population, San Juan de los
Remedios, 7,230, Santa Clara 34,635, and Santo Espiritu
17,540. As the district so designated was contracted and
*"The Island of Cuba," page 28, Rowan and Ramsey, X. Y., 1896, to which I
owe the most recent figures I have obtained.

10
the number of places enlarged, Sagua la Grande, 14,000,
and Cienfuegos, 26, 790, were substituted for Santo Espiritu.
Santa Clara has an area of eight thousand nine hundred
and ten square miles and a population of three hundred
and fifty-four thousand, about the size of New Hampshire
and the population of Vermont.
Puerto Principe, the fifth province, has not to exceed
sixty-eight thousand inhabitants, but embraces twelve
thousand four hundred and eighty-four square miles. Its
capital is the city of the same name and contains the major
ity of the inhabitants, forty thousand. The province is for-
'est covered, usually a plain with many detached mountain
groups, one of which, that of Cubitas, twenty-five miles
north of the capital, contains a lofty mesa or table mountain
on which the revolutionists are said to have a dynamite fac
tory. It is claimed that a small force can, on account of
the narrowness of the trail winding up its precipitous sides
hold it against any force which could be brought against
it and raise food enough on top to subsist upon. I doubt
not the truth of the claim as to the raising food, but I do
the impregnability. The province generally is in a state
of nature and that luxuriantly tropical, and has always been
a chronic insurrectionary district. During the ten years
war, 1868 to 1878, a ditch or trench called a trocha was dug
across the Island at the west side of this province in an
endeavor, by holding it by a large military force, to fence
out the insurgents from the richer plantation districts. This
is now called the first trocha.
What has been said in description of Puerto Principe

11
applies to Santiago de Cuba in great part, but it is on a larger
scale. The area is one' thousand and seventy-two square
miles larger, viz : thirteen thousand five hundred and fifty-
six. Its population is two hundred and seventy-two
thousand. Its highest mountain, Pico Turquino, 8,320 feet
in elevation, is loftier than any mountain east of the Rocky
Mountains in North America. The Maestra range, of
which it is a part, skirts the south coast and maintains an
elevation of over five thousand feet. Its capital nestling
at the southern base of the mountains, also Santiago de
Cuba by name, sixty thousand population, was the first per
manent settlement in Cuba. The Rio Cauto drains a plain
north of this range and is navigable for fifty miles. The
eastern third of the province is very mountainous, the
mountain forms being high, sharp cuchillas, or knife
edges, as they are called, and forest covered as they are,
the wilderness is practically inaccessible. Copper, iron
and manganese are mined near the capital and some coffee
raised. It was in this province that in the ten years war
the last stand was made and the capitulation of El Zanjon
signed. Communications.
From Havana as a center, wagon roads lead west via
San Cristobal to the city of Pinardel Rio, south to Batabano,
east through the length of the island to Santiago de Cuba.
Parts of those leading west and south have a paved way,
but the road east through the forests is practically impass
able for vehicles during the wet summer months.

12
Even when dry it is a succession of deep foot prints of
cattle, horses having to step into the same holes. Two
wheeled ox or mule carts carry freight and the high
wheeled volante passengers. In Havana some four
wheeled vehicles are replacing the volante, which latter
consists of long shafts with a covered body swung be
tween them on straps midway between the horse in front
and the wheels in rear. Saddle animals and pack mules
are depended upon to reach many points where even the
usual primitive roads do not penetrate.
Railroads reach the principal points of Habana and
Matanzas provinces and one extends as far east as the city
of Santa Clara, and another west to Pinar del Rio. The
other lines are short ones, usually from interior towns or
cities to their ports on the sea, as Puerto Principe to
Nuevitas. Coastwise steamers are the usual means of communi
cation between the ports, and through them and the
short rail lines to them from one interior district to an
other. This probably accounts for the lack of develop
ment of the roads.
A Government telegraph line connects all the princi
pal places on the island. Submarine cables of various
companies connect the principal cities with each other,
with Florida, and with the other West Indian Islands and
South America. Climate.
The beauty of a tropical winter climate is to me inde
scribable ; the rich dark blue of the sky, the fleecy white-

mess of the clouds, the deep green of the deep sea and the
pale blues and greens of shallow coral paved water-ways,
the rich verdure of the tree tops, the gorgeous plumage of
the birds captivate the eye, while an evenly maintained
average temperature of seventy degrees delights the whole
body. There is no record of the thermometer ever having
fallen below fifty degrees iu Havana. In summer the
temperature there averages eighty degrees and is not re
corded as having ever been above ninety. At Santiago de
Cuba it is hotter. Elevation above the sea finds a lower
relative temperature. The wind in Cuba is constantly
from the north bringing air of the temperature of the broad
Atlantic and also surcharged with its moisture, never hav
ing less than eighty per cent, of saturation, and from that
to the rain point. It rains in every month in the year, but
three times as much in summer, from May to October, as
in winter, with a total annual rain fall of forty inches, ten
in winter and thirty in summer. January is the coolest,
August the hottest month, but the difference in tempera
ture is not ten degrees. There being no wintry frost to kill
and clean up vegetation and allow it to start anew, death is
always present. To one year's brilliant growth at the top
of a palm tree are many years' dead palm leaves hanging
about its trunk. There is no grassy turf but naked earth
under larger growths. Rotting animal and vegetable mat
ter constantly breeds disease and death. Hurricanes occur
and earthquakes have caused destruction in past years.
The nights are of nearly equal length with the days, the
sun never rising before 5.30 nor setting later than 6.45.

u
There is no twilight, — night closes directly in. Though
there is but a foot of tide, the winds vary the height of the
incoming sea irregularly. Human life of a low order is
easily supported ; a little Indian corn and a few yams or
plantains seem to be the only necessities. Clothing and
shelter are luxuries not at all necessary.
History.
To understand the situation it is well to glance back to
the discovery of Cuba by Columbus in his first voyage, its
settlement under the patronage of Don Diego Columbus,
the son, in 15 11, the burning at a stake of the native chief
Hatuey, who had attempted opposition, while a mission
ary priest besoughthim to abjure the gods of his ancestors,
and its use as a base of operations by Cortes and de Soto
for further exploration and conquest. The British once
held Havana for one year, restoring it to Spain under the
treaty of Paris of 1763.
Up to the beginning of the present century the colon
ial systems of the world kept for each mother country alone
its colonies as a market from which the rest of the
world was excluded. Spain had kept Cuba for itself.
The aboriginees having been exterminated during the six
teenth century, the population at the beginning of the
seventeenth consisted of descendants of Spanish colonists
and their slaves, who during the next two centuries had
occupied nearly as much of the Island as is occupied to
day. Each community lived within itself and provided
little that Spain wished to buy, and was able to buy but

15
little there and nothing elsewhere. In Spain gold, silver
and jewels were alone valued as riches to be imported,
and Cuba produced almost none of these. Trade and the
cultivation of a rich soil as a means of producing riches
were closed books to the Spanish conquistadores .
After the American Revolution however, between
Cuba and the new Republic of the United States import
ant trade relations were early established, and as the world
learned to use sugar as a common article of domestic use,
and Cuban tobacco and woods became articles of com
merce, Spain discovered that gold could be obtained other
wise than by mining or stripping it from heathen idols.
Then began a system of direct and indirect taxation of the
island which has reached the point of collecting more than
S25, 000,000 revenue a year, $20,000,000 or more for Spain
and Spaniards and less than $5,000,000 for legitimate
governmental expenses on the island.
Spain had lost her American continental possessions
by the end of the first quarter of this century, and Cuba,
though being governed hardly more oppressively than
Spain herself, was being taxed excessively, and as early
as 1823 incipient rebellion appeared. Since then constant
ly Cuban refugees in Mexico, Colombia or the United
States have had at least a plan of insurrection on hand.
In 1848 to meet the anti-slavery development of our
Northwestern States, an attempt was made in the interest
of the slave power for the purchase of Cuba by the United
States in order that the island might be admitted to the
Union as one or more slave states with a population nu-

16
merous enough to greatly increase the pro -slavery vote in
the House of Representatives. Fortunately for our Re
public Spain refused to consider a proposition.
While in some respects affecting the island adversely,
the civil war in the United States from 1861 to 1865 was on
the whole helpful to the development of Cuban trade with
Europe. With the return of peace b}r the increase of the
exportation to our shores of Cuban products added to the
European trade came Spain's opportunity for increased
exactions. These and the almost universal official corruption of
Spanish office holders in Cuba, whose exactions were
made not only for Spain but for their individual pockets,
produced the armed rebellion of 1868. Advantage was
taken of the revolution then in progress in Spain to begin
an insurrection which covered a great part of the Island.
A rather hopeful war was carried on till 1871, when on
promise of their lives the insurgent's principal military
body surrendered. A partizan war dragged on till 1878, the
whole undertaking failing as much by dissensions among
the insurgent leaders as by the active operations of the
Spanish troops. In the capitulation of El 2anjon by reason
of which the last revolutionists laid down their arms, Spain,
through Captain-General de Campos granted to Cuba repre
sentation in the Spanish Cortes, and to such revolutionists,
as so wished, permission to leave the island.
Now was Spain's opportunity. Substantial reforms of
administration were attempted but from the nature of
things were found impossible. Spain was loaded down

17
with her own debt. The debt of Cuba was enormous, for
Spain had charged to Cuba the amount expended in wars
in Mexico, Peru and Santo Domingo, as well as expenses
on account of Cuba herself. All control was retained in
Madrid with no responsibility to the Cuban people. The
suffrage was so limited that none but Spanish "peninsu-
lares" cpuld be elected to the Cortes. Appointments to all
offices in the island must of necessity be of those friendly
to Spain, and if it had been tried there could not have
been found real Cubans so friendly to Spain that they
could see the island impoverished, their friends lose their
property and their businesses ruined by injudicious and
excessive taxation, and faithfully serve a government
doing this. So all offices were continued to Spaniards.
The Spanish government after 1878 by a foolish
tariff and other taxes had destroyed the sugar and cut
down the tobacco industry one-half before the outbreak
of 1895. Spain did this, not with a view of oppressing
Cuba, but because Spain herself was nearly bankrupt and
her home government in the hands of proud, incompetent,
selfish rulers, who had more financial troubles than they
could carry, and Cuba being the only portion of the Empire
with resources left was directly and indirectly bled.
The following estimates of expected Cuban income
were for the fiscal year 1895-96, and were taken by Profes
sor Ramsey from Spanish general estimates.

IS
J 895-96.
Tax on real estate  #1,711,000 00
Import duties  9,620,000 00
Export duties  1,220,000 00
Port dues  460,000 00
10 per cent tax on passenger fares  240,000 00
Excise on liquors, tobacco and petroleum. . 2,130,000 00
Tax on trades and professions  1,680,000 00
Stamp tax (including post and telegraph). 2,174,660 00
Lotteries  3,104,000 00
Rents and sales of public property  399,000 00
All other sources  2,017,100 00

Total  $24,755,760 00
The expenditures for the same period were estimated
to be as follows :
W5-96.
Interest on public debt  $10,435,183 00
Salaries and expenses of Colonial Ministers
at Madrid  1.58,855 00
Regular army  4,128,61600
Navy  1,055, 136 00
Military and naval pensions and retired
pay   1,746,829 00
Civil pensions and retired pay  442,223 00
Judiciary  3*7,595 °o
Religious establishments  ._ . . . 385,583 00
Volunteers  1,768,125 00
Treasury department  708,125 00
Police force  2,664,923 00
Executive government, omitting police... 1,414,665 00
Department of the Interior   .' 778,625 00
Other expenditures  88,761 00

Total  $26,093,244 co

19
During the period estimated for the present war has
increased the actual expenditure of promises to pay
probably by one hundred million dollars, but taking the
tables as they stand, we see how frankly Spain shows that
she regards a colony as a private owner would his own
strawberry patch. Very few of the expenditures are for
Cuba. Our Anglo-Saxon views of liberty, including the one
that the governed are the source of authority, have no place
in the systems of the L,atin races. With them all authority
comes from God, spiritual through the church, temporal
through the King. That any individual subject is left
anything is due to the goodness of the King. The King
has a right to take anything, and be the judge of the com
pensation. Where they have a republic the most powerful
combination stands for the King. People out of power have
no rights. They have more "going to law " under their
Roman civil law system than we have under our common
law, but its object is not what we know as justice, from
jus, right, which has a progressive development — but to-
preserve an existing state of affairs whether good or bad.
There is no popular government even in Mexico.
Once, when at the City of Mexico, I heard of the
delight of the governor of the State of Durango that- he
was to be permitted by the national government, Presi
dent Diaz, to be re-elected to bis office. He was of the
opposite party to the president, the church part}-, and the
governor of a State, which nominally elected, in which his
'own party was overwhelmingly in the majority, and yet he

20
had to go to the city of Mexico for his office. General Diaz
graciously allowed the conservatives to have a governor
of their own party in Durango but insisted on picking him
out. It is not in accord with our present code of public
morality to consider it right for Spain to regard Cuba as we
would a maple tree, to be tapped periodically and if per
chance the work be overdone and the tree be killed then to
cut it down and use it for firewood. The morality of one
place and period is different from another. Eook at Eng
land 's relation to the Buccaneers of the Spanish Main even
since Bacon's Philosophy or Shakspeare's plays were writ
ten. The Buccaneers formed a piratical republic afloat,
which made war upon Spanish commerce and occasionally
sacked a Spanish- American town. The British colony of
Jamaica was their chief depot. Their most successful
leader, Henry Morgan, after a wanton raid upon Panama,
when England was nominally at peace with Spain, became
governor of Jamaica, and that he might leave an honor
able name to his children, was made a baronet by the
English king.
In 1895 Spain found armed resistance developing
against her rule in Cuba. It would be profitless to follow
the slow movements of the Spanish troops in meeting a
predatory warfare and guarding towns. Trochas, ditches
with wire fence with forts at intervals, in four places have
been built across the island in an endeavor to isolate
insurrectionary districts and prevent raiding on sugar
plantations, but as yet with apparent failure, as will always

21
be the case when in war mechanical means are too much
relied upon to replace a generous expenditure of labor and
life. Present Conditions.
The present war has now lasted two years. On the
Spanish side besides a loyal Cuban National Guard, com
posed of possibly sixty thousand " peninsulares," Spain
has one hundred and fifty thousand Spanish soldiers in the
island. Native Cubans used to complain of exclusion from
this civil guard where service excused them from danger of
conscription for the regular army. This gives a guard for
each of the principal towns and a force for field operations
in each state. The Spanish army by a long system of favor
itism and mismanagement is inefficient. It is poorly sup
plied. In the year ending January 16, 1896, in Cuba 3,472
men died of disease to 405 killed in action or died of wounds.
It would fight a battle well enough but is not equal to the
work in hand. The small number killed in a year, 405
out of the more than one hundred thousand troops in the
island indicates torpidity. Spain has a difficult undertak
ing at best and no progress can be made with such trifling
loss in casualties.
England had held Jamaica eighty-three years before
she succeeded in making peace with the Maroons, and
then it was done by granting them complete self-govern
ment in their own district. We were even longer in
bringing our Indians into complete subjection and before
that was done began to mingle fairness with our treatment
of them.

22
On the other side, the armed part of rebellious Cuba-
is not the people generally, but consists in partizan bands
in forests and mountains who, very wisely, do not fight
any more battles than necessary. Their objective is
Spain's credit. The more troops Spain keeps in Cuba, the
greater the cost to her. The greater the destruction of
taxable property, the less the revenue collectable in Cuba.
There are a large number, possibly thirty, of these bands
which, raiding from the fastnesses of tropical forest or
everglade, strike and retire.
Mere number in a Spanish army goes for little to
resist them. It must hold with strength all points of
possible attack and have in addition at least four to one to
surround and force to battle or surrender each partizan
band. The Cuban Republic is but a name, even if a few
gentlemen have organized. I doubt if a single one of the
partizan leaders would take orders from any one not hav
ing more men than himself.
The "insulares" generally sympathize with the
armed insurgents, but if the majority assist them they do
so secretly. Spain has the machinery of government all
over the island and by far the majority of the people,
tacitly at least, acquiesce in it.
What Spain Could Do.
Granting that the present situation is the result of a
system whose evils all nations having colonies except
Spain have admitted and abandoned, what could an

23
honest, sincere friend of Spain want and expect her to do
about it ? Eet us suppose you should see a friend to pre
vent personal injury to himself, holding his own big boy
crazy with anger or disease. No matter if after long
harsh treatment the boy had turned upon his father, the
situation would be serious. Without help the boy may
hold out as long as the man. Spain may be almost bank
rupt, but she is a sovereign State and Cuba is in her view
her own. We may think she has not the resources to keep
the island by force but she is far from admitting it.
First Spain shoidd accept the fact that the age is past
when a nation can satisfactorily pacify a colony by force.
It may take a revolution in Spain to make her see it, but
it is a fact. It is not necessary for her to publicly admit
it, but to act upon it. Then if there has been no outside
interference, she should find somebody to help her let go.
She cannot with honor go to any other government. A
Venezuelan paper says apropos of our help : "Hereto
fore by accepting the propositions which England has
made a condition of treating directly with us we should
have lost merely a part of the territory in dispute. Now
by this arbitration we shall lose both territory and
sovereignty." Spain cannot be expected to voluntarily
assume a position where such a charge could be made, and
it could be with some color of truth if a foreign govern
ment should be the intermediary between a nation's
government and some of its own people.
Were I in the Spanish counsels with my present be
lief, I would advise letting the Pope, as the head of the

24
State Church, try his hand at reconciling a revolting peo
ple to their sovereign — accept an offer of mediation on
his part. Could such a man as Bishop Ireland, one with a
real knowledge of popular government be sent to Cuba with
full power, he could establish local self-government and
possibly retain a vestige of suzerainty in the Spanish
crown. He could perhaps get some guarantees for the
protection from the Cubans of the " peninsulares " who
wished to remain. Spain would lose the island as a source
of revenue public and private, but it would cease to be an
expense which is now ruining her. It is needless to say
that I do not expect the present Spanish government to
take this course, but suggest it as the only thing which
Spain could voluntarily do with the hope that the settle
ment would be permanent.
What Will Be the Outcome.
It is impossible to see into the future. Subordinate
Spanish officials as in the Black Warrior, Virgin ins and
Allianca affairs may by overt acts outrage our feelings and
inflame the war spirit of our people, and lead us into war.
As far as Spain can she will observe towards the United
States officially a correct diplomatic- demeanor, but when
engaged in internecine strife, acts by subordinates which are
unfriendly to us may and probably will occur. We can
make an excuse or pretext of them, or wait for reparation.
At the present time the outlook is for a chafing, irri
tating condition to continue, our government trying to pre
serve the appearance of neutrality, some thousands of

25
Cuban refugees, now our citizens, trying to worry Spain,
and General Weyler campaigning against small unseen
open enemies in a country where nearly the whole popula
tion is secretly hostile but avowedly not unfriendly to his
King. He has a hard labor to perform. Almost every
report published bears falsehood on its face. A Cuban
junta telegraphs from distant points like Denver or Seattle
stories of Cuban victories and news of Weyler's barbarous
actions which probably originated with the senders. Span
ish sources send out stories of great victories obtained
without commensurate loss. In this way our people are
given statements to support anything they wish to believe.
Our Duty.
Let us now think of our duty. I want to present this
in two aspects, — our duty as a nation, as an official organ
ism, recognizing Spain as a friendly co-equal political
being ; and our duty as individuals of a Republic, of which
every citizen is a part of the sovereignty, which as a whole
represents a Christian people who believe they have a
clearer light and who believe, further, that the rights of
" Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness " should be
the possession of all the world, (particularly of our hemi
sphere), and that we should strive to this end by any just
and honorable means.
In the first aspect we have nothing to do with Spanish
relations to her revolting subjects until a new political
entity, a de facto apparent and tangible new nation has ap-

26
peared. This is a question of fact and whether the right
to see this fact and announce it lies with the executive
only, or whether an act passed by Congress over the Presi
dent's veto should give him clearer vision, does not matter
in the foreign relation. If our Government either grants
belligerent rights to two contending parties or recognizes
one of them as a new nation it in international law an
nounces what it sees. Either way amounts to the same
thing. Nothing but a sovereign State can be a belligerent.
If our nation announces what it does not see it merely
falsifies. If such a false statement helps one side and
injures the other, we are by indirection taking the part of
the side helped and should expect to be held responsible.
Had the AUianca stopped and submitted to search by
the Spanish man-of-war which fired upon her, it would
have completed an action by Spain lawful only if she
acknowledged that she were engaged in war with another
nation. Spain disavowed the act and relieved the offend
ing officer from his command. Had she not done so and
claimed the right of search, through her own act she would
have shown that she and another de facto nation were at
war. Let us set before us the following proposition .- That
in the northern end of our Green Mountains here in Ver
mont there existed a large camp of illicit distillers ; that a
United States marshal with troops was sent to break up the
business by making arrests and was driven out ; that the
distillers were helped by people of like kind from across
the Canadian border; that the people of the neighboring

27
villages were passive but more friendly to the moonshiners
than the collectors of the revenue. Would we take it as a
friendly office on the part of Great Britain were her papers
to read us lectures on the benefit of free trade in whiskey
and her members of Parliament make vigorous speeches
and pass some resolutions recognizing belligerency in both
parties, etc.? The larger the insurrection, until a man who
runs could see a de facto political nation, the more un
friendly would be such an attitude.
Recognition of a Republic in Cuba, directly or in
directly through granting belligerent rights in international
law is a mechanical or mathematical operation and should
not be affected by sympathies.
A second view under the first — the international
aspect — is that of humanity. A comparison occurs to us of
Cuba and Armenia. Turkey has permitted the wholesale
killing, with incidental plundering, of Armenians for the
apparent purpose of reducing their number proportionately
to the number of Mohametans in certain districts, where
for purposes of political control the Armenians were
becoming relatively too numerous. The Great Nations,
under the lead of England and Russia, have taken the first
step in coercing the unspeakable Turk. The grounds of
interference are deduced from powers taken by Europe in
the treaty of Berlin, now exercised in the interest of a
common, decent right to live and let live upon the world.
Doubtless not even protests were made, when in Syria
King Herod had all children two years of age and under

2S
killed, but at the end of the nineteenth century Europe
finally acts when aroused by a similar horror.
Friends of th-2 insurgents urge the United States as the
dominant power in America to interfere on a similar
ground, that hospitals are not respected, that prisoners
are killed and that the warfare in Cuba is carried on
barbarously on the part of Spain. It may be so ; for war at
best is not nice. Men at such times are not given to nice
distinctions in morals or manners. War is not a game of
checkers, and though we study it with red and blue pins
stuck in maps, it is difficult to carry it on with an equable
temper, and strike "with discretion", as Cooper makes Dr.
Sitgreaves in "The Spy" urge a charging dragoon to do,
and to wound just enough to disable, instead of leaving
"not a single case worth recording, all scratches or death
wounds". Even the insurgents announce the killing of
native Cubans taken fighting on the side of the Spaniards,
and it is evident that they are making war as much with
the torch as with the rifle. These actions of the insurgents
do not excuse us from interfering as humanitarians, but it
is unfair that the benefit should wholly accrue to their
side. As the passions with protracted war become more
virulent and the senses which can distinguish between per
fidy and ruse become blunted a condition of affairs may be
reached when the United States may have to take neigh
borhood action to stop a hopeless suicidal strife. But
allowing for the inaccuracy of reports of actions and
motives when given out by an enemy, we have no evidence

29
to show that the warfare in Cuba is more barbarous than
the last Carlist war in Spain, or the more recent struggles in
Chili and Central America. Allowances have to be made
for race and climate. We honored the Nez Perce Indians
when in their war of twenty years ago they did not scalp
though they shot prisoners through the head. I felt
ashamed of a white citizen with us who joined our friendly
Indians in scalping dead hostiles, with the killing of whom
he had had nothing to do.
If we are contemplating such a humanitarian crusade
we had better give our attention to fortifications, to our
army and navy and their supplies, for it means war, horrid,
filthy, ghastly war, dead men and swollen, stinking, rotting
corpses of horses, pale, sick and wounded physical wrecks,
crazed women and hungry children.
I was once recognized as an American on the streets
of Granada, Nicaragua, by an old woman, who in high
screeching voice called down on my head all the anathe
mas her tongue was capable of uttering. A friend told me
I must not feel hurt, she was a poor crazy being whom the
sight of an American made wild, for her lover and brother
had been killed by Walker the American fillibuster in
1856. Cervantes in the exercise of his superb imagination
created in Don Quixote the most perfect gentleman ever
portrayed. He did not make him a Spanish official. His
imagination did not take that flight, but he represented in
him some of the best of Spain.
Spain will not yield to a threat of war. Values of our

30
securities in the stock markets of the world must come
tumbling down, marine insurance rates go up, and the gaunt
spectre of real war stretch her blighting wings across the
heavens. Spain cares more for the honor of a duellist than
her financial credit, and we must really enter upon a war
before she would even discuss arbitration. This means
a sacrifice of which many a wordy assailant of Spain little
dreams. Taking up the second aspect of our duty, that of a
republican nation, it would be confessing the failure of
our own system did we not readily extend the hand to a
people who even take one step in the direction of liberty
under law and local self government. But it should be an
honest hand ready to maintain by war its position, and
not by the subterfuge of a pretended recognition of what
possibly does not exist try to allow individuals to help an
insurrection in a friendly state and set up the specious
claim that recognition of belligerency removes any obliga
tion on our part to the mother country. Thomas Jefferson
said, " The whole art of government consists in the art of
being honest. ' ' Then too we should more clearly know
what we are helping. What reason have we for believing
that a change of masters from Madrid to Havana would
give freedom as we know it ? Has the history of our
Southern and Central American neighbors shown that their
governments hold in any proper appreciation certain
"Unalienable Rights" which we deem fundamental?
In certain of our States we have in relation to the li
quor traffic repressive legislation. Do we not know that

31
when public opinion does not thoroughly sustain such laws
they are not fairly enforced ? People whose ancestors
have not worked out by years of struggle the heritage of
freedom under law are in relation to constitutional safe
guards, no matter how well their constitution is written
like ourselves in relation to this traffic. Many of our peo
ple have not reached the point where for the good of the
community they are willing to let the state limit what they
shall eat or drink. Many Spanish-American communities
have not reached the plane where rights necessary to self
government are recognized as belonging to all persons.
Development varies. In France equality has been
obtained more than with us, but no local self government.
Whoever secures control of the center of government in
Paris rules France in detail. In England privilege is re
tained by the few, chiefly in title. There is a throne and
its covering is apparently held on by nails with showy
heads ; but like an upholstered chair the brass nails are for
show only. The covering is really held in place by flat
headed tacks under the gimp. England holds to the law in
liberty under law more rigidly than ourselves.
The label of Republic should not warp our judgment
and render us hasty. We must not let a desire for expan
sion or restoration of trading markets lead us astray, — lead
us to think that Spain's weakness is our opportunity by a
bluff to get back Cuba's trade, of which when she was at
her best our share amounted to nearly $60,000,000 a year
and could amount to more. Let us not be deceived and

32
talk freedom if we mean profit. We had better render an
object lesson by improving the conditions of being a Re
public within our own limits. Look at the vote of Florida
in the last presidential election. Not one-half the propor
tionate number of voting citizens to those in Illinois even
went to the polls, which means that not over one-third of
the legal vote was cast. In some states it is always felt
that having the election machinery is more important than
the votes. A desire to settle political questions by other
means than counting heads is said to be climatic, and sys
tematic fraud in control in the South is charged to the fear
of a negro vote. Both of these sources of trouble exist
in Cuba. The result of independence would not be a true
Republic, and annexation by conquest an evil so much
worse that our crime of over-reaching would be punished
by her eating as a cancer into our system, until she was
forcibly cut out or destroyed the nation.
The earliest and best precedent is in the resolutions
drawn by John Quincy Adams, at that time President Mon
roe's Secretary of State, himself an annexationist when
Cuba should come worthily and properly, who more than
anyone else helped formulate the Monroe Doctrine. They
were adopted in 1820, and are : —
" Resolved, That the House of Representatives par
ticipate with the people of the United States in the deep
interest which they feel for the success of the Spanish
Provinces of South America which are struggling to estab
lish their liberty and independence.

33
Resolved, That this House will give its constitutional
support to the President of the United States whenever he
may deem it expedient to recognize the sovereignty and
independence of any of the said provinces."
At present our duty is the same, to recognize indepen
dence in Cuba when it exists and be ready to stand to our
guns if Spain claim we are wrong. Until then do not let
our sympathy for a population on account of the great
wrongs it may have suffered lead us into the error of thrust
ing upon them a system of government for which they will
only be fit when most of its active adherents and those
who propose to conduct it, are not citizens and residents
of countries outside of Cuba.
We must not let those exiled from the island by the
Spanish government, or the fear of it, use us to pull their
chestnut out of the fire to save their own fingers whose
friability they are particularly concerned for, nor allow
a wrong public opinion to be created by the circulation of
false reports as news, a thing to which our sensation-seek
ing newspapers too readily lend themselves.