Cuba: Its Past, Present, and Future

by A. D. Hall

"My policy will never include concentration. I fight the enemy, not women and children. One of the first things I shall do will be to allow the reconcentrados to go out of the town and till the soil."

This sounds very just and right, but, as a matter of fact, the policy enounced was never carried out, not even in minor particulars. The persecution of the pacificos remained as bitter and relentless as ever.

Perhaps General Blanco is not entirely to blame for this, as the pressure brought to bear against his expressed ideas both by the home government and by the "peninsulars" in Havana, who had been in full accord with the methods of the "Butcher," was so strong as scarcely to be resisted.

Blanco issued an amnesty proclamation soon after his arrival in Havana, but the insurgents paid little or no attention. Their experience in such matters in the past had been too stern to be forgotten.

In the field, Blanco was also most unsuccessful, gaining nothing but petty victories of no value whatever. The pay of the Spanish soldiers was terribly in arrears, and their rations were of the most meagre description. No wonder that they were disheartened, and in no condition to fight.

In a word, Blanco absolutely failed, as completely as had his predecessors, in quelling the rebellion.

The people of the United States were becoming more and more enraged at the atrocities committed at their very door, and more and more anxious that the Cubans should have the independence which they themselves had achieved.

Moreover, there was a large number of Americans in the island who were made to suffer from the policy of reconcentration. Citizens of the United States, a large number of them being naturalized Americans, were constantly being seized and imprisoned, on suspicion alone, no proof whatever being advanced, of their furnishing aid and comfort to the insurgents. They were placed in filthy cells, no communication with the outside world being allowed them. This is what the Spaniards term "incommunicado."

No writing materials were allowed them and nothing whatever to read. The windows were so high up that no view was to be obtained. The cells were damp with the moisture of years and had rotten, disease-breeding floors, covered with filth of every description. Moreover, they were overrun with cockroaches, rats and other vermin.

The sustenance furnished the prisoners was wretched, and even such as it was, it was not given to them regularly. More often than not, they were left for long hours to suffer the pangs of hunger and thirst.