During the summer of 1897 there began to appear reports of great suffering among the unfortunate people of Cuba, since familiarly known as the “reconcentrados.” They were the non-combatants, men, women and children, ordered from their homes and plantations in the interior and concentrated in the seacoast towns under control of the Spanish arms. Thousands were dying, hundreds of thousands were in want; the terrible story of their misery and awful distress was re-echoed throughout the country, and everywhere the cries for relief and the appeals to humanity were heard. Congress, too, had taken the matter up and were discussing plans for Cuban relief. The time had arrived when something must be done. Finally the President opened the way by issuing the following appeal to the people on the twenty-fourth of December:
Department of State,
Washington, D.C.
By direction of the President the public is informed that, in deference to the earnest desire of the Government of the United States to contribute, by effective action, toward the relief of the suffering people in the island of Cuba, arrangements have been perfected by which charitable contributions, in money or in kind, can be sent to the island by the benevolently disposed people of the United States.
Money, provisions, clothing and like articles of prime necessity can be forwarded to General Fitzhugh Lee, the Consul-General of the United States at Havana, and all articles now dutiable by law, so consigned, will be admitted into Cuba free of duty. The Consul-General has been instructed to receive the same and to co-operate with the local authorities and the charitable boards, for the distribution of such relief among the destitute and needy people of Cuba.
The President is confident that the people of the United States, who have on many occasions in the past responded most generously to the cry for bread from peoples stricken by famine or sore calamity, and who have beheld no less generous action on the part of foreign communities when our own countrymen have suffered from fire or flood, will heed the appeal for aid that comes from the destitute at their own threshold, and especially at this season of good will and rejoicing give of their abundance to this humane end.
John Sherman, Secretary.
This appeal was sent out through the Associated Press and distributed through the mails, and met with a most generous response from the public. It soon became apparent, however, that to inaugurate a thorough system of relief, to concentrate and administer the varied contributions of the people, a central committee would be required who should be charged with the duties of organization, collection and shipment. A conference was held at Washington, between President McKinley, the Secretary of State and the American National Red Cross, the result of which appears in the following communications:
Department of State,
January 1, 1898.