That the Spaniards would be only too glad to have the United States send food and money for the use of Havana.
Again, that the Red Cross being international, would affiliate with Spain, and ignore the “Cuban Red Cross” already working there and here. As if poor Cuba, with no national government or treaty-making power, could have a legitimate Red Cross that other nations could recognize or work with.
That doubtless the American Red Cross, flushed with victory in Armenia, would be only too glad to enter on another campaign, direct another field, and handle its donations. Tired, heart-sore and needing rest, we were compelled to read columns of such reports, and understanding that it was not without its political side and might increase to proportions dangerous to the good name of the Red Cross, we felt compelled to take steps in self-protection. Accordingly through the proper official authorities of both nations, we addressed to the government of Spain at Madrid a request for royal permission for the American Red Cross to enter Cuba and distribute, unmolested, among its starving reconcentrado population such relief as the people of America desired to send.
This communication brought back from Spain perhaps the most courteous assent and permission ever vouchsafed by a proud government to an individual request, especially when that request was in its very nature a rebuke to the methods of the government receiving it. Not only was permission granted by the crown, the government, the Captain-General at Cuba, and the Queen Regent, but to the assent of the latter were added her majesty’s gracious thanks for the kindly thought.
This cablegram was published broadcast through the Associated and United Presses in its exact text, with all official signatures duly appended, and over my signature the statement that the American Red Cross was ready to enter upon the relief of the starving Cubans whenever the people of the United States should place at its disposal a sum in money or material sufficient to warrant a commencement of the work.
Strange to say, so sensational had the tone of our press become, so warped the judgment, so vitiated the taste of its readers, that in the hurried scramble between headlines and the waste basket they failed to discriminate between this announcement of clear, true official relations on the part of a government, with a body which it held sufficiently responsible to deal with officially, and the sensational guess of some representative of the press.
It will seem a little singular to any one who should ever take the time to coolly read this account (if such there be), that in response to this announcement not one dollar or one pound ever came or was offered, and the cry for “starving Cuba” still went on as if no door had been opened. Had the nation gone mad, or what had happened to it?
Societies of women were formed to raise money; among these the most notable, influential and worthy ladies in American society. They labored, instant in season and out of season, with small results; perfectly unable to comprehend their want of success.
I think that dear Mrs. Thurston, one of their most ardent members, came to comprehend it a little by the strong, prophetic words she spoke to me as months later in Havana our carriages rattled and thundered over rocky streets from one hospital of death to another. And this only comparatively a few hours before the cruel, restless sea surged out of that worn, frail body the soul that glowed with the flame of humanity, justice and pity to the last.
This state of things continued through the year of 1897, but as the present year of ’98 opened the reports of suffering that came were not to be borne quietly, and I decided to confer with our government and learn if it had objections to the Red Cross taking steps of its own in direct touch with the people of the country, and proposing their co-operation in the work of relief. I beg pardon for the personality of the statement which follows, but it is history I am asked to write: