CHAPTER XIV
CLARA BARTON IN CUBA
For many years before the outbreak of the war with Spain, Clara Barton had been interested in the situation in Cuba. In a letter written from Washington, February 8, 1874, twenty-four years before the outbreak of the war with Spain, she said:
Spain is still fighting her only or almost sole remaining colony, Cuba. Spain had once immense colonies, but she has been so tyrannical and so careless of their welfare that she has lost nearly all. And Cuba, you know, “has an insurgent army,” of so-called rebels fighting for their freedom. If she ever gets free, she must come to the United States, as she is too small to stand alone against the greed of great powers which will try to gobble her up for her riches in soil and products. The Spanish authorities have just published a new list of orders, very stringent, and they hope to crush out the Cuban insurrection in six months. You must keep watch of that, too, and see how it ends. It will be history by and by to whom Cuba belongs, and, while one has to study so hard to learn past history, it is not worth the while to let slip that which all the time is making in our own day and generation. Comprenez vous?
Her forecast of events proved to be reliable. The relations between Spain and Cuba grew more and more strained. A part of the Spanish policy for stamping out the rebellion in Cuba was the concentration of that portion of the civilian population believed to be hostile to the Spanish Government, in concentration camps, from which the cry of distress was continuous. Sympathy in America grew more and more pronounced, but for a long time there appeared no way in which the United States could offer relief. The difficulties of the situation were the greater because the Spanish Government believed, with some reason, that a considerable part of the American sentiment favorable to relief in Cuba was intermixed with political designs. There were, indeed, two groups of people demanding relief for Cuba. Clara Barton thus describes them:
They might have properly been classed under two distinct heads. The one, merely the friends of humanity in its simple sense; the other, friends of humanity also, but what seemed to them a broader and deeper sense, far more complex. They sought to remove a cause as well as an effect, and the muffled cry of “Cuba Libre” became their watchword. Naturally, any general movement by the people in favor of the former must have the effect to diminish the contributions of the latter, too small at best for their purpose, and must be wisely discouraged. Thus, whenever an unsuspecting movement was set on foot by some good-hearted, unsophisticated body of people, and began to gain favor with the public and the press, immediately would appear most convincing counter-paragraphs to the effect that it would be useless to send relief, especially by the Red Cross:
First, it would not be permitted to land.
Next, whatever it took would be either seized outright, or “wheedled” out of hand by the Spanish authorities in Havana.
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.
Miss Barton had but recently returned from Armenia. Her experience with the Turkish Government made her keenly aware of all the obstructions which an unsympathetic government can put in the way of philanthropic relief. It was useless to attempt any assistance for the sufferers in Cuba unless Miss Barton had the full approval of the American Government, and in addition the sympathetic coöperation of the Spanish Government. But if she secured the consent of the Government of Spain, there was real danger that her work of relief would result less in the succor of the distressed people of Cuba than in the aid and comfort of the armies of their oppressors. Spain could not be expected to look with favor upon any kind of relief which promised to strengthen the Cuban rebellion. At length, however, the situation grew intolerable; it became evident that the United States must go into Cuba either with an army of occupation or an agency for the relief of suffering. As a matter of fact, the United States went in both capacities, but the Red Cross went in before the Stars and Stripes. Miss Barton herself has told the story of the invasion: