places and orderly times. Of the 50,000 inhabitants, 16,000 were sick.
There were in addition 2,000 sick Spanish soldiers and 5,000 sick
American troops. Over all in the hot haze of that tropical city hung
the terror of yellow fever, showing its sinister face here and there.
At the same time a religious pilgrimage to a nearby shrine taken at
this moment by 18,000 people led to an immense increase in disease
because of the bad food and the polluted water which the pilgrims ate
and drank. In the streets piles of filth and open drains were mixed
with the dead bodies of animals. Houses, deserted because of deaths,
held their dead--men, women and children--whom no one removed and no
one buried. All along the routes approaching the city bodies lay by
the roadside, the living members of the family leaving their dead
unburied because they were too weak and could only drag themselves
along under the tropic sun in the hope that they {110} might reach
their homes before they, too, should die.
This was enhanced by the fact of the siege and the consequent lack of
food. The sick could not go for food; and if they could have done so
there was little or none to be had. Horrible odors filled the air.
Terror walked abroad. It was a prodigious task for anybody to
undertake, but it was undertaken, and in the following manner:
Simultaneously certain main lines of work were mapped out by Wood and
officers put in charge of each subject, the commanding officer
reserving for himself the planning, the general supervision, the
watching, as well as the instituting of new laws based upon the
existing system of the Code Napoleon.
It was first necessary to feed the people and to bury the dead. There
were so many of the latter that they had to be collected in lots of
ninety or a hundred, placed between railway irons, soaked in petroleum
and burned outside the city. It was such dreadful work, this going
into deserted homes and collecting dead bodies for the flames, that
men had to be forced to it. All were {111} paid regularly, however,
and the job was done. General Wood's own account of this task is
better than any second-hand description can even hope to be.
"Horrible deadly work it was, but at last it was finished. At the same
time numbers of men were working night and day in the streets removing
the dead animals and other disease-producing materials. Others were
engaged in distributing food to the hospitals, prisons, asylums and
convents--in fact to everybody, for all were starving. What food there
was, and it was considerable, had been kept under the protection of
the Spanish army to be used as rations. Some of the far-seeing and
prudent had stored up food and prepared for the situation in advance,
but these were few.
"All of our army transportation was engaged in getting to our own men
the tents, medicines and the thousand and one other things required by
our camps, and as this had to be done through seas of mud it was slow
work. We could expect no help from this source in our distribution of
rations to the destitute population, so we seized {112} all the carts
and wagons we could find in the streets, rounded up drivers and
laborers with the aid of the police, and worked them under guard,
willing or unwilling, but paying well for what they did. At first we
had to work them far into the night.
"Everything on wheels in the city was at work. Men who refused and
held back soon learned that there were things far more unpleasant than
cheerful obedience, and turned to work with as much grace as they
could command. All were paid a fair amount for their services, partly
in money, partly in rations, but all worked; some in removing the
waste refuse from the city, others in distributing food. Much of the
refuse in the streets was burned outside at points designated as
crematories. Everything was put through the flames.
"In the Spanish military hospital the number of sick rapidly
increased. From 2,000 when we came in, the number soon ran up to 3,100
in hospital, besides many more in their camps. Many of the sick were
suffering from malaria, but among them were some cases of yellow
fever. Poor devils, they all looked as though hope had {113} fled,
and, as they stood in groups along the waterfront, eagerly watching
the entrance to the harbor, it required very little imagination to see
that their thoughts were of another country across the sea, and that
the days of waiting for the transports were long days for them."
[Footnote: _Scribner's Magazine_.]
A yellow fever hospital was established on an island in the harbor.
The city was divided into districts and numbers of medical men put in
charge, their duty being to examine each house and report sanitary
conditions, sickness and food situations. As a result of these reports
Wood issued orders for action in each district so that the food, the
available medical force and the supplies of all kinds should be used
and distributed to produce the greatest results in the shortest
possible time. In one district alone just outside the city there were
thousands of cases of smallpox in November. The streets were filled
with filth and dead and wrecked furniture. The wells were full of
refuse. The task seemed almost hopeless. Yet, under Wood's system of
detailing squads to undertake the work in certain sections {114} with
the system of centralized reporting, the epidemic was checked in a
month, the district cleaned and scrubbed from end to end with
disinfectants and the small pox cut down to a few scattering cases. In
this district of Holguin the plan was adopted of vaccinating two
battalions of the Second Immune Regiment. These men were then sent
into the district to establish good sanitary conditions and clean up
the yellow fever. The work was done successfully without the
occurrence of a single case of smallpox amongst the American troops.
No better demonstration of the efficacy of vaccination was ever given.
Thus the first task of feeding the starving population and cleaning
the city was simultaneously undertaken by districts under the
direction of officers having authority to proceed along certain
established lines. Episodes illustrating these "established lines" are
many, but there is space here, for only one or two of them.
It developed at the outset that there was food and meat in the city
which the people could use, but which was beyond their reach on
account of the high prices. General Wood no sooner heard {115} of this
than he "established a line of procedure" to correct it. He sent for
the principal butchers of the city and asked:
"How much do you charge for your meat?"
"Ninety cents a pound, Senor."
"What does it cost you?"
There was hesitation and a shuffling of feet; then one of the men said
in a whining voice:
"Meat is very, very dear, your Excellency."
"How much a pound?"
"It costs us very much, and ..."
"How much a pound?"
"Fifteen cents, your Excellency; but we have lost much money during
the war and..."
"So have your customers. Now meat will be sold at 25 cents a pound,
and not one cent more. Do you understand?"
Then, turning to the alderman, he charged him to see that his order
was carried out to the letter, unless he wanted to be expelled from
office.
Thenceforward meat was sold in the markets at 25 cents. The same
simple plan was evolved for all other kinds of supplies. Naturally
such high-handed methods caused a great hue and cry {116} amongst
certain of the citizens and no such method could have been carried out
by any one but a military commander with absolute authority. Some of
the newspapers, all of which had been given a free hand by Wood and
were allowed for the first time to say what they liked, started a
campaign against the new administration and its busy head. But hand in
hand with this autocratic procedure went the organization of native
courts, the appointment of native officials for carrying on the
government, native police to catch Cuban bandits and native judges to
give decisions and impose sentences. Furthermore, in these same days
of autocratic action, the people gradually discovered that although
everybody was forced to work all those who did got paid--something new
to the Santiago-Cuban consciousness--that the invading American army
was not arresting natives in the streets and thrusting them into jail,
but that their own native police were doing this work. Gradually, as
the city became clean, as prices fell, as payment for work came in, as
illness decreased, as law became fairly administered by the Cuban
officials themselves, a certain awe {117} and veneration grew for the
invaders and their big, hardworking head. It was a revelation,
unbelievable yet true, unknown yet a fact, which opened up to the
minds of these long-suffering, incompetent people the first vision of
an existence which has since through the same agency of General Wood
become a fact throughout the whole island, so that Cuba is to-day a
busy, healthy, self-governing state.
Parallel with the feeding and sanitation work General Wood put into
effect a certain system of road building where it was necessary in
order to keep the people at work and allow them to make money and at
the same time to produce necessary transportation facilities. Five
miles of asphalt pavement, fifteen miles of country pike, six miles of
macadam were built and 200 miles of country road made usable out of
funds collected from the regular taxes which had heretofore gone into
the pockets of the Spanish government officials. The costs varied
somewhat from the old days, as may well be guessed. A quarter of a
mile of macadam pavement built by the Spaniards the year before along
the water-front had cost $180,000. Wood's {118} engineers built five
miles of asphalt pavement at a cost of $175,000.
At the same time a reorganization of the Custom House service was
instituted which increased receipts; jails and hospitals were
reorganized under the system existing in the United States; and
perhaps in the end the greatest work of all was the establishment of
an entirely new school system based on an adaptation of the American
form. Teachers had disappeared. There were none, since nobody paid
them. School houses were empty, open to any tramp for a night's
lodging. In a few months this was changed so that kindergartens and
schools were opened and running.
In fact the work was the making of a new community, the building of a
new life--the repairing of the tottering wing of the old, old house.
All this, as may be supposed, did not take place without friction,
obstruction, and without at first a great deal of bad blood.
Wood's methods in dealing with disturbances were his own and can only
be suggested here by isolated anecdotes and incidents. When an
official who had the Spanish methods in his blood {119} did not appear
after three invitations he was carried into the commanding officer's
presence by a squad of soldiers in his pajamas. The next time he was
invited he came at once.
"One night about eight o'clock, General Wood was writing in his office
in the palace. At the outer door stood a solitary sentinel, armed with
a rifle. Suddenly there burst across the plaza, from the San Carlos
Club, a mob of Cubans--probably 600. Within a few minutes a shower of
stones, bricks, bottles and other missiles struck the Spanish Club,
smashing windows and doors. A man, hatless and out of breath, rushed
up to the sentry at the palace entrance and shouted, 'Where's the
General? Quick! The Cubans are trying to kill the officers and men in
the Spanish Club!'
"General Wood was leisurely folding up his papers when the sentry
reached him. 'I know it,' he said, before the man had time to speak.
'I have heard the row. We will go over and stop it.'
"He picked up his riding-whip, the only weapon he ever carries, and,
accompanied by the one American soldier, strolled across to the scene
of {120} the trouble. The people in the Spanish Club had got it pretty
well closed up, but the excited Cubans were still before it, throwing
things and shouting imprecations, and even trying to force a way in by
the main entrance.
"'Just shove them back, sentry,' said General Wood, quietly.
"Around swung the rifle, and, in much less time than is taken in the
telling, a way was cleared in front of the door.
"'Now shoot the first man who places his foot upon that step,' added
the General, in his usual deliberate manner. Then he turned and
strolled back to the palace and his writing. Within an hour the mob
had dispersed, subdued by two men, one rifle and a riding-whip. And
the lesson is still kept in good memory."
"One day about the middle of November the native _calentura_ or fever,
from which General Wood suffered greatly, sent him to his home, which
is on the edge of the town, earlier than usual. He had no sooner
reached the house than he was notified by telephone that a bloody riot
had occurred at San Luis, a town 20 miles out on the {121} Santiago
Railway. The fever was raging in the General, his temperature
exceeding 105, and he was so sick and dizzy that he staggered as he
walked. But with that indomitable will that had served him on many a
night raid against hostile Apaches, he entered his carriage and was
driven back to the city. He picked up his chief signal officer,
Captain J. E. Brady, at the Palace and hastened to the building
occupied by the telegraph department of the Signal Corps on Calle
Enramadas. Captain Brady took the key at the instrument.
"'Tell the operator to summon members of the rural guard who were
fired on, and the commanding officer of the Ninth Immunes,' ordered
the General, tersely. Thenceforward, for three hours General Wood sat
there, questioning, listening, issuing orders, all with a promptness
and certainty of judgment that would have been extraordinary in a man
quite at his ease; yet all the time, as he could not help showing in
mien and features, the raging fever was distressing to the point of
agony. Those about him could not but marvel at the man's resolution
and endurance. The {122} following day, although still racked with
fever, he went by special train to San Luis and investigated the
affair in person.'" [Footnote: _Fortnightly Review_.]
The basis of the great work, however, as General Wood has himself
repeatedly said in conversation and in print, was to effect all this
regeneration without causing the Cubans to look upon the American Army
and the American control as they had for years looked upon the Spanish
Army and the Spanish control. That his success here in the most
difficult phase of the whole prodigious enterprise was absolute has
been testified to in innumerable ways and instances.
Only one or two of these can be given here, but they are illuminating
in the extreme and they suggest the success of the methods of the man
who had been put in charge of this difficult work.
Death amongst the Spanish soldiers had been very heavy from yellow
fever and pernicious malaria and the course of the troop-ships which
carried them back to Spain was marked by long lists of burials at sea.
These ships carried with them most of the nurses and nursing sisters
to {123} care for the sick and dying during the voyage. It was a great
drain on the nursing force at Wood's disposal in Santiago. He,
therefore, hit upon the idea of offering to pay for the return trips
of these nurses if they would come back at once; with the result that
most of them gladly accepted and rendered splendid service in Santiago
to the sick as a token of their appreciation of the military
governor's act. This did much to establish friendly relations between
Americans, Spaniards and Cubans who had so short a time before been
enemies.
Another vital point was the relations of the invaders with the Church.
It had never been contemplated that a Catholic viceroy should be
replaced by a Protestant. This viceroy had so many intimate relations
with the Catholic Church in which he represented the Catholic king
that it was absolutely necessary for whatever American happened to be
governor to play the game regardless of what his own religious
scruples might be. As an interesting example of how well this was
handled by Wood the story of Bishop Bernaba is a charming instance.
{124}
This bishop was elevated from priesthood while Wood was governor and
because of his affection and respect for the American officer he asked
him to walk with him daring the ceremonious procession from the
priest's little parish church, where he had served, to the old
cathedral where he was to officiate thereafter. It was a solemn
religious function and has been described, because of the terrific
surroundings of the hour, as not unlike the ceremony which took place
in Milan after the Great Plague.
The entire population of the city with some forty or fifty thousand
from the surrounding hills packed the streets along the route of the
procession. None of them had had a blessing from his own Cuban clergy
in many years. It was like a mediaeval scene. The old bishop bowed by
years, weakened by his recent grief at the suffering of his people and
by the excitement of the moment, and General Wood, the American
Protestant, walked together under the bishop's canopy. The people in
the streets, seeing this, cried: "Thank God, the General is a Catholic!
We didn't know it!"
{125}
From time to time the old bishop, tired with the exertion of swinging
the censer with the holy water, would hand it to Wood and ask him to
continue the function by his side until he could secure a slight
respite. Occasionally as he leaned forward to bless the thousands who
lined the way and who had come to feel his touch and kiss his hand his
miter would slip to one side on his head and the unperturbed American
general would lean forward and straighten it for him. Each time the
old bishop turned to him and murmured, "Thank God, you are here! I am
so old that I could not have made this journey, if you had not been
here to help me."
Wood told him that he was not a Catholic, that indeed from Bishop
Bernaba's point of view he was a heretic and bound for Hell.
"No," said the bishop, with a smile, "you are a good Catholic; only
you do not know it."
Small wonder that when he left Santiago in the spring of 1899 to visit
the United States Wood was presented by the people of the city with a
magnificent hand-work scroll which said in Spanish:
{126}
"The people of the City of Santiago de Cuba to General Leonard Wood
... the greatest of all your successes is to have won the confidence
and esteem of a people in trouble."
Small wonder that in December, 1899, less than a year after the United
States took over the island, he was appointed by President McKinley
Governor General of Cuba and made a Major General of United States
Volunteers!
{127}
THE ADMINISTRATOR
{128}
{129}
VI
THE ADMINISTRATOR
It has been said that General Wood's work in Havana as
Governor-General of Cuba was the continuation of his work at Santiago
on a larger scale. This would seem to be erroneous.
The Santiago problem was the cleaning and reorganizing of a city of
60,000 inhabitants. Many stringent measures could properly be put into
operation in such a community which were quite impossible in a city of
350,000 inhabitants like Havana, or in a state of two and one-half
million people such as the Island of Cuba. It was possible in an
epidemic to close up houses temporarily, stop business and commercial
intercourse for a period where only 60,000 people were concerned. But
to stop the daily commerce of a large city, the capital of a state,
was out of the question.
Furthermore the problem in the first instance was one of organizing a
community in so {130} deplorable a condition that it was on the verge
of anarchy. In the second instance much of the cleaning-up process had
been at least begun by other American officers. It was here in Havana
a case of administration and statecraft as against organization.
It was the taking of a crown colony of Spain--a kingdom--which had
never been anything but a royal colony, and turning it in two years
and a half into a republic, self-governed, self-judged,
self-administered and self-supporting.
Roughly speaking, there had never been such a case. Even now the
proposal of the Philippine Islands would practically be the second
case should independence be granted to them by the United States. In
all history a colony, once a colony, either has remained so, or has
revolted from the mother country and by force of arms established its
own independence.
These two problems, then, were quite different in their essential
elements and they required different qualities in the man who settled
them.
President McKinley's instructions to the new Governor-General were "To
prepare Cuba, as {131} rapidly as possible, for the establishment of
an independent government, republican in form, and a good school
system." And both the President and the Secretary of War left their
representative entirely to his own resources to work this out. His
work was laid out for him and he was given a free hand.
General Wood, therefore, in December, 1899, after having been received
with a magnificent ovation on his return to the United States, made a
Major-General and given an LL.D. degree by his own University of
Harvard--after having returned to Santiago suddenly upon the outbreak
of yellow fever, cleaned the town, covered it with chloride of lime,
soaked it with corrosive sublimate, burned out its sewers and
cesspools, and checked the epidemic,--finally took up his residence in
Havana and began his work.
One can readily imagine the immediate problems all of which needed
settlement at once, none of which could be settled without study of
the most thorough and vital sort. Wood's method was that of an
administrator and statesman of great vision. He immediately proceeded
to {132} secure wherever he could find them the best men on each of
the problems and set them to work with such assistance, expert and
otherwise, as they required to make reports to him within a limited
time as to what should be done in their particular branches of the
government.
Again, it was so simple that it can be told in words of one syllable.
But the great administrator appeared in the selection of the men for
the jobs and in the final acceptance, rejection, or modification of
the plans proposed. While he was an absolute monarch of the Island he
never exerted that authority unless there was no other possible
course. In all cases he left decisions in so far as that could be done
to native bodies and native representatives and native courts with
full authority.
Chief Justice White of the Supreme Court upon being consulted told him
that in the main the laws were sound but that the procedure was
faulty; that he must look closely to this and make many modifications.
This hint from a great authority became his guide.
The most crying needs of the moment were the {133} courts and the
prisons. Prisoners were held without cause; trials were a farce; the
prisons themselves were filthy places where all ages were herded
together; court houses were out of repair and out of use; records
hardly existed, and the whole machinery of justice was that of a
decayed colony of a decayed kingdom totally without the respect of the
public and without self-respect.
General Wood began with characteristic promptness to get to the root
of the matter. The principal officer charged with the prosecution of
cases was removed and a mixed commission, selected and appointed by
himself, substituted. As a result in a short time six hundred
prisoners were freed, because there was not sufficient evidence
against them to warrant their arrests. Court houses were put into
repair. Judges with fixed and sufficient salaries were appointed;
officials were set at work upon salaries that were fair and--what is
far more to the point--were regularly paid. Prison commissions
appointed by Wood examined conditions and the prisons were cleaned,
moved to other buildings, or renovated and remodelled according to
modern American methods. {134} The result in less than six months was
that native officials were conducting this work in a self-respecting,
honorable manner, convicting or releasing prisoners in short order and
bringing the idea of justice into respect in the public mind. The
establishment of order was a natural result. Outbreaks and riots
became unknown. The people began to realize as no amount of exhibition
of power on the part of the invaders could ever have made them realize
that peace, order, fair play, and a chance to live had come upon the
land in what seemed some miraculous fashion.
The respect of the individual for the State was born again in the
Cuban mind--born, perhaps it is fairer to say, for the first time in
the heart of this much abused and ignorant people. Once this really
pierced their inner consciousness--the inner consciousness of the
whole people, of everybody poor or rich--these people felt safe and
secure and knew they could take up their enterprises with safety and
with hope of adequate returns which should belong to themselves.