clear ground on either side of it, where troops could manoeuvre, and
which would prevent the enemy from stealing up to it unseen, it might
be a useful line of defence. But at present, along its entire length,
stretches this almost impassable barrier of jungle. Now suppose the
troops are sent at short notice from the military camps along the line
to protect any particular point?
Not less than a thousand soldiers must be sent forward, and one can
imagine what their condition would be were they forced to manoeuvre in
a space one hundred and fifty yards broad, the half of which is taken
up with barbed wire fences, fallen trees and explosive bomb shells.
Only two hundred at the most could find shelter in the forts, which
would mean that eight hundred men would be left outside the breastworks
and scattered over a distance of a half mile, with a forest on both
sides of them, from which the enemy could fire volley after volley into
their ranks, protected from pursuit not only by the jungle, but by the
walls of fallen trees which the Spaniards themselves have placed there.
A trocha in an open plain, as were the English trochas in the desert
around Suakin, makes an admirable defence, when a few men are forced to
withstand the assault of a great many, but fighting behind a trocha in
a jungle is like fighting in an ambush, and if the trocha at Moron is
ever attacked in force it will prove to be a Valley of Death to the
Spanish troops.
[Illustration: Spanish Troops in Action]
The Question Of Atrocities
One of the questions that is most frequently asked of those who have
been in Cuba is how much truth exists in the reports of Spanish
butcheries. It is safe to say in answer to this that while the report
of a particular atrocity may not be true, other atrocities just as
horrible have occurred and nothing has been heard of them. I was
somewhat skeptical of Spanish atrocities until I came to Cuba, chiefly
because I had been kept sufficiently long in Key West to learn how
large a proportion of Cuban war news is manufactured on the piazzas of
the hotels of that town and of Tampa by utterly irresponsible newspaper
men who accept every rumor that finds its way across the gulf, and pass
these rumors on to some of the New York papers as facts coming direct
from the field.
It is not surprising that one becomes skeptical, for if one story
proves to be false, how is the reader to know that the others are not
inventions also? It is difficult to believe, for instance, the account
of a horrible butchery if you read in the paragraph above it that two
correspondents have been taken prisoners by the Spanish, when both of
these gentlemen are sitting beside you in Key West and are, to your
certain knowledge, reading the paragraph over your shoulder. Nor is it
unnatural that one should grow doubtful of reported Cuban victories if
he reads of the taking of Santa Clara and the flight of the Spanish
garrison from that city, when he is living at Santa Clara and cannot
find a Cuban in it with sufficient temerity to assist him to get out of
it through the Spanish lines.
But because a Jacksonville correspondent has invented the tale of one
butchery, it is no reason why the people in the United States should
dismiss all the others as sensational fictions. After I went to Cuba I
refused for weeks to listen to tales of butcheries, because I did not
believe in them and because there seemed to be no way of verifying
them--those who had been butchered could not testify and their
relatives were too fearful of the vengeance of the Spaniards to talk
about what had befallen a brother or a father. But towards the end of
my visit I went to Sagua la Grande and there met a number of Americans
and Englishmen, concerning whose veracity there could be no question.
What had happened to their friends and the laborers on their
plantations was exactly what had happened and is happening to-day to
other pacificos all over the island.
Sagua la Grande is probably no worse a city than others in Cuba, but it
has been rendered notorious by the presence in that city of the
guerrilla chieftain, Benito Cerreros.
Early in last December _Leslie's Illustrated Weekly_ published
half-tone reproductions of two photographs which were taken in Sagua.
One was a picture of the bodies of six Cuban pacificos lying on their
backs, with their arms and legs bound and their bodies showing
mutilation by machetes, and their faces pounded and hacked out of
resemblance to anything human. The other picture was of a group of
Spanish guerrillas surrounding their leader, a little man with a heavy
mustache. His face was quite as inhuman as the face of any of the dead
men he had mutilated. It wore a satisfied smile of fatuous vanity, and
of the most diabolical cruelty. No artist could have drawn a face from
his imagination which would have been more cruel. The letter press
accompanying these photographs explained that this guerrilla leader,
Benito Cerreros, had found six unarmed pacificos working in a field
near Sagua, and had murdered them and then brought their bodies in a
cart to that town, and had paid the local photographer to take a
picture of them and of himself and his body guard. He claimed that he
had killed the Cubans in open battle, but was so stupid as to forget to
first remove the ropes with which he had bound them before he shot
them. The photographs told the story without any aid from the letter
press, and it must have told it to a great many people, judging from
the number who spoke of it. It seemed as if, for the first time,
something definite regarding the reported Spanish atrocities had been
placed before the people of the United States, which they could see for
themselves. I had this photograph in my mind when I came to Sagua, and
on the night that I arrived there, by a coincidence, the townspeople
were giving Cerreros a dinner to celebrate a fresh victory of his over
two insurgents, a naturalized American and a native Cuban.
The American was visiting the Cuban in the field, and they were lying
in hiding outside of the town in a hut. The Cuban, who was a colonel in
the insurgent army, had captured a Spanish spy, but had given him his
liberty on the condition that he would go into Sagua and bring back
some medicines. The colonel was dying of consumption, but he hoped
that, with proper medicine, he might remain alive a few months longer.
The spy, instead of keeping his word, betrayed the hiding place of the
Cuban and the American to Cerreros, who rode out by night to surprise
them. He took with him thirty-two guerrillas, and, lest that might not
be enough to protect him from two men, added twelve of the Guarda
Civile to their number, making forty-four men in all. They surrounded
the hut in which the Cuban and the American were concealed, and shot
them through the window as they sat at a table in the light of a
candle. They then hacked the bodies with machetes. It was in
recognition of this victory that the banquet was tendered to Cerreros
by admiring friends.
[Illustration: Amateur Surgery in Cuba]
Civilized nations recognize but three methods of dealing with prisoners
captured in war. They are either paroled or exchanged or put in prison;
that is what was done with them in our rebellion. It is not allowable
to shoot prisoners; at least it is not generally done when they are
seated unconscious of danger at a table. It may be said, however, that,
as these two men were in arms against the government, they were only
suffering the punishment of their crime, and that this is not a good
instance of an atrocity. There are, however, unfortunately, many other
instances in which the victims were non-combatants and their death
simply murder. But it is extremely difficult to tell convincingly of
these cases, without giving names, and the giving of names might lead
to more deaths in Sagua. It is also difficult to convince the reader of
murders for which there seems to have been no possible object.
And yet Cerreros and other guerrillas are murdering men and boys in the
fields around Sagua as wantonly and as calmly as a gardener cuts down
weeds. The stories of these butcheries were told to me by Englishmen
and Americans who could look from their verandas over miles of fields
that belonged to them, but who could not venture with safety two
hundred yards from their doorsteps. They were virtually prisoners in
their own homes, and every spot of ground within sight of their windows
marked where one of their laborers had been cut down, sometimes when he
was going to the next _central_ on an errand, or to carry the
mail, and sometimes when he was digging potatoes or cutting sugar cane
within sight of the forts. Passes and orders were of no avail. The
guerrillas tore up the passes, and swore later that the men were
suspects, and were at the moment of their capture carrying messages to
the insurgents. The stories these planters told me were not dragged
from them to furnish copy for a newspaper, but came out in the course
of our talk, as we walked over the small extent which the forts allowed
us.
My host would say, pointing to one of the pacificos huddled in a corner
of his machine shop: "That man's brother was killed last week about
three hundred yards over there to the left while he was digging in the
field." Or, in answer to a question from our consul, he would say: "Oh,
that boy who used to take care of your horse--some guerrillas shot him
a month ago." After you hear stories like these during an entire day,
the air seems to be heavy with murder, and the very ground on which you
walk smells of blood. It was the same in the town, where any one was
free to visit the _cartel_, and view the murdered bodies of the
pacíficos hacked and beaten and stretched out as a warning, or for
public approbation. There were six so exposed while I was in Sagua. In
Matanzas they brought the bodies to the Plaza at night when the band
was playing, and the guerrillas marched around the open place with the
bodies of eighteen Cubans swinging from the backs of ponies with their
heads hanging down and bumping against the horses' knees. The people
flocked to the sides of the Plaza to applaud this ghastly procession,
and the men in the open cafés cheered the guerrilla chief and cried,
"Long live Spain!"
Speaking dispassionately, and with a full knowledge of the details of
many butcheries, it is impossible for me to think of the Spanish
guerrillas otherwise than as worse than savage animals. A wild animal
kills to obtain food, and not merely for the joy of killing. These
guerrillas murder and then laugh over it. The cannibal, who has been
supposed hitherto to be the lowest grade of man, is really of a higher
caste than these Spanish murderers--men like Colonel Fondevila,
Cerreros, and Colonel Bonita--for a cannibal kills to keep himself
alive. These men kill to feed their vanity, in order that they may pose
as brave soldiers, and that their friends may give them banquets in
hotel parlors.
If what I say seems prejudiced and extravagant it may be well to insert
this translation from a Spanish paper, _El Pais_:
"There are signs of civilization among us; but the truth is that we are
uncultured, barbaric and cruel. Although this may not be willingly
acknowledged, the fact is that we are committing acts of savagery of
which there is no counterpart in any other European country."
[Illustration: Scouting Party of Spanish Cavalry]
"Let us not say a word of the atrocities perpetrated at the Castle of
Montjuich; of the iniquitous and miserable massacre of the Novelda
republicans; of the shootings which occur daily in Manila; of the
arbitrary imprisonments which are systematically made here. We wish now
to say something of the respect due to the conquered, of generosity
that should be shown to prisoners of war, for these are sentiments
which exist even among savage people.
"The Cuban exiles who disembark at Cadiz are sent on foot to the
distant castle of Figueras. 'The unfortunate exiles,' a letter from
Carpió says, 'passed here barefooted and bleeding, almost naked and
freezing. At every town, far from finding rest for their fatigue, they
are received with all sorts of insults; they are scoffed and provoked.
I am indignant at this total lack of humanitarian sentiment and
charity. I have two sons who are fighting against the Cuban insurgents;
but this does not prevent me from denouncing those who ill-treat their
prisoners. I have witnessed such outrages upon the unfortunate exiles
that I do not hesitate to say that nothing like it has ever occurred in
Africa.'"
I do not wish what I have said concerning the Florida correspondents to
be misunderstood as referring to those who are writing, and have
written from the island of Cuba. They suffer from the "fakirs" even
more than do the people of the United States who read the stories of
both, and who confound the sensation-mongers with those who go to find
the truth at the risk of their lives. For these latter do risk their
lives, daily and hourly, when they go into these conflicts looking for
the facts. I have not been in any conflict, so I can speak of these men
without fear of being misunderstood.
They are taking chances that no war correspondents ever took in any war
in any part of the world. For this is not a war--it is a state of
lawless butchery, and the rights of correspondents, of soldiers and of
non-combatants are not recognized. Archibald Forbes, and "Bull Run"
Russell and Frederick Villiers had great continental armies to protect
them; these men work alone with a continental army against them. They
risk capture at sea and death by the guns of a Spanish cruiser, and,
escaping that, they face when they reach the island the greater danger
of capture there and of being cut down by a guerrilla force and left to
die in a road, or of being put in a prison and left to die of fever, as
Govin was cut down, as Delgardo died in prison, as Melton is lying in
prison now, where he will continue to lie until we have a Secretary of
State who recognizes the rights of the correspondent as a
non-combatant, or at least as an American citizen.
The fate of these three American correspondents has not deterred others
from crossing the lines, and they are in the field now, lying in swamps
by day and creeping between the forts by night, standing under fire by
the side of Gómez as they stood beside Maceo, going without food,
without shelter, without the right to answer the attacks of the Spanish
troops, climbing the mountains and crawling across the trochas,
creeping to some friendly hut for a cup of coffee and to place their
despatches in safe hands, and then going back again to run the gauntlet
of Spanish spies and of flying columns and of the unspeakable
guerrillas.
When you sit comfortably at your breakfast in New York, with a
policeman at the corner, and read the despatches which these gentlemen
write of Cuban victories and their interviews with self-important Cuban
chiefs, you should remember what it cost them to supply you with that
addition to your morning's budget of news. Whether the result is worth
the risk, or whether it is not paying too great a price, the greatest
price of all, for too little, is not the question. The reckless bravery
and the unselfishness of the correspondents in the field in Cuba to-day
are beyond parallel.
It is as dangerous to seek for Gómez as Stanley found it to seek for
Livingston, and as few men return from the insurgent camps as from the
Arctic regions.
In case you do not read a New York paper, it is well that you should
know that the names of these correspondents are Grover Flint, Sylvester
Scovel and George Bronson Rae. I repeat, that as I could not reach the
field, I can write thus freely of those who have been more successful.
[Illustration: An Officer of Spanish Guerrillas]
The Right of Search of American Vessels
On the boat which carried me from Cuba to Key West were three young
girls, who had been exiled for giving aid to the insurgents. The
brother of one of them is in command of the Cuban forces in the field
near Havana. More than once his sister had joined him there, and had
seen fighting and carried back despatches to the Junta in Havana. For
this she and two other young women, who were also suspected, were
ordered to leave the island.
I happened to sit next to this young lady at table on the steamer, and
I found that she was not an Amazon nor a Joan of Arc nor a woman of the
people, with a machete in one hand and a Cuban flag in the other. She
was a well-bred, well-educated young person, speaking three languages.
This is what the Spaniards did to these girls:
After ordering them to leave the island on a certain day they sent
detectives to the houses of each on the morning of that day and had
them undressed and searched by a female detective to discover if they
were carrying letters to the Junta at Key West or Tampa. They were
searched thoroughly, even to the length of taking off their shoes and
stockings. Later, when the young ladies stood at last on the deck of an
American vessel, with the American flag hanging from the stern, the
Spanish officers followed them there, and demanded that a cabin should
be furnished them to which the girls might be taken, and they were then
again undressed and searched by this woman for the second time.
For the benefit of people with unruly imaginations, of whom there seem
to be a larger proportion in this country than I had supposed, I will
state again that the search of these women was conducted by women and
not by men, as I was reported to have said, and as I did not say in my
original report of the incident.
Spanish officers, with red crosses for bravery on their chests and gold
lace on their cuffs, strutted up and down while the search was going
on, and chancing to find a Cuban suspect among the passengers, ordered
him to be searched also, only they did not give him the privacy of a
cabin, but searched his clothes and shoes and hat on the main deck of
this American vessel before the other passengers and myself and the
ship's captain and his crew.
In order to leave Havana, it is first necessary to give notice of your
wish to do so by sending your passport to the Captain General, who
looks up your record, and, after twenty-four hours, if he is willing to
let you go, visés your passport and so signifies that your request is
granted. After you have complied with that requirement of martial law,
and the Captain General has agreed to let you depart, and you are on
board of an American vessel, the Spanish soldiers' control over you and
your movements should cease, for they relinquish all their rights when
they give you back your passport.
At least the case of Barrundia justifies such a supposition. It was
then shown that, while a passenger or a member of a crew is amenable to
the "common laws" of the country in the port in which the vessel lies,
he is not to be disturbed for political offenses against her
government.
When the officers of Guatemala went on board a vessel of the Pacific
Mail line and arrested Barrundia, who was a revolutionist, and then
shot him between decks, the American Minister, who had permitted this
outrage, was immediately recalled, and the letter recalling him, which
was written by James G. Blaine, clearly and emphatically sets forth
the principle that a political offender is not to be molested on board
of an American vessel, whether she is in the passenger trade or a ship
of war.
Prof. Joseph H. Beale, Jr., the professor of international law at
Harvard, said in reference to the case of these women when I first
wrote of it:
"So long as a state of war has not been recognized by this country, the
Spanish government has not the right to stop or search our vessels on
the high seas for contraband of war or for any other purpose, nor would
it have the right to subject American citizens or an American vessel in
Cuban waters to treatment which would not be legal in the case of
Spanish citizens or vessels.
"But the Spanish government has the right in Cuba to execute upon
American citizens or vessels any laws prevailing there, in the same way
as they would execute them upon the Spaniards, unless they are
prevented by the provisions of some treaty with the United States. The
fact that the vessel in the harbor of Havana was flying a neutral flag
could not protect it from the execution of Spanish law.
"However unwise or inhuman the action of the Spanish authorities may
have been in searching the women on board the _Olivette_, they
appear to have been within their legal rights."
[Illustration: A Spanish Picket Post]
The Spanish Minister at Washington has also declared that his
government has the right of search in the harbor of Havana. Hence in
the face of two such authorities the question raised is probably
answered from a legal point of view. But if that is the law, it would
seem well to alter it, for it gives the Spanish authorities absolute
control over the persons and property of Americans on American vessels,
and that privilege in the hands of persons as unscrupulous and as
insolent as are the Spanish detectives, is a dangerous one. So
dangerous a privilege, indeed, that there is no reason nor excuse for
not keeping an American ship of war in the harbor of Havana.
For suppose that letters and despatches had been found on the persons
of these young ladies, and they had been put on shore and lodged in
prison; or suppose the whole ship and every one on board had been
searched, as the captain of the _Olivette_ said the Spanish
officers told him they might decide to do, and letters had been found
on the Americans, and they had been ordered over the side and put into
prison--would that have been an act derogatory to the dignity of the
United States? Or are we to understand that an American citizen or a
citizen of any country, after he has asked and obtained permission to
leave Cuba and is on board of an American vessel, is no more safe there
than he would be in the insurgent camp?
The latter supposition would seem to be correct, and the matter to
depend on the captain of the vessel and her owners, from whom he
receives his instructions, and not to be one in which the United States
government is in any way concerned. I do not believe the captain of a
British passenger steamer would have allowed one of his passengers to
be searched on the main deck of his vessel, as I saw this Cuban
searched; nor even the captain of a British tramp steamer nor of a coal
barge.
The chief engineer of the _Olivette_ declared to me that in his
opinion, "it served them just right," and the captain put a cabin at
the disposal of the Spanish spies with eager humility. And when one of
the detectives showed some disinclination to give back my passport, and
I said I would keep him on board until he did it, the captain said:
"Yes, you will, will you? I would like to see you try it," suggesting
that he was master of his own ship and of my actions. But he was not.
There is not an unwashed, garlicky, bediamonded Spanish spy in Cuba who
has not more authority on board the _Olivette_ than her American
captain and his subservient crew.
Only a year ago half of this country was clamoring for a war with the
greatest power it could have selected for that purpose. Yet Great
Britain would have been the first to protect her citizens and their
property and their self-respect if they had been abused as the
self-respect and property and freedom of Americans have been abused by
this fourth-rate power, and are being abused to-day.
Before I went to Cuba I was as much opposed to our interfering there as
any other person equally ignorant concerning the situation could be,
but since I have seen for myself I feel ashamed that we should have
stood so long idle. We have been too considerate, too fearful that as a
younger nation, we should appear to disregard the laws laid down by
older nations. We have tolerated what no European power would have
tolerated; we have been patient with men who have put back the hand of
time for centuries, who lie to our representatives daily, who butcher
innocent people, who gamble with the lives of their own soldiers in
order to gain a few more stars and an extra stripe, who send American
property to the air in flames and murder American prisoners.