US Presidency
1898

The supplies are admitted duty free, and transportation to the interior has been arranged so that the relief, at first necessarily confined to Havana and the larger cities, is now extended through most if not all of the towns where suffering exists. Thousands of lives have already been saved. The necessity for change in the condition of the reconcentrados is recognized by the Spanish Government. Within a few days past the orders of General Weyler have been revoked; the reconcentrados, it is said, are to be permitted to return to their homes and aided to resume the self supporting pursuits of peace. Public works have been ordered to give them employment, and a sum of $ 600,000 has been appropriated for their relief. The war in Cuba is of such a nature that short of subjugation or extermination a final military victory for either side seems impracticable. The alternative lies in the physical exhaustion of the one or the other party, or perhaps of both, a condition which in effect ended the ten year's war by the truce of Zanjon.