Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1896-03-06
WEYLER, BUTCHER.
Further Reports of His Almost
Incredible Brutality.
Is Making Massacre Out Of War;.
Inhuman Acts Beyond Belief.
Intense Feeling in Consress-Weyler Scored
by Senator Sherman.

Intensely interesting have been the debates
in congress on the Cuban question. Rare
ly has so much feeling been shown III the
halls of our national Legislature as wneh
the wrongs of Cuba were under consldera-
ton. The warm sympathy of the Amerl-
can people for an oppressed and struggling
country was never more strikingly demon
strated All the time the galleries were
crowded, and applause detied all rules.
Senator Sherman Aroused.
The press reports, necessarily short and
hurriedly prepared, have failed to mention
many of the most interesting facts brought
out in the debates, and l am sure your
readers will thank me for bringing some
of these points to their attention. Senator
Sherman, who cannot be accused of sensa-
tionalism, said of SEQ, 600, 900 taxes collect
ed in Cuba in a year only $746, 200 was
used for the purpose of making internal
improvements. The island is without de-
cent roads Practically nothing is spent
for public schools. Cubans have no secur-
ity of life or property. The military au-
thorites rule everything. The mayors of
cities are appointed by the military ruler,
and the city councils are appointed by the
mayors.
Senator Sherman has never spoken more
eloquently than he did of the reign of ter
ror which Weylcr had instituted in Cuba.
He was sent there to make massacre out
of war, said the senator impressiyely,
and in support of this statement quoted
from book written by a Spaniard who
had been eyewitness of Weylers conduct
in the ten years war There was a great
crowd in the senate chamber that day,
but a silence intense and almost painful
was maintained while the following words,
descriptive of the character of the man
who is now master of Cuba, was read from
the clerk desk:
Shocking Brutality.
General Weyler's favorite amusement
was entering into village with regi-
ment of soldiers and rounding up all
the women to be found in the dwellings.
If there happened to be any men left in
the village at that time, they would be
shot down without delay The women
huddled together in a frightened group
He would form his troops in hollow
square, facing inward, and then, having
three or four of the wonderland even lit
tile girls of the tender ages of 10 or II
years-stripped absolutely naked, he would
drive them into the square at the point of
the hayonet and make them dance until
exhausted, the double file of sensual Span
iards gazing on in delight.
when one set had fallen, painting to
the ground he would deliver them over
to the soldiers for their qualification and
bring out others, until every woman in the
village, stripped, had been forced to sub
nit to these terrible indignities. Finally
the tortured creatures would be put out Of
their misery by being hacked literally to
pieces with swift strokes of the s.aarp Gu
ban machetes.
Another scheme of his, which he car
ried out frequently with great satisfaction
to himself, was the holding of ball in
some large building in town. He would
send a great number of invitations around
for this, including everybody that he had
made up his mind to kill. Now an invi
tation from General Weyler was not to be
treated lightly. Nobody dared to refuse
it, in fact. No mans life would have been
worth the thinking about if he decided not
to go. Some of these balls used to pass
off very smoothly and without any devia-
ton from the programme of a regular Gu
ban dance.
But this was not often. At some time
during the evening-at every other ball at
least-after liquor had been flowing freely
and the men and women guests, who did
not dare to do anything else than drink,
were pretty well stupefed, a sudden hush
would fall over the room, the music would
stop, and a gang of Weyler' soldiers, with
murderous machetes III their hands, would
rush in, slashing right and left and keep
ing both doors and windows guarded, so
that hardly a person could escape. The
women, of course, would be saved for
orgies later on. On one occasion of this
sort, it is recalled, the carnage was so
fierce that not even the hired musicia us
escaped with their lives
Incredible Deeds.
A thrill of horror ran through the senate
chamber especially in the galleries, where
were many ladies, as this terrible recital
was read. Noticing this, Senator Sher-
man asked to have the reading stopped,
saying the next paragraphs were not fit to
be read in public, but that he would print
them in The Congressional Record He
did SO, and one is not surprised that he re-
fused to permit them to be read before a
refined audience. The following para
graphs were read by the secretary of the
senate:
"Weyler, however, did not confine his
5arbarities TO women. With men he was
brutal almost beyond the power of words to
describe A Cuban gentleman recalls the
following instance:
- In ono of the iails there were more than
~ political prisoners almost all lawyers.
physicians and representative men of the
district. He went in one day with an
enormous club and beat them unmerciful-
ly and then and there ordered that next
| morning they be shot, and they were shot. ;
An even more horrible story is told as
follows: 'Weyler was coming out of a Jail
| one day when he met Il gentleman of wealth
ana position in the town, who complained
to him that the troops had taken all his
cattle. Wcyler at once ordered him to be
tied up by the neck to the iron bars of the
JAIL IN such way that strangulation
should not be immediate, but gradual, and
he was left there. The next morning he
was dead, and his eyebalIs had dropped
out of their sockets -
The Authority of Absolutism.
Perhaps no similar scene was ever
known in the United States senate cham
Der. The man who was thus arraigned as
one of the most brutal and inhuman
wretches known in history was but a short
time ago sent out by modern Christian
government to hold the authority of abso.
lutlsm over the whole island of Cuba, al
most within sight of the shores of free
America. The man who thus mercilessly
| arraigned him WAS the NaStor IF tho A u,or;