The Topeka state journal., 1897-03-30
Enclosing One Formerly Sent
to Cleveland.
ASKS ONLY FAIR PLAY
Does Net Need Assistance i
the Field,
But Begs That the Spanish Be
Made to Cease
numbering Innocent Men, Wo.
men and Children.

O--~SSOs ~0e1ACu oO.-4nG RECORD To-
day says:
record nave appeared over the sigma
ture Don Carlos Joined the army of
General Gomez early in February and
made his way through the Spanish
lines after secretly communicating
with the rebel governor of the province
OF Santa Clara and receiving from him
an armed escort to the headquarters
of the Cuban commander He was
present at a number of recent engage
mentS at which there was hard fight
ing A letter from the Records Ha-
Vana correspondent Crittenden Mar
r1ott, gave the information that some
or Mr.. Crosby'S correspondence has fall
len into the hands of the Spaniards on
it's way through the lines, and the Span
ish authorities have been trying to
seize him, descriptions of his personal
appearance being sent broadcast
through the province of Santa Clara
His last dispatch was received March
"A, having been written in the camp of
General Gomez, near Arroyo Blanco,
where he is now reported to have been
killed. By the same courier was
doubtless sent the important letter of
General Maxine Gomez to President
Mckinley, published below. Mr.. CrOs-
bys copy of this letter reached the
Record office yesterday, having come
by mail, as it was the desire of the
Cuhan commander that it should not
be published before the original was in
the hands of President Mckinley.
If Mr.. Crosby has really paid with
his life for his courage and enterprise,
the readers of the Record gain from
him, as an earnest of his ability as a
correspondent, knowledge of the re-
markable letter which was sent by
General Gomez to President Cleveland
and which either went astray or was
kept secret by its recipient, as well as
of this late communication, which ar
rived at the White House last night.
In the Field, near Sancti Spiritus,
March 1, 1897.
1.-The Hon. VIM. Mckinley, President
of the United States of America:
"Sir-General Weyler has arrived in
this district of Sancti SpirituS with a
numerous army. He comes not to
fight nor to oppose his strength to the
forces which have defended these parts,
but as a sanguinary and cruel general,
who will avoid combatS and spread
crime and desOlation everywhere. He
comes to murder the peasants in the
fields; to kill the children and to drive
our prosecuted and outraged women to
the woods, leaving their homes to be
burned, their hearths violated and their
gardens destroyed. This is how Cen
eral Weyler pacifies Sancu Spiritus,
and wherever he may be. Then he
authorizes those who ask him for bread
for their children and alleviation for
their miseries to go out into the coun-
try and to steal and destroy whatever
they may find.
with this, permit me to send you
copy OF a letter Wh1ch haQ the nOnOr
to send your predecessor in office. Mr..
Grover Cleveland. 1t is the hope that
it may move you to sacred action that
induces me to take up my pen to trou-
bic you
CLEVELAND LETTER.
''Sancti Spiritus, Feb. 9. 1897.
Mr. Grover Cleveland, President of
the United States:
''Sir-Permit a man whose soul is torn
within him by the contemplation of un-
utterable crimes to raise his voice to
the supreme chief of a people free, cul-
tiVated and powerful.
do not, I beg, regard this action as
an inoppOrtune act of Officialism. You
yourself authorized it when you con-
ceded to me a place in your last mes
sage to congress.
Even more, L beg you. do not regard
it a request for intervention in our
affairs. We Cubans have thrown our
selves into this war, confident in our
strength The wisdom of the Ameri-
can people should alone decide what
course of action you should take.
Il will not speak of the Cubans in
arms. No, I am raising my voice only
in the name of unarmed Americans,
victims of a frightful cruelty. 1 raise
it in the name of weakness and of in
nocence sacrificed with forgetfulneSS of
the elementary principles of humanity
and the eternal maxims of Christian
morality-sacrificed brutally, in the
closing days of the nineteenth century,
at the very gates OIL the great HdlIOH
which stands SO high in modern cul-
ture-sacrifced thereby, dreading Eu-
ropean monarchy, which has had the
sad glory of setting forth the horrors
of the middle ages.
our struggle with Spain has an as
pect very interesting to that humanity
of which you are so noble an example,
and to this aspect 1 wish TO call your
illuStriouS attention.
Look through the world and you will
see how all people, with the possible
exception of the Americans, cOntern-
plate with Indifference, or sentimental
platonism, the war which makes red
the beautiful fields of fertile Cuba, as
if it were a thing foreign to their inter
ests and to those of modern culture, as
if it were not a crime to forget in this
manner the duties of social brother
hood.
But you know it is not Cuba alone;
it is America; it is all Christian soil, all
humanity that sees itself outraged by
Spain's horrible barbarity-
well it is that the Spanish struggle
with desperation and that they are
ashamed to explain the methods they
employ in this war But we know
them and we expect them.
I'VE accept it all as a fresh Sacr1hce
on the altar of Cuban independence.
1T is logical that such should be the
conduct of the nation that expelled the
Jews and the MoorS; that instituted
that established the tribunals of blood
in the Netherlands: that annihilated the
Indians and exterminated the first set
tiers of Cuba; that aSsassinated thous-
ands of her subjects in the wars of
South American independence, and that
filled the cup of iniquity in the last war
in Cuba
1T is natural that people should pro
ceed thus who, by. dint of Superstitfous
and fanatic cal education. and Through the
1a= Of re al