The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-12
PitifuI and Heartrending Scenes
of the Department of Justice.
THOUSANDS WITHOUT FOOD
SCORES OF PEOPLE STARVING AND
OTHERS DYING OF DISEASE.
Nearly 100000 Reconcentrados Herd
ed in the Cities without Means
of Supporting Themselves.

W.. Russell, assistant United states attoI-
ney in the Department of Justice. returned
to-day from Cuba, where he has spent two
weeks Investigating the conditions prevail
ing on the island. To a reporter Mr.. Rus
sell said: II am very glad p be inter-
viewed on the subject of cuba, because L
feel it a solemn duty to humanity to en-
deavor to make the American people real
ize the terrible distress which. exists there.
Much has been written on the subject, but
judging others by myself, l feel quite sure
that because we do not commit and nave
not in our history committed such atrocities
as Spain is committing on that island, the
American reading public regard the reports
as biased by the preconceived opinions OF
newspapers or greatly exaggerated.
81 spent just two weeks in Cuba, visited
Havana, went south to Jaruco, southeast
to Guines. northeast to Matanzas, eastward
about two hundred miles through the
middle of the country to SandO Mingo,
Santa Clara and Sagua la Grande. 1 visited
Marianao, a short distance west of Havana,
and saw along the railroad thirty or forty
towns or stations. In Havana / visited the
Fossos, the hospital prison Aldecon, where
1 talked with the father of Evangelina
Cossio y Cisneros, and a place called the
CAOOkNs a III 6AOo & III NAA-S0
places, and begging everywhere about the
streets of Havana. The spectacle at the
Fossos and Jacoba houses, of women and
children, emaciated to skeletons and suffer-
ing from diseases produced by starvation
was sickening. In Sagua L saw some sick
and emaciated little girls in a children's
hospital started three days before by chart
table Cubans and saw a crowd of miserable
looking r-econcentrados with tin buckets
and other receptacles getting a small al
lowance of food doled out to them in a
yard. In the same city, in an old sugar
warehouse, l saw stationed around the in
side walls the remnants of twenty or thirty
cuban Families. In one case the remnant
consisted of two little children of seven
or eight. In another case. where | talked to
the people in broken Spanish. there were
TOUR individuals, a mother, a girl of four
teen and two quite small girls. The small
est was then suffering from malarial fever.
me next had the signs on her hands with
winch l had become familiar-Of the beri-
peri. These four were all that the order of
concentration had left alive of eleven.
LIVING IN CABINS.
AT San Domingo, where two railroads join.
the depot was crowded with women and
children, one of the latter, as l remember,
being swollen up with the beri beri, begging
In the most earnest way from the few pas
sengers. San Domingo is little more than a
railroad station in times of peace, but at
present it has a considerable population, liv-
ing in cabins matched with the tops of
palm. The huts are arranged close together
in a little clump and the concentrates order
required, and apparently still require, these
people TO live within a circle of small block
houses commonly dignified in the dispatches
by the name of forts. OF course they had
no work TO do, no soil to till, no seed to
plant, only begging to live on.
1 do not know the exact measure of the
deadllne circle drawn around them, but
tnere was certainly nothing within it upon
which a human being could subsist. and
also certainly, If any order had newly per-
mitted them to go a short distance further
out, they had not gone and were not going.
Practically, they are prisoners. At every
one OF the numerous stopping pla ceS along
the road a similar collection of nuts could
be seen. and at most beggars. often nice
looking women and beautiful children, invad-
ed the cars. Between the stations, although
| travelled always by daylight, as the trains
do not run at night, and was observing as
possible, l saw no signs of the reconcentra-
dos going away from the forts. If they had
gone, it takes seed, instruments land. and
three or four months to raise the vegetable
which could be soonest produced, and no
where, from the blockhouses was there any
sign of vegetables growing. Near the larger
towns the circle of concentrates seemed to
be somewhat larger and some planting OF
vegetables, tobacco, etc, seemed 70 be going
on. At this a very few persons, possibly
some of them reconcentrados, found en-
ployment.
IAN along the railroad, as far as could be
seen, were stretches of the most fertile and
beautiful country, with very few trees, even
on the low mountains, and most of these
royal palms. l saw many dozens of burned
cane fields, and one evening, going from
Guines to Havana saw the sky lighted up
all along the road with fires, principally of
tall grass of the country, but partly of
cane. The whole land was lying idle, except
that l saw two or three or four sugar mills
where cane was growing, but in all such in
by the forts, manned by soldiers, who are
paid, as l was told. by the owners.
NO RELIEF AFFORDED.
Except in the cities. L saw no indication
that any relief whatever was being afforded
to the starving people. Never in Havana
nor elsewhere did any priest. religious wom-
en- or other person seems to be paying any
attention to the wants of starving, except
at the Posses and some other places charit-
able Cubans were nursing the sick. The
church. being a state institution, was, so
far as | could see, leaving the victims with
out either bodily or spiritual relief. In fact,
the general air of indifference to suffering
which seemed to prevail is astonishing
AS the country was stripped of its popu-
lation. by the order of concentration, il is
easy to believe that 100000 persons were
gathered behind the forts without being
given food, medicine or means of any kind
to earn a living except where in the larger
cities some few could find employment in
III 0AAA&NRs ~ AAG Va DAI0 l0 4
was showna at the JacOba, Aldecoa and else
where, and from all / saw and heard. l be-
lieve that half of the four hundred thousand
have died as the result of starvation. l know
from the official register of the city of Santa
Clara, which ordinarily has a population of
about 14.000, that the number OF deaths tor
November were over a thousand, and the
number OF deaths for December was 800,
and shows an increase considering the loss
of the former thousand from it's total popu-
lation. The exact figures for December are
917. At that city the government was dis
tributing 500 single rations per day out of a
total appropriation for the purchase of
SIS 900. This was not relief, but a mere pro-
longation of suherings of a small part Of the
reconcentradoes of that city.
so far as any evidence Of relief was
visible TO my eyes there was even heard of
by me in all my talks on the island, the
surviving two hundred thousand people are
in the same condition and have the same
prospec of starvation before them as has
been their kindred who have died. There is
as much need of medicine now as of food.
and they are getting neither.
THE reason given by the Spanish sympa-
thizerS in Cuba is that the troops must first
be fed, and it is certain that many OF the
soldiers are sick and suffering for want of
looked so. | was informed on all sides that
they had not been paid for about eight
months, and that most of the civil officials
had not been paid for a similar period. II is.
tically unable TO supply the millions which
are Immediately necessary to prevent the
death of most of the surviving concentra-
dos, but this leads to political questions.
which desire to avoid.
Il wish merely to state in such q way as
TO be convincing that, in an accordance
with the concentration of the people, some
100000 Cubans are daily suffering and dying
from diseases produced by lack of nourish-
ment, in the midst of what / think TO be the
most fertile country in the world. and that