The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-11-16
COLOR LINZ N GUbA
Is Not Drawn in the Least Py
CubanS Themselves.
BUT TROUBLE Is DUE
When White Foreigners Take
Control There.
BUT TROUBLE is DUE

Havana. Nov. Blooming with impress
SONS Of the battle OF virden fresh in
mind. one takes an early opportunity &c
| inquire whether Cubans viii mix ii up
| with the negroes as we do in the states.
! Out Of a population of million and half
! 800 900 blacks. This last census. however.
was not true; It is d matter of common
| knowledge that Spain pcrposely fe4sifed.
! il. so that the numerical strength Of the
negroes were. as the Observation-Disclosures
negroes should not discourage intending
emigrants from Europe. At present. even
after recommendation, and the fact that
the negroes WERE as the saying is, the
chief meat for the cannon" in the three
years Of war, it is estimated that they
constitute about 20 per cent, of the in
habitants of Cuba In many parts Of the
island, under free ballot, they would be
in overwhelming control.
One soon discovers that this does not
worry the Cubans. 1t is the Spaniard
and the Germans and the Americans who
apprehend dstastful results from an IN
restricted franchise Between Cubans
there is almost no color line An ex-
/ treme and sharp talking Massachusetts
woman whom L know contends. indeed,
that there are no CubaLs except CT pred
Cubans. They are ALL she declares
what do you call it?-touched with a tar
brush? Yes, they are ali touched with
the tarbrush. Where DO they get their
dark skins and their horrid uncleaniness?
Not al
lard is dark, he is dark like Frenchmen,
and there is no nulatto look about him"
The difference in appearance between the
usual Cuban native and the usual Span
ish soldier is certainly striking. There are
cafes where the Salnish gather and cafes
where the Cubans gather; and to go from
one to the other is to see two sets of per
sons most unlike. I have never seen
Cuban who would be mistaken for an
American OF Anglo-Saxon descent, but
If the Spanish officers were to wear Amer1-
can clothes they might walk in Common
wealth Avenue and not appear foreign.
They are evidently from northern Spain,
which was conqured and settled by the
Dark ones from the southern pSpvinces,
where the blood of the Arabs or Moors,
dS lUeS are LtIIIlSu AZ I4lneS-AllAA-
ing with that of the previous population,
produced the jet-eyed, black-haired Span
lard of fiction. Very few Of these are
commanders in the army now getting
ready 10 evacuate Cuba, but there are
enough of them to illustrate the remarks
of my friend from Massachusetts, and
to indicate that something besides Moor
ish antecedents has put dusk in the skin
and deep shadows in the eyes of the Gu
bans. Acknowledgements is made of this
by Cubans themselves, one of whom told
me that he knew fanatics of white Gu
bans in which a cousin or a nephew or an
aunt would be what is known as colored.
Sometimes this is due to atavism, and
sometimes it has a cause as direct and
immediate as that Of girl in that pow
erful delectable story OF Southern life by
Mr.. Howells. Color is no bar TO the finest
Cuban society, provided the person is
on one side descended from a house of
honorable connections. To the Spanierd
from Catalonia this as strange as TO Us;
for his skin is like ours and his beard
turns gray, and the top of his head grows
bald, and he feels himself different from
the heavy-crested creole.
II there should be race question in
Cuba after the evacuation 1t Will be
brought up by the Germans. Frenchmen,
and Americans who, Mr.. Woodford says,
viii be required in Cuba for the estab-
lishment Of order. Up TO now the race
question has been struggled with here
by the Spaniard. He regarded the revo-
luton as niger revolution" and it
must puzzle him a good deal, if he has
heard Of the battle of Virden. the con-
ficts in Mississippi, and the recent lynch
ing in North Carolina, Alabama, and Tex
sa, to understand why a nation with SUCH
antipathies should assist "nigger revo-
luticn' against him. He sees in Cuban
homes, in place of honor. the portrait of
Maceo. man of peculiar abilities but
black as any African, and he hears white
women make much Of him. Yet this Ma
Geo. ne is well informed. had no Othello
graces or reinements; ne IS convinced
that in habits and inclinations he was not
unlike the men who are being lynched in
Alabama. Texas and North Carolina, and
although Cubans assert that Maceo would
never enter the home of a white where
there VAS a woman. unless invited"
there is American testimony to the effect
that the Cuban hero was no respector
but rather a debaucher, of those who
come within his sphere OF influence
While people hold Maceo in a rever-
entail memory. and while the atavistIc
possibility 1 have mentioned governs the
the living Of some of the best families OF
Cuba. there is no need 10 eNpec; any trou-
bic from color line among the natives
But as soon as the Americans English
men. Frenchmen. ana the northern Span
iards begin 70 take a aand in ordering
the affairs Of tie island. that line VIII be
drawn Ike 5arbed-wire trccha-
An illustration % Cuban conditions I
witnessed the other day in Matanzas
Here the suffering and mortality among
the reconcentraG0S i something fr7rbtfsi.