The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1898-08-11
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OUR OWN RECoNCENTRADos.
What WeyIer Has Done for Cuba
Rum Is Doing for This
Country.

1t requires strong nerves even to read
of the sufferings of those wretched
neighbors of ours, whom the United
States government and people have
been so practically and thoroughly pity
ing. And yet, such misery is not with
out precedent, even within our own
borders. Who are those victimized re-
concentrates of whom we have heard
so much during the last few months I?
Men, women and children who have
been condemned by person in author
ity to give up their means of support,
and quietly await death by starvation.
Did the law allow this wholesale slaugh-
ter? Weyler would remind us in reply
that in time of war the laws are silent
How is it among ourselves in time of
peace? The Spanish monsters victims,
those who have died from disease and
starvation in his pens here and there,
number, according to a rough esti-
mate, some 100000. Horrors of war. we
say-that is, war as Weyler makes it.
Now for the horrors of peace in Eng
land and the United States-horrors
of that season when the laws speak,
and speak plainly! Last years census
of drunkards in England and Wales
was $4,000. This means at least 300.
600 reconcentrados, women and chill
dren left without support, and there
by condemned to misery and starva-
ton. This was the work, not of one
Nov hIt Of Il
licensed by the government to do their
worst. In our own land of liberty the
Neylers have the same license, and as
Spain has appropriated 100000 to feed
and clothe the wretches of his maxi
ing, so the United States government
appropriates year after year many
times this sum for keeping alive the
victims of her own Weylers, her 24O. 900
whisky sellers, and those who supply
them with the means of devastating
their country. Jails, hospitals, poor
houses, orphan asylums would no doubt
exist if spirituous liquors were I'M
known in the land, but their crowded
condition is the work of the liquor traf-
fic.
We should love our neighbors as our
selves, but why should we love them
better than ourselves? In the whole
country, from Canada to the Gulf of
Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pa
chic, 1t would be hard to find a news
paper that has not denounced the Span
ish butcher with all the force that lies
in printers ink. How many of them
have, in the meantime, called attention
10 the condition of our drunkards' fam
lilies (not so interesting a title as re-
concentrados) and those who have
brought them to it?
When Weyler was turned loose upon
insurgent Cuba, it was supposed that
his martial misrule would last only
few months; that the island would
soon be brought to acknowledge the
authority of the step-mother country,
and the result would be peace and
such degree of prosperity as Spain
permits in her colonies. Our VIEWERS
have, so far, been permanencies. When
one falls at his post, another takes his
place, and, when the time comes, re-
news his license to ruin and destroy.
The law which humanity, prudence
and common sense are endeavoring to
license says in effect, Take and kill"
Where the Spanish commander has
broken up one home the whisky seller
has broken up hundred, and the law
of self-styled civilized and enlightened
country says: CAS- long as you can
pay for the privilege, go on with your
work"
As long as you can pay for the priv
ilege. No danger of a recall in this
case. The license to sell is safe as long
as the drinking man can borrow or
beg the price of a drink That he is
not responsible person, after a GER
tain period of indulgence in intoxicants,
is well known to the physician; but
the law takes no account of this. When
its victim reaches the last stage of deg
radiation, and his family is ready to
swell the ever-increasing herd of re-
concentrates, it sends him via char
ity hospital to the potter's field, his
wife and children to the poorhouse and
-renews Weyler's license.-Clara Mar
shall, in Union Signal.