Devils Lake inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1905, 1898-04-15
DIR.
The Half Was Never Told Of cuba,,
FriRhtful Coalition,

DIR. Eugene May, Of Washington, has.
recently returned from Cuba, where
he was an eye witness to many Of the;
atrocities perpetrated by the Spanish
authorities. Dr.. Mays story derives
additional interest from the fact that
he was orseveral years superintendent
Of the Devils Lake Chautauqua and is.
personally known to many of the:
people Of this city. On his return he.
was interviewed by the Chicago Inter-
Ocean, as follows:
Il will tell the Inter Ocean exactly;
what I told the President of the United.
States said DR.. May. Briefly sum,
med up, my wi experience shows me-
that Consul General Lee was right in
asking for time to get the Americans
out OF Havana. Their lives are in.
positive danger. The pretended cleo
lions, by which autonomy "a alleged
to have been adopted, we're a hollow
sham. The Spanish army in Cuba is
an undisciplined, unorganized rabble;
and the Chicago police force, properly
armed, could march through the island,
from end to end, and capture all but
the few large cities without much
effort. The abrogation of the Weyler
reconcentrado order is a sham and q
shameful falsehood. 1t was only in
tended to deceive the government Of
this country. It is not, never was, and
never WAS intended to be, operative;
and, finally, the present condition of.
the Cuban people is terrible beyond
the power Of the imagination to con-.
ceive. 1t is more awful, more heart
rending than any newspaper CORES
pendent has been able to convey
through the press; the conduct Of
Spain toward those people has been
more cruel, more dastardly, and more
atrocious than anything ever recorded
in the history of either civilized or
savage warfare.
ITO put the last first, for it seems of
more Importance than anything else at
the present moment, l will tell you all
that a be honorably told about the
conference at the White House last
Tuesday. President Mckinley re-
quested that none of us should detail
that interview to the newspapers, but
1 can say, without betraying confidence,
that he asked me whether l believed
that the lives of American citizens in
Havana were in danger. 1 replied that,
when l left, the hatred of the Spanish
for u people was so intense and so
threatening that I believed it needed
very little more to inflame the 10000
or 10000 Weyler volunteers to deeds Of
brutal violence, if not to massacre.
While l was there an American citizen
could not walk the streets at night
without being Kissed every time he
passed a cafe. l myself was hustled
off the narrow sidewalks into the
streets by volunteers over and over
again. Vicious-looking fellows in the
blue drilling uniforms of the volunteers
several times went through the panto-
mime of drawing adagger and stabbing
at me. Volunteers and civilians alike
curse in Spanish, and spit in front of
any American who passes, and again
when he has gone by, as an action ex-
pressive of insult and contempt. These
things illustrate the spirit of hatred
which animates the entire Spanish
population. Should an American
attempt to resent these insults he
would be promptly murdered-and his
death would be explained as the result
of a street brawl, in which the victim
was the aggressor.
"As one outside of politics, with no
constituents to fear or favor, and with
no party advantage to conserve or
party losses of popularity to guard
against, that interview convinced me
that MI. Mckinley is master of the
situation, aud that the country will
acknowledge it in due time.
"Now, rs to the elections. Armed
with my passport and a letter of intro
duction to Consul Alex G.. Brice, /
started for Matanzas the day of the
election. When l arrived at Colon,
where two trains cross, l purposely
took the wrong train for the deliberate
purpose of seeing how the voting was
conducted in a typical country town
that of C%ervantes, with 5000 population.
After swearing at me for a sneaking
American spy, the conductor put me
off the train at Cervantes, where I
would have to wait thirty hours for the
next train back to the junction.
"The polling places were arranged
similarly to u own. Each was man
ned by four Spanish officials, and sur
rounded by Spanish soldiers. There
were 600 lawful voters in the town,
according to the official list, yet not a
single vote "a deposited in favor of
autonomy. A few wretched, half
starved people were literally driven to
the polls by the soldiery, in an attempt
to compel them to vote, and some went
of their own accord, impelled by policy,
but, as l afterward discovered, every
n of these Cubans was loyal to his
convictions, and deposited a blank