The San Francisco call., 1898-04-12
F MESSAGE THAT MEANS WAR
Y E E IiFE. I

WASHINGTON, April 1.-The Presi- dent to-day sent the following message to Congress:
 To the Ss0ate and the House of Repre-
 sentdtires or the U,tjted S!ates:
 Obedient to that precept of the consti- tuition which commands the Presluent to give from time to time, the congress In, formation of the state Of the union ana to recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and eXpedIent, it becomes my duty now 10 address your body with regard to the grave condition that has arisen in the re- lation of the United States to spain by reason of the warfare that for more than three years has ragged ln the nelghporlng | do so because of the intimate con- nection of the Cuban question with the stateof our own Union and the grave rela- ton the course which it is now incum. bent upon the nation to adopt must needs bear to the traditional policy of our Government if II Is to accord with the precepts laid down by the founders of the republic and religiously observed by succeeding administrations to the present day.
 The present revolution is but the sue Cessor of other similar instructions which have occurred in Cuba against the dominion of Spain, extending over a pe- riod of nearly half a century, much of which. during its progress, has subjected the United States to great effort and ex- pense In enforcing its neutrality laws caused enormous losses to American trade and commerce, caused irri- taton, annoyance and disturbance among our citizens and by the exercise of cruel, barbarous and un- civilized practices of warfare, shocked the seCsibilities and offended the humane sympathles of our people.
 Since the present revolution began in February, 1895, this country has seen the fertile domain at our threshold ravaged by ire and sword in the course of a struggle uneQualed in the history of the island and rarely paralleled as to the number of the cOmbatants and the bit terness of the contest by any revolution of modern times where a dependent peo- pie, striving to be free, have been op- posed by the power of the sovereign state.
 Our people have beheld a once prosperous community reduced to comparative want, its commerce vir- tually paralyzed, its exceptional pro- ductiveness diminished, its fields laid waste, its mills in ruins and its peo- pie perishing by tens of thousands from hunger and destitution.
 We have found ourselves constrained in the observance of that strict neutrality
 which our laws c:L ,r: enjoin and which Opduleu MISIu6 dS d the law of nations
 commands, to po-
 Thorn Tn lice our own wa
 ters and watch our
 America Side. owns. own seapopts faD in
 unlawful aid of the Cubans. Our trade has suffered; the cap- ital invested by our citizens in Cuba has been largely lost, and the temper and fOrbearanCe of our people have been so sOrely tried as to beget a perilous unrest among our own citizens, which inevitably found it's expression from time to time in the national legislature, so that issues wholly external to our own body polite engross attention and stand in the way uf that close devotion to domestic ad- VanCement that becomes a self-cOntented commonwealth whose primal maxim has been avoidance of all foreign entangle- ments.
 All this must needs awaken and has in deed aroused the utmost concern on the part of this Government as well during my predecessors S term as my own.
 In April. 1896, the evils from which our country suffered through the Cuban war became so onerous that my predecessor made an effort to bring about peace through the mediation of this Govern ment in any way that might tend to an honorable adjustment of the contest be- tween Spain and her revolting colony, on the basis of some effective scheme of self government for Cuba, under the flag and sovereignty of spain. It failed through the refusal of the Spanish Government then in power to consider any form of mediation or indeed any plan of settle ment which did not begin with the actual submission or the insurgents to the mother country, and then only on such terms as Spain herself might see fit to grant. The war continued unabated. The resistance of the insurgents was in no wise dimin- ished.
 The efforts of Spain were increased, both by the dispatch of fresh levies to Cuba and by the addition to the horrors of the strife.
 iTNh a n happily unprecedented in the mod ern history of civilized Christian peo- pie, the policy of devastation and concentration, inaugurated by the captain-generaIs order of October 21, 1896, in the province of Pinar del Rio, was thence extended to embrace all of the island to which the power of the Spanish arms was able to reach by occupation or by military operations.
 The peasantry, including all dwelling in the open agricultural interior. were driven into the garrison towns or into isolated places held by the troops. The raising and movement of provisions of all kinds were interdcted. The fields were laid waste, dwellings unroofed and fired, mills destroyed and, in short everything Iual COulQ NeSOIale the IanQ ana render II unfit for human habitauon or support was commanded
 Pi ei'e Us co3tending DSe m The Awful Horrors of parties, and exc
 cuted by all the the Policy powers at their disposal. By the Of Concentration. admin st a on
 took office a year ago, reconcentration- so-called-had been made effective over the better part of the four central and western provnces-Santa Clara, Matan- gas, Havana and Pinar del Rio. The agricultural population, to the estimated number of 3OO0O0 or more, was herded within the towns and their immediate vicinity, deprived of the means of sup port rendered destitute of shelter. left poorly clad and exposed to the most un- satisfactory conditions.
 As the scarcity of food increased with the devastation of the depopulated areas of production, Restitution and want be- came misery and starvation. Month by month the death rate increased in alarm ing ratio. By March, 1897, according to conservative estimates from official Span ish sources, the mortality among the re- concentrates from starvation and the disease thereto incident. exceeded 50 per