The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-01-18
0F'THE CUBAN war
STARVATION THE EFFECTIVE
WEAPON USED BY SPAIN


Hon. Charles Russell, Of the Department
of Justice Makes q Tour of Investigation.
He Tells What He Saw-Those Who Have
Not Seen Cannot Realizs tho Situation.
HIS Sees Thousands of Starving Women
and Children, With Nothing Being Done
to Relieve Them
Washington, January u.-Hon. Charles
Russell, assistant United States attorney
in the department OF justice, returned to-
day from Cuba, where he has spent two
weeks Investigating the conditions pre-
vailing on the island. To the Associated
Press Mr.. Russell said:
Il am very glad to be interviewed on
the subject of Cuba, because l feel it a
solemn duty to humanity to endeavor to
make the American people realize the
terrible distress which exists there. Much
has been written on the subject, but,
Judging other by myself, 1 feel quite
sure that because we do not commit and
have not in our history committed such
atrocities as Spain is committing on that
island, the American reading public re-
CARDS the reports as biased by the pre-
conceived opinions Of newspapers or
grossly exaggerated.
Il spent just two weeks in Cuba. visit
ed Havana, went south to Jaruco, south
east to Guines, northeast to MatanZaS,
eastwardly about 200 miles through the
middle of the country to San Domingo,
Santa Clara and Sagua la Grande. 1 Wis
tied Marianao, a short distance west of
Havana, and saw along the railroads thir-
ty to forty towns or stations. IN Havana
l visited the Fossos. the hospital prison
Aldecoa, where I talked with the father
Of Evangeline Cosio Y Cisneros, and a
place called the Jacoba. l found recon-
cling everywhere about the streets Of
Havana. The spectacle at the Fossos
and Jacoba houses, of women and chill
dren emaciated to skeletons and suffer-
ing from diseases produced by starvation,
was sickening.
I'm Sagua 1 saw some sick and enact
aled little girls in a chlldrens' hospital
started three days before by charitable
Cubans, and saw a crowd of miserable
looking TecOncentradoeS 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, I saw stationed around the
inside walls the remains of twenty or
thirty Cuba families. In one case the
| emnan consisted of two little children
of Z and 8 years. In another case where
1 talked to the people in broken Spanish,
there were four individuals, a mother, a
girl of IA years and two quite small girls.
The smallest was then suffering from
malarial fever. The next had the signs
on her hands, with which I had become
familiar. Of having had the beri-beri:
! These four were all that the order of
concentration had left alive of eleven.
"At San Domingo where two railroads
join, the depot was crOWded with women
and children, one of the latter, as ! re-
member, being swollen up with the beri-
beri, begging in the most earnest way
from the few passengers.
San Domingo is little more than q
railroad station in times of peace, but at
present it has a considerable population
living in cabins composed of the survi-
vors of the concentrates The huts
are arranged close together in a little
clump and the concentration order re-
quired and apparently still requires these
people to live within a circle of small
block houses, commonly dignihed in the
dispatches by the name of forts. OF
course, they had no work to do, no soil
to till, no seed to plant and only begging
to live on. L do not know the exact
measure of the dead line circle drawn
around them, but there was certainly
nothing Within it upon which a human
being could subsist, and also certainly,
if any order had newly permitted them
to go a short distance further out, they
had not gone and were not going. Prac-
tically they are prisoners.
AT every one of the numerous stop
ping places along the road, a similar col
lection of huts could be seen and ait
most of them beggars. often nice look
ing women and beautiful children, in
| vaded the cars. Between the stations,
although 1 travelled always by daylight,
as the trains do not run at night, and
was observing as carefully as possible,
I saw no signs of the reconcentradoes
going away from the forts. If they had
gone, it takes seed, instruments. land
and three or four months to raise the
vegetables which could be soonest pro-
duced, and nowhere away from the block
houses was there any sign of vegetables
growing. Near the larger towns the cir
| Gle of concentration seemed to be some
what larger and there some planting of
vegetables, tobacco, ETC., seemed to be
going on. AIT this, a very few PERSONS,
possibly some of them reconcentradoes,
found employment.
All along the railroad. far as could be
seen, were stretches OF the most fertile
and beautiful country with very few
trees, even or the low mountains and
most of these theorial palms. 1 saw
many dozens of burned cane fields. and
one evening, going from Guines to Hava-
ne. saw the sky lighted up all along the
read with fires, principally of the tall
grass of the country, but partly of cane.
The whole land was lying perfectly idle
except. where I saw three or four sugar
mills where cane was growing, but in all
such instances the mill and cane were
surrounded by the forts. manned by SOL
diers, who are paid, as l was told, by
the owners Except in the cities. 1 saw
no indication that any relief whatever
was being afforded to the starving peo-
pie. Neither in Havana nor elsewhere
Nfo any pAieSt' ieASiouS WoIiidIl OF olIeT
person seem to be paying any attention
to the wants of the starving. except that
at the Fossos. and some other places
charitable Cubans were nursing the
sick. The church, being a state institu-
ton, was, so far as / could see. leaving
the victims without either bodily or spir-
itual relief. In fact. the general air of
Indifference to suffering. which seemed to
prevail everywhere, was astonishing.
A the country was stripped of its
population by the order of concentra-
ton, it is easy to believe that 400. COO per-
| sons were gathered behind the forts.
without being given food, medicine or
means of any kind to earn a living, ex-
! cept where in the larger cities some few
could find employment in mental offices.
Judging by the orphans / was shown at
the Jacoba, Aldecoa and elsewhere and
from all / saw and heard. I believe that
/ half of the 400, 600 lhaye died as the re-