The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-03-23
Senator Proctor on Cuba.

CuDA. EXtrhCts from Ills report vi ZIG
condition of affairs in the unhappy
island are printed on the third page of
this issue of the WATCHMAN. The
Senator's address has been the politi-
cal event of the week. Nothing spoken
in Congress on the subject of Cuban
affairs, or any other subject, for long
period, has received such general and
deeply interested attention as the state
ments of "the cool-headed Yankee from
Vermont" as the New York Sun aptly
calls Senator Proctor. The newspa-
pers have commented upon the awful
story the Senator has told in a vein
in which there is no trace of flippancy,
or cavil, or skepticism = recognition
that disclosure of the Spanish atroci-
ties perpetrated upon a neighboring
and unoffending people has been made
from which there is no appeal, that
compels instant and unhesitating be-
lief from the most incredulous, and de-
mands the immediate and resolute in
tervention of this government
There may be nothing new in what
Senator Proctor has saidIof Spanish
barbarities in Cuba-and the Senator
has not exhausted the distressing SUBJ
iect. The great service of Senator
Proctor in this matter is in stripping
the priests and Levites, in Congress
and elsewhere, of the last pretext or
excuse for restraining this government
from intervening for Cuban independ-
ence, the only effectual and permanent
relief that can now be carried to the
perishing neighbors.
On this point Senator Proctor's testi-
mony is of the highest significance.
Spain has practically no control over
the two eastern provinces, constituting
half of the island. These have been
in the possession of theiinsurgents and
have escaped the devastation that has
ruined the western provinces. OF the
latter, four in number, Spain has made
a wilderness. The entire rural popu-
lation has been removed, sherded I'M
der Weyler's infamous concentration
order in few of the coast cities, their
dwellings burned, and their lands grown
up to bushes and briers. Four hun
dred thousand Cuban peasantry were
made the victims of that brutal order,
and 200, 900 have persisted from disease
and starvation. 81 saw no house or
hut in the 400 miles of railroad rides"
-traversing these provinces from west
to east, from north to south. "There
are no domestic animals or crops on
the rich fields and pastures. In other
words, the Spaniards hold just what
their army sits on. This is neither
peace nor war-it is concentration and
desolation." In these provinces the
insurgents maintain military force,
having "all the time in Havana prov
ince itself four small brigades, operat-
ing in small bands" And this, says
the Senator, with grim irony, sis the
'pacified' condition of the four western
provinces" Spain has left, out of the
100000 soldiers Canovas sent to Cuba,
10000 to carry on the work of "desola-
ton and distress, misery and. starva-
tion." The climate has destroyed the
rest, some have been sent home sick or
are in the hospitals, "and some have
been killed, Notwithstanding the Of
fetal reports" The patriot army num-
bers some 10000, we'll !armed but de-
Acient in ammunition. So much for
the military situation after three years
of graphing withlthe rebellion. Great
stress was laid, at the time, on the al
legged repeal, by Gen. Blanco, of the
Weyler order of concentration, out Of
Difference to the representations of
this government. Senator Proctor
shows that the order was only slightly
modified, and that the change made by
Blanco was "of little or no practical
benefit" He "saw no benefcent re-
suits from it, worth mentioning"
"None now under military control will
be allowed to 60 from under it," They
must remain and rot in their prison
pens, or, if they seek their freedom,
perish by the more mersiful rifles of
Spanish guards. Spain has utterly lost
control of Cuba, and forever.
The testimony of Senator Proctor on
another point is reassuring, in the now
inevitable issue Of the struggle--Cuban
independence. The common answer to
J the suggestion of independence for
Cuba has been, "No more black repub.
, lics," and Hayti and San Domingo
, have been exploited as "terrible ex'
amples" Of this sort of republicanism
, Discredit has also been thrown upon
/ Cuban aspirations for freedom by the
, industrious use of the time-worn slul
on the Spanish-American communities
of Central and South America. Indi
| uiduale who toka counaal IF thar in