Arizona republican., 1898-02-24

still empty. They need food, clothing, medicines I believe it is nearly two months since the president issued his appeal. The country people heard of the appeal in vague way. Of the re- lief they have not heard.
 I have made inquiries along the route for a distance of 200 miles east of Havana. It is the same story everywhere. No American relief this side of Matanzas and very little re- lief of any kind. Travelling, however, is less narrowing to the traveller. In half dozen trips, have not made one in which the begging was so little ob- trusive as now. To person making the journey for the first time, it might seem a terrible exhibition of the con- dition to which the country has been reduced. Not so to one who has been over the ground previously. have seen the concentration camps as pop ulous as a crowded city. It has been my experience to see these people drawn up in double file along the rail road tracks, old men, women with puny children at their breasts, half clad girls, young boys, stretching forth hony hands and struggling like starv- 
 be tossed them by the compassionate stranger. That sight is no longer wit messed. While the scenes of individ- ual suffering are such that a traveller would gladly close his eyes to them. the beggars no longer surround the trains and besiege the travellers in a mass. The grave has claimed so many that a mass meeting of recon centradoes at any one point would not be possible. Hundreds of the bohios, or palm huts, in which they were huddled are now tenantless.
 It was with an undefined hope that the conditions were improved, that I made hasty visit to some of the huts A momentary glance in the interiors was enough. It did not need the be- seeching words of the inmates to call forth sympathy. Many of them, the children especially, are dying of hun ger, just as others have died for the last eighteen months. They live on what can be begged Where rations are had at all, they are insufficient. poorly adapted to the needs of the suf- fering and issued in a fitful way. But the demoralization of Spanish author ity is so great that relief from them has long since ceased to be expected Begging remains the chief means of the reconcentradoes procuring food. and in the smaller places there is no one from whom they can beg. It is like seeking sustenance from a dead tree.
 What remains of the country people are still kept in the concen- tration camps and in the villages. The military authorities continue to nuIlify the effort to put them back in their homes in the country. The inquirer will look in vain for a single sign that they have been returned to their homes. The eyes, wearied by evidences of desola- ton, are not able to feast themselves on the indications of a fresh rural life springing from the ruins of agricul- tural industry. In a continuous ride of 100 miles I counted scores and scores of the thatchless rafters of the bohios, but not one instance in which the huts had been rethatched and repeopled Out of dozen sugar mills which have net been destroyed three were grind ing. On these plantations work has been found for some of the reconcen- tradoes; but for the mass of the coun- try people nothing has been done.
 ASAN eaS AOhCo OI CuIIltdtiOu nave been nominally extended the exten- sion has amounted to a few hundred yards. The inquiries everywhere met with that answer. There was not enough cultivation to yield the means of life to the people of the neighbor- hood and sustenance was not being re- ceived from outside
 l am writing hastily in order to catch the Havana mail, and in this let ter can only sum up the conditions. We got hint in Havana that the United States, having undertaken what Spain is unable to do-to stary- ing people of Cuba-intended to do it on scale aportionate to the task. There was the further hint that this succor was the prelude to events which would remove the cause of starvation in Cuba. I do not know whether this IS true or not. The starvation will not stop as long as people remain to be starved until the cause is removed. But an extensive plan of temporary relief might bridge over a short peri cd and save the lives of some thou sands of the population. The point l am trying to make clear is that so far as the country people, for whom