The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1898-01-12

OF CUBA
As Detailed by a United States Govern
ment Official.
THOUSANDS STARVING TO DEATH
Hon. Charles W. Russell, Assistant At.
torney in the Department Of Jus
tice, Declares That 90, 600 Have
Already Starved Need
For Relief.

Washington, Jan. 12.-Hon Charles
w. Russell assistant United States
attorney i'm the department Of justice,
returned yesterday from Cuba, where
he has spent two weeks investigating
the conditions prevailing on the island.
To a reporter 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, juding others 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 Ameri-
can reading public regards the reports
as biased by the preCOnCeiVed opinions
of newspapers, or grossly exaggerated
Il spent just two weeks in Cuba, Wis
tied Havana, went south to Jaruco
southeast to Guines, northeast to Ma
tanzas, eastwardly about 200 miles
through the middle of the country to
San Domingo, Santa Clara and Sagua
Ia Grande. / visited Marianao, a short
distance west of Havana, and saw
along the railroads so or 40 towns or
stations. In Havana 1 visited the Fos-
SOS, the hospital prison Aldecoa, where
I talked with the father Of Evangelina
Cisneros, and a place called the Jacoba.
I found reconcentrados at all these
places, and begging everywhere about
the streets of Havana.
THE spectacle, at the FossOs and
Jacoba houses, Of women and children
emaciated to skeletons, suffering from
diseases produced by starvation, was
sickening. In Sagua 1 saw some sick
and emaciated little girls in a chill
drens hospital started three days be
fore by charitable Cubans, and saw a
crowd of miserable looking reconcen-
trados with tin buckets and other re-
ceptacles getting small allowances of
food doled out to them in a yard. In
the same city, in an old sugar ware
house, 1 saw stationed around the in
side walls the remnants of 20 or 30 Gu
ban families. In one case the remnant
consisted of two little children of seven
or eight. In another case there We're
four individuals-a mother a girl of A.
and two quite small girls. These four
were all that the order of concentration
had left alive out of II.
AT San Domingo, where two rail-
roads join the depot was crowded with
women and children, one Of the latter,
swollen up with the berl beri begging
in the most earnest way of the few
passengers. San Domingo is little more
than a railroad station in times of
peace, but at present it has consider
able population living in cabins, thaCh-
ed with the tops Of royal palm trees
composed of survivors of the recon
centradOes. The concentration order
requires these people to live within a
circle of small blockhouses, commonly
dignifed in the dispatches by the name
of forts. ! 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. Practically they
are prisoners. AT every one of the
numerous stopping places along the
road similar collection of huts could
be seen, and at most of them beggars,
often nice looking women and beautiful
children, invaded the cars.
''All along the railroad as far as could
be seen We're stretches of the most fer
tile and beautiful country, with very
few trees, even on the low mountains,
and most of these the royal palms. l
saw many dozens of burning cane
| fields, and one evening, going from
Guines to Havana, saw the sky lighted
up along that road with fires principally
of the tall grass of the country, but
! partly of cane, The whole land was
lying perfectly idle, except that I saw
two or three or four sugar mills where
cane was growing, but i'm all such in
stances the mill and cane were sur
rounded by forts, manned by soldiers
who are paid by the owners.
Except in the cities l saw no indi-
cation that any relief whatever was
being afforded to the starving people
Neither in Havana nor elsewhere did
any priest, religious woman or other
person seem to pay any attention to the
wants of the starving, except at the
Fossos and some other places charitable
Cubans We're nursing the sick The
church, being a state institution, was
so far as / could see, leaving the vic
| tins without either bodily or spiritual
| relief, In fact, the general Indifference
to suffering which seemed to prevail
| everywhere is astonishing.
"As the country was stripped Of its
population by the order of coucen-
| tration, it is easy TO believe that 400 .OOC
/ ptlSbllS were HulutLtu htnlIlQ ile lOrlS
| without being given food, medicine d
means of any kind to earn a living, ex-
cept where in the larger cities some
| few could find employment in meniaI
! offices. ] believe that half of the 400 900
| have died as the result of starvation
l know from the official register Of the
| city of Santa Clara, which ordinarily
| has population o. about "A 600, tina
! the number of deaths for November
was over 1000, and for December over
9OO
Il wish merely to state i'm such a way
us to be convincing that in consequence
Of the concentration of the people some
| 100000 Cubans are daily suffering and
| dying from diseases produce by a lack
of nourishment in the midst of what ]
think the most fertile country in the
world, and that something must be
done for them on a large scale and al
once, or a few months viii see theii
determination. So far as / could see
they are a patient amiable, intelligent
set of people, some of them whom j
saw begging having faces like Ma,
donnas.
"What they need is instant pecuniarS
assistance TO the extent of $4,000 a