The age-herald., 1898-01-12
SPENT THREE WEEKS lNveS
The Most Cruel War Ever Waged by Civilized People Is in Substance What He Has to Say Regarding the Span
 ish Armyof Today.

Washington, Jan. 11.-Hon. Charles W. Russell United States attorney in the de- partment of justice returned today from Cuba where he has spent three weeks in- vestigating the conditions prevailing on the island To the Associated Press Mir. Rus sell said: q am very glad to be inter viewed on the subject of Cuba, because I feel it a solemn duty to humanity to en-. deavor to make the American people real ize the terrible distress which exists there. Much has been written on the subject, but judging others by myself, I 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 regard the reports as biased by the preconceived opinions of newspapers or greatly exagge- rated.
 Sick and Starving.
 'I spent just two weeks in Cuba. visited Havana, went south to Jaguaco, southeast to Guines, eastwardly about 200 miles through the midst of the country to San Domingo, Santa Clara and Sagua La Grande. I visited Mariana, a short dis tance west of Havana, and saw along the railroad thirty or forty towns or stations. In Havana I visited the Fossos, the hos pital prison Aldecon, where I talked with the father of Evangelina Cosseo Cisneros, at place called the Jacoba. found re- concentrados at all three places and beg ging everywhere about the streets of Ha- vana. The spectacle at the Fossos and Jacoba houses of women and children emaciated to skeletons and suffering from diseases produced by starvation was sick ening. In Sagua I saw some sick and emaciated little girls in a children's hos pital started three days before by char itable Cubans and I saw a crowd of mis- erable-loolSing concentradoes with. little buckets and other receptacles getting a small allowance of food doled out to them in yard In the same county in an old sugar warehouse I saw stationed around the walls the remains of twenty or thirty Cuban families. In one case the remnant consisted of two little children of or 8.
 ''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 of the few passengers. San Domingo is little more than railway station in times of peace, but at present it has a considerable population living in cabins thatched with royal palm trees. The huts are arranged close together in little clump, and the concentration order required and apparent ly still requires these people to live within circle of small block houses commonly dignified in the dispatches by the name of forts. Of course, they had no work to do, no soil to till, seed to plant, and only begging to live on.
 Dead Line Circle.
 'I don't know the exact measure of the deal-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 per mitted them to go a short distance further out, they had not gone and were not go- ing. Practically, they are prisoners. At every one of the numerous stopping places along the road a similar collection of huts "ould be seen, and almost all of them beg ars, often nice-looking women and beau iful children, invaded the cars Between i. he stations, although I travelled always by daylight, as the trains do not run at night, and was as observing as possible, saw no
  from the forts. If they had gone, it took seed, instruments, land and three .g four months to raise the vegetables which e,uld be soon produced, and nowhere from the block houses was there any sign of the vegetables growing. Near the larger towns the circle of concentration seemed to be somewhat larger, and some planting of vegetables, tobacco, etc., seemed to be go- ing on. At this very few persons, pos sibly some of them reconcentrados, found employment.
 Along the Railroad.
 'All along the railroad as far as could be seen were stretches of the most fertile and beautiful country, with very few trees. even on the low mountains, and most of these royal palms. I saw many dozens of burned cane fields and one evening, going from Guines to Havana, saw the sky light ed up all along the road with fires, princi- pally of the tall grass of the country, but partly of cane. The whole land was lying idle except that saw two, 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 soldiers, who are paid as I am told by the owners. Except in the cities I saw no indication that any relief whatever was being afforded to the starving people, New