The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-07-28
FIGHTING FOR HUMANITY.
Hard Experience of the Troops Be-
fore Santiago.

Hard Experience of the Troops Be
fore Santiago.
Correspondence of heAssociatedPress
Before Santiago de Cuba, July Is
The American soldiers encamped on the
hiIIsides that fall away from our en-
trenchments have been waiting day af-
ter day for the result of the combined
truces and conferences between Spain
and the United States to be made
known. They learned yesterday that
Santiago had capitulated. This news
was sent along the lines to right and
left from Gen. Wheeler's headquarters
by Col John Jacob Astor and with II
went instructions that our boys were
to make no demonstrations of JOY in
order that the feelings Of the Spaniards
in the trenches a few hundred yards
away would not be hurt by the echOing
of victorious cheers. There was how
ever some cheering among the crowded
tents, when our men learned that the
object of three weeks fighting, hunger
and hardship had been attained.
During the afternoon men climbed to
the trenches to look again at the city
they had taken but were not allowed to
enter and some were glad for peace
and others called for more fighting.
The strain of the watching and wait
ing was removed and soldiery resolved
itself into getting as comfortably liked
in the camp as the mud would permit.
At sunset yesterday as the reglmental
bands all along the line played national
airs, as is the camp custom, and as a
tired soldier boy hummed the words OF
THE Star Spangled Banner" to the
bands time, he chanted the victory ne
had not been permitted to cheer The
hardships of this campaign, let alone
the fighting that scattered the graves
of comrades side by side, with the tents
of the living, have been splendidly sus-
tanned by our men. Now that the heavy
rains of the first of this week nave
ceased, conditions are better but ram
n 7
hour may see knee deep rivers sweep
ing through camp and it may be next
to impossible to start fires to COOK 1000
Then food has been scarce; the roads
from here to SibOney have been almost
impossible during the rains and at all
times they have been rough and team
ing has been heavy. When men put up
with three pieces of hard tack and halt
a cup of coffee a day, the question OF
nutriment is serious and when unsea-
soned soldiers go y hours without sleep,
it can be truly said they endure hard
ship. But they have borne it all with
fine courage and good nature InaI Was
never long absent.
With the courage and determination
of our men, one notes the eXcelIenI
physical condition of our mules and
horses after three weeks of the heaviest
kind of incessant labor. All day long
and far into the night, pack trains ana
provision wagons toll up to the front
and the Red Cross ambulanceS br1nS
back the sick and wounded
Poor Cuban women, fOOtSOre, starving
and weary drag themselves along the
muddy roads from Caney in search lot
food and our men and ambulanceS PICK
them UP and succOr them. At Ell Caney
the food is insufficient. Weak women
and children get none and SIarNat4OH
there is growing rapidly.
A Cuban woman from FL Caney stag
eered into camp this morning she was
pale and pinched and the ragged SILK
dress that half covered her Douy, spohe
than did her features and her despair
and utter exhaustion. She did not ask
for food, but for work. She washed
clothes from the hospital tent for hair
q dav in return for food and sat down
TO the welcome army fare with handS
bleeding from the unaccustomeu IapoT-
At dusk she turned YEARLY back
toward FL Caney, six miles away the
richer by one meal.
The camps have up to this day been
pitched where bad conditions existed
and their locations have seldom peen
good from the point of comfort ana
health Now that the game" is over
our soldiers will be moved into lOcatlOLS
where these points are considered ne
country affords good sites and When
once the evacuation conditions are set
tied and the capitulation properly con-
formed to changes will be made.
An unsettled feeling pervades the line
and men gather together personal be
IOnesines and are looking over old bat
tlefelds for mementoes OF three Gays
fight and ten days OF weary WalIlIlS-
"A farmer boy from Michigan will Sc
cure the horn handled pocket knife OF
dead peasant from the Asturias as
souvenir to the American lad OF the
davs he fought to free Cuba.
And if the Michigan man ever grew
enthusiastic and generous back in
Michigan over the idea of fighting to
help the struggling Cubans gain the
same liberty from Spain that his fore
fathers won for him from England,
these same ideas have been pretty thor
oughIv knocked out of him by actual
contact with the Cubans. The Cuban
does not stand high in the opinion OF
the United States army. Expressed in
different ways the opinion prevails that
Eve will soon be back in Cuba to thrash
the Cubans.
our men have no praise fol-. their al
1eeed ally as a fighter. He is always
more ready to eat American provisions
than help American soldiers and IN
stances of Cuban greed, inhuman1ty
and cowardice are common talk among
the army These opinions of our men
are known among Cubans and will un-
doubtedly result in a growing antagon-
ism on the part of the men we are hght-
ing for, an antagonism that will result
in their being in the future less reliable
and less worthy of trust by the United