Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1898-05-14
HOW CORRESPONDENTS GOT MAT.
TER IN AND OUT OF HAVANA.
spAnIARDs EASY TO FOOL
DANGEROUS LETTERS HIDDEN IN A
BUNDLE OF sOILED SHIRTS.
Thirty Pounds Of Dynamite Imported
N Chocolate Creams-How . Cor
respondent and Spanish
Captain Captured Gu
ban Standard.

KEY WEST, May 1S.-With the seat of
war transferred for time from Cuba to the
Philippines and to Porto Rico. there is
many long wait for the dozens of special
correspondents who have no tugs at their
disposal and nothing to do but to await
the arrival of the mail steamers and scan
the horizon with glasses for war vessels
coming in with prizes.
Now that news no longer has to run the
gauntlet from Havana. albeit the censor Is
now an American naval officer at this end
of the line. some stories may be freely told
that were contraband Of print while the
actors were still In reach of Blanco's arm.
AS a matter of fact; there was very fair
amount of smuggling and blockade-break-
ing in news and other things while Ha-
vana was still accessible to the correspond
ents, and these tales, once told in whispers
are now coming out on the shady side OF
the hotel porch as "reminiscences OF the
e-blockade days.
The Havana custom authorities and other
agents were an easy lot at best. They sell
dom called q bluff that was made with a
good front, and the things that went on
under their noses almost daily would have
cost half the force their jobs had the facts
ever gotten to the palace. The writer land
ed in Havana some months ago with a
bundle of kilograms in his pocket that
ought to have put him in Cabanas. They
were addressed to another correspondent
who was too much under the ban to re-
ceive mail or kilograms in his own name at
Havana. To have carried the papers con-
cealed would have been confession OF con-
scious guilt In case of discovery; so the
bearer simply folded the messages and
stuffed them into the big state department
envelope that held his passports. The offi-
cials who received the passports all saw
the messages, but never questioned their
contents.
That Incident was mild. however. COM
pared with the exploit of another and more
radical correspondent who, being In full
sympathy with the Havana junta. under
took to convey them about thirty pounds
of dynamite at time when they needed
1t badly and when the lines on tilibustering
were drawn unusually close. He simply
packed this explosive In two big wooden
candy boxes with covers and put In layer
Of big chocolate creams over oiled paper
on top. The special agent at the gaEgway
Of the steamer knew him and when he
started down the ladder to the shore boat
said to him jokingly:
What's that you've got-dynamite?"
You guessed it," said the unabashed
scribe. pulling back the lid. Take some up
to Blanco.''
handful of the chocolates and the dynamite
went ashore.
Letters from the woods" as the insur-
gent lines are vaguely termed in Havana,
were almost as dangerous as dynamite,
but they were passed through the lines
quite as often. One of the several news
paper men who went into the field re-
turned during Weyler's regime with enough
letters to have hanged him, several being
official documents for the junta in New
York. There were three Spanish officials
on the train that brought him into Ha-
vana from Sagua la Grande. and he had
reason to think they had marked him and
were going to arrest him at the depot in
Havana. Just before the train stopped
he called his Cuban servant. and. taking
a bundle of the soiled shirts from his grip,
tossed them to him with the remark, Take
those up to Blanks" meaning laundry
with very pD-Spanish proprietor. The
man got off with the bundle, which had the
insurgents letters safe inside it, and when.
three minutes later, the correspondent and
his baggage were rigidly searched, there
was nothing found on him but a couple of
very. pro-Spanish letters written him by
some obliging Cuban friends for just such
an emergency.
Another of the correspondents who Is
close in touch with the Cubans and who
has done more for them than any other
newspaper man in Key West, tells with a
smile how he helped a Spanish captain to
capture Cuban standard. which exploit
made the captain major forthwith and
landed him on Weyler's staff at that
place. The standard was made to the or
der Of the Cuban junta in Havana, and
the correspondent and the captain took 1t
out with them one night with small de-
tachment of Spanish cavalry from Matan-
zaS.
Coming to a good dark place in the road
the two conspirators raised a war yell and
dashed ahead, emptying two Mausers and
four six-shooters into the bushes. The
cavalry escort punched itself in the middle
of the road and commenced shooting in a
general way at the scenery. That is al
ways a tactful move made by the Spanish
when they think they are attacked. After
many rounds of ammunition had been used,
the captain came dashing up with the Gu
ban standard on short section of .
broken staff The affair was chronicled as
Spanish victory and the promotion Of
the gallant captain followed In due course.
The intrinsic value of the standard was
about $3.50 in labor and material, and for
II the Cuban iunta received a pass to carry