The times., 1899-07-03
To Rehabiiitate Cuba.

There is no evidence yet that the Cubans
are having their swords converted into
| ploughshares.
We have paid sundry hundreds of them
seventy-five dollars each for the guns with
which they were. in the code of diplomacy,
| supposed to have been armed during their
latest difficulty with the Spaniards. We
are not informed, even approximately, how
many OF them have been thus hired by the
United States Government to lay down
their arms. We believe that after an en-
| tirely unnecessary amount of negotiation
| and bother with Maxine Gomez, and other
persons who were presumed to be in a po-
sition to act authoratively for the Cubans,
our officials agreed to pay about thirteen
thousand Of these new wards of ours for
some purpose not clearly defined. The pri-
mary object of the barter appears to have
been to get the guns out of their hands.
The secondary object, We presume. was to
afford these thirteen thousand men the
means to transform their martial ardor in
to industrial energy. We do not know what
proportion of the disappointingly small
percentage of the thirteen thousand who
exchanged the implements of war for coin
of the realm has made the desired trans
formation. We judge. however. from re-
ports from the island, that few of them
who accepted our terms have gone to work
An American now in the island in connec-
tion with movement for industrial relief
writes that people who talk wisely about
| the reconstruction that has been accom-
plished, or is now in progress in Cuba,
! surely confine their observations TO a car
window He has journeyed over a large
area on foot in order TO thoroughly in
| vestigate the conditions, and he says that
| away from the railroads Cuba is one great
| stretch of desolation, amidst which the
only houses are the nests of birds in the
ruins of former homes of peace and pros
perity." Back from the few lines of poorly
equipped railroads nothing has been done
or is being done for the reconstruction of
Cuba. "one may walk for days and see
only ruins of sugar mills, the crumbling
walls of plantation houses. the idle fields
overrun with rank weeds and worthless
grasses, and roads long ago given over to
herds OF deer and other wild animals
This is distressing picture. 1t is not
so distressing, however, as most of the pic
lures of Cuba recently drawn. For exam
pie, nobody has heretofore included in the
picture herds of deer and other wild ami
mails" All OF the recent predecessors of
this one have represented the rural sections
of the island as utterly devoid of any form
Of animal life. II there are herds of deer
and other wild animals" roaming through
the country the people in the districts re-
| mote from the towns ought not to be
starving. little energy would procure
healthy condition.
The writer expresses the opinion that
the Cubans are most willing to work"
but that they can never reconstruct the
island until they have help of the right
| sort, and IF they do not get that help
they will become extinct as a race
The fact is. that no intelligent or sys-
tematic effort has yet been made by this
| Government TO physically reconstruct
Cuba. The island is under the rule of the
War Department, which has devoted its
great energies mainly to locating a phan-
tom Cuban army. In Santiago province,
| where things appear to be run a little in
dependent of the War Office considerable
percentage of the natives are reported to
have gone back 10 the farms and resumed
| work with such agricultural implements
as they possess. In the other provinces
the population is still congested in the
towns Except for the absence of physical
force and the fact that we are feeding
| them, the people in these provinces are as
| much reconcentrados today as they were
when weyler clotted them IN the centres
Of concentration. How long this condition
J will last depends entirely upon the turn