The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-01-02
A WORD FOR THE cUBANs.

a WORD FOR THE CUBANS.
A dispatch justifying General Brooke's or
der excluding the Cuban insurgents from
if it were greatly to the discredit of the
Insurgents, that detectives have ascertained
that certain prominent Spaniards and
native Cubans have been marked for death
and their property for destruction, and it
would be national calamity if the con-
spirators were allowed to carry out their
plans" The execution of such plan, if it
existed. would indeed have been q most I'M
fortunate beginning of American rule in
Cuba, and General Brooke was justified in
doing all in his power to prevent it, but we
should not be too hard on the Cubans We
say if such plan existed for there is no
evidence of it beyond the statement of a
correspondent, and correspondents are not
infallble. But when it is remembered what
the Cubans have suffered and endured at
the hands of the Spaniards and how long,
one should not be surprised if they harbored
some plans of revenge. Not to speak of the
generations of oppression and misrule and
the atrocities Of previous wars, one has but
to recall the barbarities practiced during
the recent war to find ample justification for
Cuban vindictiveness towards the Span
iards. Modern warfare affords no parallel
to these barbarities. General Weylers re-
concentrate policy, which was simply a
scheme of wholesale starvation, was the
very refinement of cruelty. At one time no
less than 100000 noncombatants chiefly
women and children, were thus corraled
and subjected to slow starvation. Their
homes were destroyed and the country laid
waste Our officers in Cuba report that it
is impossible to give an adequate idea of
the utter restitution of the country and the
misery of the people 1t would be most sur
prising if the survivors of these cruelties,
many of whom have lost homes. wives and
children should not wish to get some re-
venge on the perpetrators of them and on
the resident Spaniards who aided and
allotted therein. The insurgents are not
model people by any means, but they would
be exceptionally forgiving if they had not
marked some of their prosecutors for death
and their property for destruction. OF
course, it was the duty of the American
authorities to prevent the inauguration of
this retaliatory policy. but little reflection
will show that if the insurgents contem-
plated it they were not exceptionally
vicious
If history furnishes no parallel for the
barbarity of the reconcentrado policy it does
for the bitter feeling of the insurgents
towards the Spaniards and Spanish sympa-
thizers. Our own countrymen and ances-
tors during and after the revolutionary war
were just about as bitter against the Tories
or loyalists of that day. While the war was
in progress they were, by the laws Of
various States exposed to severe penalties
confiscation of property, Imprisonment, BAN
ishment and finally. if they persisted, DEATH
Hundreds of them were driven out of the
country during the war, and at its conclu-
sion thousands of them were expatriated
and their property confscated. One his
torian estimates the number of loyalist
refugees in Canada at the close of the war
at s., 600. Before eVacuating New York the
British authorities gave protection to sew
eral thousands more. From all over the
seaboard of the continent" says a historian,
crowds and threw themselves in despair
upon the protection of the British COM
mander." In the Southern States they were
almost driven into the sea or on board of
British ships. which carried them to the
Bahamas and the West Indies Nothing but
armed protection saved them from violence,
and when they were driven out of the coun-
try their property was confiscated The
feeling of the Cuban insurgents towards the
Spaniards and Spanish sympathzers is no
more bitter than was that of the successful
American revolutionists towards the Tories,
and the Americans had not suffered a hun
dredth part of the wrongs the Cubans have
Matters of this kind should be looked at in
the light of reason and history The Gu
bans are human, and there has been moth
ing in Spanish rule to make them love
Standards