The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-03-06
The Man Who Can.

In connection with the reported cur
tailment by orders from Havana of
the public improvements instituted by
General Leonard Wood in Santiago
province, cuba, and in view of the
seemingly well-founded belief that mil
itary jealousy has something to DO
with the obstacles which are being con-
tinually and needlessly thrown in
Woods way the public should read two
articles which have appeared almost
simultaneously in contemporary mag
aZines. one 0s these, by Henry Har-
rison Lewis, printed in McClure's, is
direct and detailed study of General
Woods work and methods made by a
gentleman who occupied four months
in gathering his materials and noting
his observations. The other, by George
Kennan, printed in last weeks Outlook,
is simply a comparison of the Santiago
of the present with the Santiago that
Mr.. Kcrnan saw when be entered with
the Red Cross forces last July. Mr..
Lewis raper is largely a character
study of Wood himself; Mr.. Remnants
an impersonal chronicle of results, but
both agree strikingly in their main
presentations of fact.
They concur in the testimony that
perhaps never before in the history Of
the world has so rapid a change been
wrought for the better by men who en-
tered upon the work of regeneration
as strangers to the native inhabitants,
as aliens in race and speech and with
out previous experience in a similar
capacity. When General Wood as
sumed control bodies of the dead law
in the streets and vultures lowered
over or fed on the carcasses. Woods
first dinner cost $14 in gold and con-
sisted chiefly of horse meat. "Gaunt
men and women" writes Mr.. Lewis,
stretched lean arms from the windows
and begged weakly for bread Some
died as they asked, and they remained
where they fell" Eishty-one dead
bodies had TO be burned in one big.
funeral pyre during the first days
street cleaning. Not in 400 years had a
finger been lifted in way Of street clean
| ing, house cleaning or scientific refuse
| disposal, This was the Santiago of
last summer. Let us now, through Mr..
Kennan's eyes, look at the Santiago Of
! today:
"The streets through which I passed
/ were the same that l had trayersed-
| as it seemed TO me--only a day or two
| before, but they had suddenly become
| neat ana clean. There We're no enact
| ated pariah dogs nosing about heaps
of rotting garbage beside the curb
| stones; no streams of dirty, foul-smen-
! ing water trickling out of house-d drains
| and running down the hlth-clogeed gut
! tors; no little piles of human eXcre-
ment on the sidewalks, and no stenchss
/ Of decomposition even In the narroWest
and least frcquented alleys. The
| Christina boulevard along the water
front was as free from dirt and litter
as any street In New York; the great
central market on Marina street which
/ remembered as a foul, sickening pest,
hole, had become as fresh and neat a
place as Center Market in Washing,
ton; the Gale de la Marina had heer
newly paved from the bay to the plaza
and gang Of men was at work repay,
inG Enramadas; a fine new boulevard
with hard macadamized surface en-,
circled the city on it's eastern side
with excellent branch roads leading tC
Caney and San Juan Hill; and there
was a new road in process of construc.
tion to MORO Castle.
But it was not in the streets, roads
and markets alone that American In