Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1899-08-02
RED CROSS HAS A BIG TASK ON HAND
IN CUBA.
$4,000 DESTITUTE ORPHANS
CHILDREN OF RECONCENTRADos
WHO STARVED TO DEATH.
Red Cross Is Establishing Small Asy-
lums In Every Town and Inter-
estinE Club Women in Car.
ing for the Home
less Waits.

NEW YORK, Aug. IAN article by Miss
Clara Barton on the subject of the Cuban
reconcentrados will be contained in the
next number of the Independent. Miss Bar
ton says that there are now in Cuba $1,000
destitute orphan children of reconcen-
trados who have in the last few years died
OF starvation and want. These children are
scattered throughout nearly every city and
town of sufficient size and Importance to
receive the driven out country people
They are not children of low or doubtful
origin; many are of the best Cuban FAM
lilies. The reconcentrados were largely the
country people of property, farmers and
small planters. Miss Barton says:
THE Cubans are not responsible for the
destitution of these children. When the
starving reconcentrados We're driven into
the towns, the residents divided food and
clothing with them, and then divided again
and again, but there was a point at which
they had to stop giving.
"Only fer the Cuban rations distributed
by our army, it would be sorry lookout
for those helpless little ones They range
in number from thirty to seventy-fjve and
even 100 in the various towns, utterly home
less, and no one has the least personal in
terest in them or responsibility for them.
The townspeople still do what they can,
the passengers of every passing train.
"To one who knows only ordinary condi-
tions of poverty and destitution, the aspect
of these children, as found, is often terri
flying. 1t was a subject for both humane
and medical study, and together the Red
Cross surgeons and trained nurses thought
out system, which, simply followed out
as now being pursued, would, we believe,
in less than six months, transform these
| thousands of hapless renegades into clean,
wholesome, we'll ordered children, learning
to work, to read and to forget the dreadful
lives of pain, want and woe they went
through.
THE system is this: Finding it impos-
sible to take the time to attempt to follow
the customary methods of making up large
asylums in the great cities, as the condi-
tions of these children meant life and
death to themselves and to others, it was
decided to gather them up just where they
are, making smaller asylums of the plain
est and simplest kind, interesting the au-
thorities and the people of the city at
all times in the movement securing their
full cooperation, providing for all wants
and making it possible for the people of
the towns to look after them as their own,
with our continued care and oversight.
The women regard the asylums as some
thing quite their own. In nearly every
large town a young ladies' club is formed.
from which two go each day to assist and
to teach the children. This practice COM
-menced with the Young Ladies' Club, OF
Catalina, which body of twenty had held
itself intact through all the terrible years
of the war. These young ladies volun-
teered at once to help care for the chill
dren, proffering their continuous daily
service in the asylum"