The Wichita daily eagle., 1901-06-29
The RoER REcoNcENrRAnoEs-

Americans are hearing from day to day some with
apparent stesshess Indifference that the reconcen
trado business has become settled institution South
Africa the very face and eyes OF the American people
the system which General Weyler adopted to crush the
poor Cuban farmers has been copied very extensive
scale by the British subscriptions have been
opened in London for the starving victims Of British bru
tality in South Africa
What has become Of the horror we Americans once
had this relic of Spanish barbasm? Once we raised
our voices in horror and declared that such barbarc pro
cedure justified armed Intervention the interests OF
humanity
That the British are doing exactly what Weyler did IS
beyond all question The British war secretary admitted
freely much the other day Questioned in the house Of
commons explained that 5000 Beers were penned p in
the recommendation camps Of South Africa, and that some
$4,000 Of them children The horrors of these worse
than pens have been more than described The
groans Of weeping starving. shivering I'll the
happy wives and mothers hudded together in
dingy tents upon the bare vedt The children torn from
their fathers cry bread that mostened with the tears
mothers death rate is said TO average 116
per 1000 and at Boemfonten for instance has sometimes
gone as high as 400 per 1OO0
The very method of recommendation savors Of bar
bary We said Of the Spanish that people capable Of
such practices merted the wrath humanity Why not
British then2 They stand accused Of these practices
ofhe mouth Of their subjects and their
retary up unbushingly in parliament admits
them. Where the laws Of war" and the common
powerful than British artillery?
The modus operandi Of the British barn-burner and
home destroyer Africa invites the emulation OF savages
His purpose to destroy all possibility Of existence in the
doomed home reconcentrado raid is almost an exact
parallel of Irish eviction except that the Irish tenant
is thrown into the road whereas the Ifated wives and
children ohe Boer after their cattle and effects have been
ootd and burned cooped up in pens and systematically
starved and exposed Else why the enormous death rate
that always pursues the reconcenado camp? In some
places owing to the protests against burning
from England the farm attachments are all
signed TO the flames, but the furniture is brought
pianos tables chairs wardrobes destroyed huge
bonfire The house IS then made uninhabtabe and the
pigs poultry and cattle taken Then on preext that
there is nothing for the people live they
carried away weeping, 20 prison camps. where death
awaits a multitude Of them.
This is highly colored story It IS attested by
British authority even officially denied And the
latures and asks What do propose to do about i"
ble degraded buhgbHng Spain that doing It, but the
mighty British Shall this stiae all our pro
tests and the awful suGerngs Of the Boer nnocen con
tinue?
But the end is not yet Forthe sake Of destroying
the Boer habistons British soldiers said put in al
their spare time in shooting every bird and beast in sight
The purpose TO be TO create grim silence south
Africa broken only perhaps by the sound OF owls
lures.
This is the very insanity Of war-to make desert
where it cannot make conquest The Beers, however
are not vet conquered and all the omens of the time seem
to pressage that before this seemingly ntermlnabe war
over the graveyard of the British empire viii have been
dug. Mighty wrongs breed mighty penalties.