Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-06-28
CUbA'S REAL DISTRESS
Mr.. Pepper Tells of the
Actual Conditions.
SERIOUS DEPRESSION
FINANCIAL SITUATION A CATA-
LoGUE OF WOES.
Effect on the New Governments
European Nations Seeking to Un-
dermine the United States.

| Written for The Evening Star
Within twenty-four hours 1 have been
asked hundred times or more what is the
real news from Cuba. The real news is the
| stale news of deferred hopes finally ended
and new nation, heartsick.
| If l were to answer further questions it
would only be by making a guess that
there is less probability than at any
! time during the last five years of the irri-
tating Cuban question allowing itself to be
! shelved. 1t is likely to come up with fresh
| force at the time when complacent con-~
gressmen vino think it is shelved will be
most inconvenienced by its reappearance.
But that is only guess.
AS to the real conditions, they can only
be described by distressing iteration.
Though the story meets with sneers ami
mockery, it is one which the people OF the
| United States can appreciate because they
went through it in 1894 and subsequent
years. The general conditions I'm Cuba to-
day are about what they were in Michigan
or Nebraska, or in West Virginia, in the
| panic year 1884, with the tendency to grow
as bad as they became in the following
year. This is a statement of actuality. re-
gardess of whether the United States is in
any way responsible for what is happening,
or whether Cuba has any more claim on it
| for relief by tariff reciprocity than would
have Corea or Kamchatka.
An Agricultural Depression.
The depression is an agricultural one. ana
| is largely due to sugar. How genuine ii is
any ore who wants to know can determine
| by visiting half dozen of the big planta-
! tions within a days travel of Havana. L
| know a good many of those plantations,
and it does not take the affidavit of the
! planters managers to satisfy me that
! where one thousand hands ordinarily are
employed not three hundred today have
| regular work.
The planters instead of painting a dark
picture doing their best to tighten the
shadows. They have to borrow money, and
the worse they make out the situation as to
their individual estates the less chance
they have of getting the money.
Ten days ago l asked a planter who still
| has an equity in one of the great planta-
| tions of Havana province how many men
he had employed. II am keeping several
hundred at work" he said, evasively, and
in spite of my efforts to find out just how
many he meant by several hundred he
evaded direct answer.
In good times his plantation employs
twelve hundred hands. For the last two or
three years he has had between nine and
ten hundred men at work at this season.
Two days after his departure for New York
l met the superintendent of the plantation.
How many men have you on the pay
roll?' asked him. zone hundred and
fifty he replied, without hesitation. And
if Mr.. -- gets money in New York.
how many will you be able to put TO
work?' Perhaps five hundred or six hum
dred, but if he doesn't, We won't have
more than three hundred hands working on
the plantation this season..
Probably the average of hands who can
find work of some sort around the planta-
tions will be five six hundred where or
dinarily there would 1000 to 1,2oo. What
that means be judged by taking any
agricultural state of the Union and figuring
it out. L am not going to enlarge on the
subject beyond stating that 1t is judg
ment formed from acquaintanceship with
many of the planters and from personal
knowledge of their plantations.
The Financial Situation.
AS to the general financial situation, a
brief statement viii tell much as a cata-
logue of woes Less than a week ago in
! one of the Havana banks the cashier said
TO me that there would be four failures of
business houses before night. They are
totterng," he said, "and cannot stand"
The Cuban manager of the best known
mercantile agency in the world corrected
the banker. "They will not FAIL he said,
but they Will go out of business" Then
he told me the report from his correspond
ent in Santa Clara province of large num-
Der of small farms going out of business"
only this correspondent, who was an Ameri-
can, called them failures" As a postscript
to his report he had added, You may look
for more"
That afternoon in the harbor on the boat
leaving for New York the partner in a big
machinery and general supply house waved
his hand significantly to a row OF buildings.
Don - he said. lis having a hard time,
but / got his check last night for what he
owes us and cashed it this morning. He
could have credit again, but what's the use?
There is no business for him
Don one of the men whose name
/ had heard that morning in the bank. He
is one of the leading Spanish merchants of
Havana. Apparently he did not fail. The
circumstances, as explained to me the same
afternoon. were that his fellow merchants
simply paid his bills so that he could be
without the dishonor of failure. There is
intense patriotism among the Spanish mer-
chants of Havana. To have a great Spanish
house fail they think would disgrace them
all So they will help one another as long as
they and the accumulated wealth of
many generations may prevent the series of
open failures which would be chronicled in
any American commercial city.
There are a good many firms quitting
business in these circumstances. They do
not hold creditors meetings publicly, moth
ing is published in the newspapers, and the
lawyers are not given large pickings. But
Havana business houses are under a tre-
mendous pressure as the result of the ex-
isting agricultural conditions and the gen.
eral loss Of trade.
Any one who knows Havana bankers and
business men and who has their confidence
can learn all he wants to know and more
than he would wish to know about the ex-
listing depression, provided he does not go
out on the street corners and tell every
body who passes by that il Is this or that
firm which is in trouble today. and must
be helped to go out of business. That Is
all that / care to say on the Havana COM
mercal crisis.
Effect on New Government.
As good a judgment be formed in
Washington as in Havana of the reflex
action of the agricultural and commercial
conditions on the future of the new gov
ernment. This Is without regard to ones