The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1906-10-26
COMIC OPERA
REVOLUTION
How the Cuban Insurgents Paraded
and Ended the War.


Our first stop was at the agricul-
tural experiment station, about which
Arencibas men had operated. Here
the General had deposited about 40
guns belonging to his men. They
were. like all the weapons of the in
surgents, a collection Of indescribable
innk. 1t is inconceivable that any
body could be shot with them save
by accident. In short, every man kill
ed by insurgent bullets must be re-
garded as having met his death from
what the insurance companies would
call an act of God.
We looked in vain for traces of
fighting. There was none of the hor-
rors of war to be SEMINARY a hor-
ror Not a building was burned or
stable destroyed or house PLACED or
stone wall thrown down or crop
ruined. Nowhere did we hear tales OF
the libidinous license of an abandon
ed soldiery.
Occasionally we met farmer who
complained that his cattle had been
driven off or his poultry stolen, but
the fields and roads gave evidence that
there were plenty left.
The insurgents stole a good man
The insurgents stole good many
4
horses and this is the biggest bill the
Cuban Government will have to pay
to those who can prove their proper
| ". But it was certainly a bargain
day revolution, with all prices mark
ed down from '95.
We found Major Ladd sitting his
horse in the middle of the main street
of Alguizar The air was full OF
hands, hats, machetes, Spanish oaths,
imprecations, everything that a Cuban
can agitate The din was unimagin-
able. In the United States it would
have meant bloody riot in deadly
progress.
Yet the Major was quite calm. He
looked like the Superintendent of an
insane asylum making his daily
rounds. And this smile is not by
any means inaccurate. The Major
appeared very grave, for the Cuban
is sensitive. Yet we foreigners de-
tected a twinkle at the back of his
keen. gray eye. From a few words
that sifted through the riot we gath
cred that the insurgents would lay
down their arms-but only on one con-
dition. They would first parade
through the town-they would, they
would. and that was all there was to
it.
At last the Major told them to roll
their hoops, but only once and only
through the main street. That was
as far as he would go. The insur-
gent Colonies, Commandments, Gener-
ais and Field Marshals pleaded in vain
for greater latitude, but the Major
only sat on his horse quietly and
shook his head.
Then there was sulking. Cubans
sulk at the top, of their voices, with
cyclonic gestures. They wouldn't lay
down their ans, then-they wouldn't;
they wouldn't; they wouldn't!
Caramha!
| A1,o Modro do noic'
"All right" said the Major. Ma
rines.'
The effect was magical. In one min
ute all the 40 general officers pres
ent were lining up their ESQ men to
parade the town exactly as the Ma
jor had ordered. They did it, too, amid
roars of enthusiasm, while somebody
set off many punches of fire crackers
in a side street. After that all hands
turned in their guns, with every last
detail Of pomp and ceremony that
tropical imagination could invent, in
GLIDING countless speeches in which
the phrases glorious victories" mo
BILE liberators" and "saviours OF theiI
country" were employed to the point