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The reconcentrados overran Matanzas in an unclean swarm; streets and plazas were congested with them, for no attempt was made to confine them to their quarters. Morning brought them streaming down from the suburban slopes where they lived, evening sent them winding back; their days were spent in an aimless search for food. They snatched at crumbs and combed the gutters for crusts.
General Wood, who was made Governor of the Province of Santiago upon the day of surrender alert, wise, and untiring, with an eye single to the good of all toiled day and night. The State of Texas steamed away to its northern home. Peace and plenty came. The reconcentrados we went in search of were never reached. To those who could not withstand, Heaven came. To those who could, Cuba Libre.
Until now they have promised much and done worse than nothing, since, by their blockade of Cuban ports, they have only starved to death thousands of miserable reconcentrados. Now if they will proceed with judgment and are not swept off by fevers, something may be accomplished.
No tangible relief was afforded the vast numbers of unhappy reconcentrados, despite the reiterated professions made in that regard and the amount appropriated by Spain to that end. The proffered expedient of zones of cultivation proved illusory.
But when General Weyler inaugurated a system for the deliberate starvation of thirty thousand "Reconcentrados," an innocent peasantry driven from their homes and herded in cities, there to perish, the limit of patience was reached. It was this touch of human pity this last and intolerable strain upon our sympathies which turned the scale.
It is, therefore, most probable that Spain is practically unable to supply the millions which are immediately necessary to prevent the death of most of the surviving reconcentrados, but this leads to political questions, which I desire to avoid.
He deprecated and disapproved of any attempt on the part of the Red Cross to land supplies for the reconcentrados under a flag of truce in advance of the army of invasion and without its protection. "The Spanish authorities," he said, "under stress of starvation, would simply seize your stores and use them for the maintenance of their own army.
The best thing for you to do is to go in with us and under our protection, and relieve the distress of the reconcentrados as fast as we uncover it." I said that I thought this was Miss Barton's intention, and that we had fourteen hundred tons of food-stuffs and medical supplies on the steamer State of Texas at Key West, and were ready to move at an hour's notice.
The desired aid was promptly given, and the committee was supplied with provisions enough to support the Cuban refugees in Tampa until the middle of June. Upon her arrival at Key West Miss Barton found a similar, but even worse, state of affairs, inasmuch as the number of destitute refugees and reconcentrados there exceeded fifteen hundred.
They were gradually starving, he said, and Rosa was ill; the risk of discovery was ever present. It was better to go while they had the strength than slowly but surely to perish here. He had heard that there were twenty thousand reconcentrados in Matanzas; in such a crowd they could easily manage to hide themselves; they would at least be fed along with the others.
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