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THE IMPROVED CONDITION OF CUBA
UNDER AMERICAN ADMINIS
TRATION.
* BY COLOXEL EDQAH S. DUDLEY.
Tlic statements made in the news
papers of the United States , and con
firmed by the reports of Senators Proc
tor and Tlmrston , as to the miserable
condition of the Cuban people under
Spanish rule , up to the date of American
intervention , were in no wise exagger
ated. The "Recouceutrado" system of
General Weyler , whereby he had col
lected in the cities and in camps under
control of the Spanish soldiery , the
country people and peasantry suspected
of disloyalty , had deprived the island
largely of its working , rural population ,
necessary to the cultivation of the farm
lands. Aged people , women and chil
dren , without their natural protectors ,
as well as men , were held concentrated
v ,
in large bodies living in unhealthy
dwellings or in camps ; many sleeping
without shelter on the plazas of the
cities , illy clad and without proper feeder
or proper regard for health or personal
welfare. This fact was in evidence in
Havana when the first military gov
ernor , Major General John R. Brooke ,
United States army , arrived , with his
staff , in December , 1898 , to assume con
trol of the military government of the
L'l island , to which he had been assigned by
. " fif . ' ' the order of the president of the United
.1" ] I--
States.
Cuba Prior to American Occupation.
The city was filled with neglected and
starving people. Little children be
sieged the open windows of the hotel ,
begging , at meal times , for pieces of
bread and seizing , like hungry animals ,
that which was thrown to them by
pitying visitors ; the haggard faces of
emaciated women and children , met
upon the streets in numbers , once seen
could never bo forgotten. There were
special cases which seemed more terrible
than others of women and young girls
with faces drawn and mere skin and
bone , appearing so feeble that it seemed
hardly possible for life to exist within
their emaciated frames ; and it was said
to be no unusual event for bodies of several
fv. '
J-Tl'rfv' I 'Cj'f1. ' eral who had died during the previous
night to be gathered up in the morning
'Cj'f1.I for a hasty burial.
It is almost impossible to describe in
I such manner that it may be well under
I ' ' stood , the disturbed and demoralized
; condition of affairs in Cuba when the
§ * task of its military government was im
posed upon General Brooke , and under
taken by him under the orders of the
president. In the Eastern part of the
island in Santiago , order had been re
stored and reforms begun under Gener-
* Colonel Dudley was Judge Advocate of Ha
vana , Cuba , and gathers his information from
actual contact with the conditions ho describes.
He has just accepted the Chair of Law at West
Point , N. Y.
als Lawtou and Wood , but in other
parts the Spanish troops were still in
possession of the cities , whilst the Cuban
insurgent forces were still in the field.
The Spanish forces remained until
transported to Spain by the United
States , in accordance with their agree
ment so to do. The number of these
soldiers was much larger than had been
generally supposed , there being about
80,000 in and around the city of Havana
alone. These were being gradually
withdrawn when General Brooke , witli
his staff , arrived , December 26 , 1898.
Arrival of Seventh Army Corps.
As the Spanish troops fell back toward
the harbor the Cubans followed them , as
closely as permitted. The feeling was
bitter ; exchanges of shots were frequent ,
and several were killed at different
times ; American troops , consisting of
part of the Seventh Army Corps , had
arrived , and , under command of General
Fitzhugh Lee , were encamped outside
the city , whilst General Ludlow , in im
mediate command of the city as its mili
tary governor , was preserving the peace
and preventing conflicts when possible.
But a few days before , the lives of sev
eral Cubans had . been spared only
through the personal intervention of
General F. V. Greene , U. S. V. , then in
command , and members of his staff , at
the Inglaterra hotel , where he had his
headquarters. In a conflict between
Cubans and Spanish soldiers , the Cubans
were pursued up the stairways of the
hotel , some being shot and killed before
reaching the floors above , whilst others
were badly -woundedand pursuit stopped
and other lives were saved through their
talcing refuge in the rooms of American
officers and by the personal appearance
of General Greene in uniform at the
head of the stairs , who stopped the pur
suers there.
The dividing line had reached the
prado on which this hotel is situated on
the day of the arrival of General Brooke ,
and the hotel was one mass of mingled
Spanish officials , officers in uniform ,
Spanish and Cuban , as well as Ameri
can ; the Cuban officers wearing their
side arms , and the excited talk and mix
ture of English with Spanish language
constituted a perfect babel of sounds ;
altogether , it afforded anything but an
encouraging outlook. General Ludlow ,
however , who had just previously ar
rived and relieved General Greene , had
matters well in hand , and on January 1 ,
1899 , when the last of the Spanish sol
diers were withdrawn , after a review by
General Brooke of ull troops in and
around the city , which left a strong im
pression of military power in Cuban
minds , two regiments or more of in
fantry and the Second regiment of ar
tillery , which had arrived that day ,
were camped upon the plazas and sta-
stioned in the vacated barracks. These
acted as a police force in restoring and
maintaining order , continually patrol
ling the city until a regular police force
was organized and placed on duty.
Problems Difficult of Solution.
The Spanish captain-general formally
turned over , on that day , January 1 ,
1899 , all control of the island to the
American commissioners , the formal de
livery being made to General J. F. Wade ,
the president of the commission , who at
once transferred it to General Brooke ,
as military governor under the orders of
the president , and the American flag re
placed the Spanish banner over Morro
Castle and the palace of the governor-
general.
The problem to be met was a difficult
one ; the entire governing power of the
Spaniards had disappeared with the
Spanish governor-general ; , not a single
head of any department of government
remained at his post ; all the departments
wore in a state of chaos , demanding im
mediate attention and reorganization.
The staff officers of General Brooke ,
who were assigned to receive the differ
ent departments of government , found
them without their chiefs ; not one was
present to turn over his department or
give a single word of information to the
officer ordered to relieve him and take
charge. At the Departments of State
and Government , of Grace and Justice ,
and at the Council of Secretaries of the
Autonomist Government , all which were
received by the judge advocate , the
heads of those departments were re
ported "gone to Spain , " or "not feeling
well , " and unable to bo present.
Rural Conditions.
The available population , outside those
in the cities , had been drawn into the
war on one side or the other , and with
the consequent cessation of cultivation
of sugar and tobacco , the main products
of the island , upon which its wealth and
prosperity principally depend , the whole
country was in an impoverished condi
tion. Many wealthy people had lost
their incomes , farms were mortgaged ,
debts remained unpaid and the financial
condition was such that , without possi
bility of securing crops , matters were
rapidly going from bad to worse ; lands
uncultivated ran to waste , a large num
ber of sugar plantations , with their ex
pensive mills and machinery , had been
burned , and in the disturbed conditions
consequent upon the insurrection , it was
seemingly impossible to recuperate. No
one could safely invest money in prop
erty or estates , subject to destruction by
the Cuban insurgents on one hand or the
Spanish soldiers on the other. But few
of the larger sugar plantations had been
spared , and these only through pro
tection by Spanish troops stationed on
or near them , probably supplemented
by secret contributions to the insur
gents. Recuperation was impossible
also , oven after war ceased , partly be-