he New York "World," who had a very good
tenor voice, would seat himself at the piano and sing "White Wings,"
"Say au revoir, but not good-by," or "The Banks of the Wabash," and then
Mr. Cox, resident manager of the Spanish-American iron-mines, would take
Cobleigh's place at the instrument and lead the whole assembled company
in "John Brown's Body," "My country, 't is of thee," and "The
Star-Spangled Banner," until the soldiers of the Ninth Infantry,
quartered in the old theater across the way, would join in the chorus,
and a great wave of patriotic melody would roll down Gallo Street to the
bay, and out over the tranquil water to the transports lying at anchor
half a mile away. Sitting in that cheerful, comfortably furnished
club-room under the soft glow of incandescent electric lights, and
listening to the bright, animated conversation, the laughter, and the
old familiar music, I found it almost impossible to realize that I was
in the desperately defended and recently captured city of Santiago,
where the whole population was in a state of semi-starvation, where
thousands of sick or wounded were languishing in crowded hospitals and
barracks, and where, within a few days, I had seen destitute and
homeless Cubans dying of fever in the streets.

Miss Barton began the work of relieving the wide-spread distress and
destitution in Santiago with characteristic promptness and energy. To
feed twenty or thirty thousand people at once, with the limited
facilities and the small working force at her command, and to do it
systematically and economically, without wastefulness and without
confusion, was a herculean task; but it was a task with which
experience and training in many fields had made her familiar, and she
set about it intelligently and met the difficulties of the situation
with admirable tact and judgment. Her first step was to ask the ablest,
most influential, and most respected citizens of Santiago to consult
with her with regard to ways and means and to give her the benefit of
their local knowledge and experience. The object of this was to secure
the cooeperation and support of the best elements of the population, and
strengthen the working force of the Red Cross by adding to it a local
contingent of volunteer assistants who were thoroughly acquainted with
the city and its inhabitants and who would be able to detect and prevent
fraud or imposition. There was danger, of course, that people who did
not need food, or were