imposing a rational
compromise between the contestants, intervention in favor of one or the
other party, and forcible annexation of the island, I concluded it was
honestly due to our friendly relations with Spain that she should be
given a reasonable chance to realize her expectations of reform to which
she had become irrevocably committed. Within a few weeks previously she
had announced comprehensive plans which it was confidently asserted
would be efficacious to remedy the evils so deeply affecting our own
country, so injurious to the true interests of the mother country as
well as to those of Cuba, and so repugnant to the universal sentiment
of humanity.

The ensuing month brought little sign of real progress toward the
pacification of Cuba. The autonomous administrations set up in the
capital and some of the principal cities appeared not to gain the favor
of the inhabitants nor to be able to extend their influence to the large
extent of territory held by the insurgents, while the military arm,
obviously unable to cope with the still active rebellion, continued many
of the most objectionable and offensive policies of the government that
had preceded it. 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. Indeed no less
practical nor more delusive promises of succor could well have been
tendered to the exhausted and destitute people, stripped of all that
made life and home dear and herded in a strange region among
unsympathetic strangers hardly less necessitous than themselves.

By the end of December the mortality among them had frightfully
increased. Conservative estimates from Spanish sources placed the deaths
among these distressed people at over 40 per cent from the time General
Weyler's decree of reconcentration was enforced. With the acquiescence
of the Spanish authorities, a scheme was adopted for relief by
charitable contributions raised in this country and distributed, under
the direction of the consul-general and the several consuls, by noble
and earnest individual effort through the organized agencies of the
American Red Cross. Thousands of lives were thus saved, but many
thousands more were inaccessible to such forms of aid.

The war continued on the old footing, without comprehensive plan,
developing only the