CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 



Early in 1898 agitation for war with Spain, which 

 had been simmering for some time, began to grow 

 insistent. In New York a group of wealthy men were 

 said to be financing the so-called "Cuban Junta" 

 and promoting filibuster expeditions and interior 

 disturbances in Cuba. Thus the local situation, Atrocities 

 already wretched at the best, was further aggravated ^" *^"^^ 

 from the outside. Meanwhile the impotent Spanish 

 Government had left to General Weyler, a coarse 

 and brutal militarist of a type now more familiar, 

 the responsibility of putting down insurrections. 

 Weyler's force being inadequate, he adopted the 

 reconcentrado plan of dealing with the people; that 

 is, gathering them in great camps necessarily un- 

 sanitary and so inimical to health — upon which 

 our ''yellow press" made the most of atrocities, 

 actual and invented, to inflame the American 

 people. 



At this juncture. General Stewart L. Woodford a special 

 went to Spain as special envoy instructed to secure "'■^°^ 

 a rational settlement of the Cuban situation. This 

 he succeeded in arranging, as I shall later explain, 

 in spite of the fact that Spain was well aware of 

 the existence in America of strong financial interests 

 working for the annexation of the island. Indeed, 

 a well-known capitalist of New York once told me 

 boastingly that he brought on the Spanish-American 

 War by personally furnishing the Junta with money 

 for the insurgents! 



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