Page:Messages of the President of the United States on the Relations of the United States to Spain (1898).djvu/47

 18 the sentiment of the honorable profession outraged; no. It is the Spanish sentiment; it is the patriotism which boils in our veins with more heat; with a hundred times more enthusiasm than in that of those braves, that in a mob, and in an anonymous manner, have pretended to offend us, without understanding, unfortunates, that what they have trampled on, that what they have dragged through the mud, has been the majesty of the law, the principle of authority, and the honor of the country.

What will say the representatives of foreign powers who witnessed the shameful spectacle of yesterday? What effect will this great scandal cause in the United States, where they watch our discords, where they await our errors, where they count on our folly to take possession of the apple which they have been waiting for one hundred years to ripen and thereby fall in their hands?

This, this is what pains us; this, this is what shames us; this, this is what frightens us, and not the personal danger which we may risk; if with our blood and with the sacrifice of our lives we could avoid the consequences that for our beloved country we foresee and feel as a fatal result of the sad spectacle which happened in the streets of Havana yesterday, the shedding of our blood and the sacrifice of our blood we would consider as well employed.

"This is the greatest victory which up to the present has been gained for the independence of Cuba by Maximo Gomez," was said to us by an invalid chief of the army, a veteran in the past insurrection and of the African war, who came to the Diario de la Marina as soon as he received notice of the uprising.

Yes, a victory for Maximo Gomez and a day of rejoicing for the enemies of Spain. This is what signifies, before all and above all, the seditious tumult of yesterday.

Havana, January 13, 1898.

I have the honor to transmit herewith some statistics sent me about the mortality in the town of Santa Clara, the capital of Santa Clara province, situated about 35 miles south of Sagua, which numbers some 14,000 inhabitants. It will be noticed that there were 5,489 deaths in that town in the seven years previous to 1897, which included 1,417 in one year, from an epidemic of yellow fever, while in 1897, owing to the concentration order, there were 6,951; the concentration order went into effect in February.

In that year, 1897, the month's death rate for January was 78, but in February, the first month of reconcentration, there were 114, and there has been a gradual increase since, as you will see, until in December, 1897, the number of deaths was 1,011. I refer to this as a specimen of the mortality on this island in consequence of the "reconcentrado order" of the late Captain and Governor General, Weyler.

I am, etc.,

Consul-General.

(1,492 more than in seven previous years. )