Читать книгу The Women of the Suffrage Movement - Jane Addams - Страница 30

Table of Contents

I returned from Geneva to New York city in time to celebrate my seventy-sixth birthday with my children. I had traveled about constantly for the last twenty years in France, England, and my own country, and had so many friends and correspondents, and pressing invitations to speak in clubs and conventions, that now I decided to turn over a new leaf and rest in an easy-chair. But so complete a change in one's life could not be easily accomplished. In spite of my resolution to abide in seclusion, my daughter and I were induced to join the Botta Club, which was to meet once a month, alternately, at the residences of Mrs. Moncure D. Conway and Mrs. Abby Sage Richardson. Though composed of ladies and gentlemen it proved dull and unprofitable. As the subject for discussion was not announced until each meeting, no one was prepared with any well-digested train of thought. It was also decided to avoid all questions about which there might be grave differences of opinion. This negative position reminded me of a book on etiquette which I read in my young days, in which gentlemen were warned, "In the presence of ladies discuss neither politics, religion, nor social duties, but confine yourself to art, poetry, and abstract questions which women cannot understand. The less they know of a subject the more respectfully they will listen." This club was named in honor of Mrs. Botta, formerly Miss Anne Lynch, whose drawing room for many years was the social center of the literati of New York.

On January 16, 1892, we held the Annual Suffrage Convention in Washington, and, as usual, had a hearing before the Congressional Committee. My speech on the "Solitude of Self" was well received and was published in the Congressional Record. The Woman's Tribune struck off many hundreds of copies and it was extensively circulated.

Notwithstanding my determination to rest, I spoke to many clubs, wrote articles for papers and magazines, and two important leaflets, one on "Street Cleaning," another on "Opening the Chicago Exposition on Sunday." As Sunday was the only day the masses could visit that magnificent scene, with its great lake, extensive park, artificial canals, and beautiful buildings, I strongly advocated its being open on that day. One hundred thousand religious bigots petitioned Congress to make no appropriation for this magnificent Exposition, unless the managers pledged themselves to close the gates on Sunday, and hide this vision of beauty from the common people. Fortunately, this time a sense of justice outweighed religious bigotry. I sent my leaflets to every member of Congress and of the State legislatures, and to the managers of the Exposition, and made it a topic of conversation at every opportunity. The park and parts of the Exposition were kept open on Sunday, but some of the machinery was stopped as a concession to narrow Christian sects.

In June, 1892, at the earnest solicitation of Mrs. Russell Sage, I attended the dedication of the Gurley Memorial Building, presented to the Emma Willard Seminary, at Troy, New York, and made the following address:

"MRS. PRESIDENT, MEMBERS OF THE ALUMNAE:

"It is just sixty years since the class of '32, to which I belonged, celebrated a commencement in this same room. This was the great event of the season to many families throughout this State. Parents came from all quarters; the élite of Troy and Albany assembled here. Principals from other schools, distinguished legislators, and clergymen all came to hear girls scan Latin verse, solve problems in Euclid, and read their own compositions in a promiscuous assemblage. A long line of teachers anxiously waited the calling of their classes, and over all, our queenly Madame Willard presided with royal grace and dignity. Two hundred girls in gala attire, white dresses, bright sashes, and coral ornaments, with their curly hair, rosy cheeks, and sparkling eyes, flitted to and fro, some rejoicing that they had passed through their ordeal, some still on the tiptoe of expectation, some laughing, some in tears—altogether a most beautiful and interesting picture.

"Conservatives then, as now, thought the result of the higher education of girls would be to destroy their delicacy and refinement. But as the graduates of the Troy Seminary were never distinguished in after life for the lack of these feminine virtues, the most timid, even, gradually accepted the situation and trusted their daughters with Mrs. Willard. But that noble woman endured for a long period the same ridicule and persecution that women now do who take an onward step in the march of progress.

"I see around me none of the familiar faces that greeted my coming or said farewell in parting. I do not know that one of my classmates still lives. Friendship with those I knew and loved best lasted but a few years, then our ways in life parted. I should not know where to find one now, and if I did, probably our ideas would differ on every subject, as I have wandered in latitudes beyond the prescribed sphere of women. I suppose it is much the same with many of you—the familiar faces are all gone, gone to the land of shadows, and I hope of sunshine too, where we in turn will soon follow. "And yet, though we who are left are strangers to one another, we have the same memories of the past, of the same type of mischievous girls and staid teachers, though with different names. The same long, bare halls and stairs, the recitation rooms with the same old blackboards and lumps of chalk taken for generation after generation, I suppose, from the same pit; the dining room, with its pillars inconveniently near some of the tables, with its thick, white crockery and black-handled knives, and viands that never suited us, because, forsooth, we had boxes of delicacies from home, or we had been out to the baker's or confectioner's and bought pies and cocoanut cakes, candy and chewing gum, all forbidden, but that added to the relish. There, too, were the music rooms, with their old, second-hand pianos, some with rattling keys and tinny sound, on which we were supposed to play our scales and exercises for an hour, though we often slyly indulged in the 'Russian March,' 'Napoleon Crossing the Rhine,' or our national airs, when, as slyly, Mr. Powell, our music teacher, a bumptious Englishman, would softly open the door and say in a stern voice, 'Please practice the lesson I just gave you!'

"Our chief delight was to break the rules, but we did not like to be caught at it. As we were forbidden to talk with our neighbors in study hours, I frequently climbed on top of my bureau to talk through a pipe hole with a daughter of Judge Howell of Canandaigua. We often met afterward, laughed and talked over the old days, and kept our friendship bright until the day of her death. Once while rooming with Harriet Hudson, a sister of Mrs. John Willard, I was moved to a very erratic performance. Miss Theresa Lee had rung the bell for retiring, and had taken her rounds, as usual, to see that the lights were out and all was still, when I peeped out of my door, and seeing the bell at the head of the stairs nearby, I gave it one kick and away it went rolling and ringing to the bottom. The halls were instantly filled with teachers and scholars, all in white robes, asking what was the matter. Harriet and I ran around questioning the rest, and what a frolic we had, helter-skelter, up and down stairs, in each other's rooms, pulling the beds to pieces, changing girls' clothes from one room to another, etc., etc. The hall lamps, dimly burning, gave us just light enough for all manner of depredations without our being recognized, hence the unbounded latitude we all felt for mischief. In our whole seminary course—and I was there nearly three years—we never had such a frolic as that night. It took all the teachers to restore order and quiet us down again for the night. No suspicion of any irregularities were ever attached to Harriet and myself. Our standing for scholarship was good, hence we were supposed to reflect all the moralities.

"Though strangers, we have a bond of union in all these memories, of our bright companions, our good teachers, who took us through the pitfalls of logic, rhetoric, philosophy, and the sciences, and of the noble woman who founded the institution, and whose unselfish devotion in the cause of education we are here to celebrate. The name of Emma Willard is dear to all of us; to know her was to love and venerate her. She was not only good and gifted, but she was a beautiful woman. She had a finely developed figure, well-shaped head, classic features, most genial manners, and a profound self-respect (a rare quality in woman), that gave her a dignity truly royal in every position. Traveling in the Old World she was noticed everywhere as a distinguished personage. And all these gifts she dedicated to the earnest purpose of her life, the higher education of women.

"In opening this seminary she could not find young women capable of teaching the higher branches, hence her first necessity was to train herself. Amos B. Eaton, who was the principal of the Rensselaer Polytechnic School for boys here in Troy, told me Mrs. Willard studied with him every branch he was capable of teaching, and trained a corps of teachers and regular scholars at the same time. She took lessons of the Professor every evening when he had leisure, and studied half the night the branches she was to teach the next day, thus keeping ahead of her classes. Her intense earnestness and mental grasp, the readiness with which she turned from one subject to another, and her retentive memory of every rule and fact he gave her, was a constant surprise to the Professor.

"All her vacation she devoted to training teachers. She was the first to suggest the normal-school system. Remembering her deep interest in the education of women, we can honor her in no more worthy manner than to carry on her special lifework. As we look around at all the educated women assembled here to-day and try to estimate what each has done in her own sphere of action, the schools founded, the teachers sent forth, the inspiration given to girls in general, through the long chain of influences started by our alma mater, we can form some light estimate of the momentous and far-reaching consequences of Emma Willard's life. We have not her difficulties to overcome, her trials to endure, but the imperative duty is laid on each of us to finish the work she so successfully began. Schools and colleges of a high order are now everywhere open to women, public sentiment welcomes them to whatever career they may desire, and our work is to help worthy girls struggling for a higher education, by founding scholarships in desirable institutions in every State in the Union. The most fitting tribute we can pay to Emma Willard is to aid in the production of a generation of thoroughly educated women.

"There are two kinds of scholarships, equally desirable; a permanent one, where the interest of a fund from year to year will support a succession of students, and a temporary one, to help some worthy individual as she may require. Someone has suggested that this association should help young girls in their primary education. But as our public schools possess all the advantages for a thorough education in the rudiments of learning and are free to all, our scholarships should be bestowed on those whose ability and earnestness in the primary department have been proved, and whose capacity for a higher education is fully shown.

"This is the best work women of wealth can do, and I hope in the future they will endow scholarships for their own sex instead of giving millions of dollars to institutions for boys, as they have done in the past. After all the bequests women have made to Harvard see how niggardly that institution, in its 'annex,' treats their daughters. I once asked a wealthy lady to give a few thousands of dollars to start a medical college and hospital for women in New York. She said before making bequests she always consulted her minister and her Bible. He told her there was nothing said in the Bible about colleges for women. I said, 'Tell him he is mistaken. If he will turn to 2 'Chron. xxxiv. 22, he will find that when Josiah, the king, sent the wise men to consult Huldah, the prophetess, about the book of laws discovered in the temple, they found Huldah in the college in Jerusalem, thoroughly well informed on questions of state, while Shallum, her husband, was keeper of the robes. I suppose his business was to sew on the royal buttons.' But in spite of this Scriptural authority, the rich lady gave thirty thousand dollars to Princeton and never one cent for the education of her own sex.

"Of all the voices to which these walls have echoed for over half a century, how few remain to tell the story of the early days, and when we part, how few of us will ever meet again; but I know we shall carry with us some new inspiration for the work that still remains for us to do. Though many of us are old in years, we may still be young in heart. Women trained to concentrate all their thoughts on family life are apt to think—when their children are grown up, their loved ones gone, their servants trained to keep the domestic machinery in motion—that their work in life is done, that no one needs now their thought and care, quite forgetting that the hey-day of woman's life is on the shady side of fifty, when the vital forces heretofore expended in other ways are garnered in the brain, when their thoughts and sentiments flow out in broader channels, when philanthropy takes the place of family selfishness, and when from the depths of poverty and suffering the wail of humanity grows as pathetic to their ears as once was the cry of their own children.

"Or, perhaps, the pressing cares of family life ended, the woman may awake to some slumbering genius in herself for art, science, or literature, with which to gild the sunset of her life. Longfellow's beautiful poem, 'Morituri Salutamus,' written for a similar occasion to this, is full of hope and promise for all of us. He says:

"'Something remains for us to do or dare;

Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear.

Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles

Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides

Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers,

When each had numbered more than four-score years.

And Theophrastus, at three-score and ten,

Had but begun his Characters of Men;

Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales,

At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;

Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,

Completed Faust when eighty years were past.

These are indeed exceptions; but they show

How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow

Into the Arctic regions of our lives,

Where little else than life itself survives.

For age is opportunity no less

Than youth itself, though in another dress,

And as the evening twilight fades away

The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.'"

On December 21, 1892, we celebrated, for the first time, "Foremothers' Day." Men had celebrated "Forefathers' Day" for many years, but as women were never invited to join in their festivities, Mrs. Devereux Blake introduced the custom of women having a dinner in celebration of that day. Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker spent two days with me, and together we attended the feast and made speeches. This custom is now annually observed, and gentlemen sit in the gallery just as ladies had done on similar occasions.

My son Theodore arrived from France in April, 1893, to attend the Chicago Exposition, and spent most of the summer with me at Glen Cove, Long Island, where my son Gerrit and his wife were domiciled. Here we read Captain Charles King's stories of life at military posts, Sanborn's "Biography of Bronson Alcott," and Lecky's "History of Rationalism."

Here I visited Charles A. Dana, the Nestor of journalism, and his charming family. He lived on a beautiful island near Glen Cove. His refined, artistic taste, shown in his city residence in paintings, statuary, and rare bric-a-brac, collected in his frequent travels in the Old World, displayed itself in his island home in the arrangement of an endless variety of trees, shrubs, and flowers, through which you caught glimpses of the Sound and distant shores. One seldom meets so gifted a man as the late editor of the Sun. He was a scholar, speaking several languages; an able writer and orator, and a most genial companion in the social circle. His wife and daughter are cultivated women. The name of this daughter, Zoe Dana Underhill, often appears in our popular magazines as the author of short stories, remarkable for their vivid descriptions.

I met Mr. Dana for the first time at the Brook Farm Community in 1843, in that brilliant circle of Boston transcendentalists, who hoped in a few years to transform our selfish, competitive civilization into a Paradise where all the altruistic virtues might make co-operation possible. But alas! the material at hand was not sufficiently plastic for that higher ideal. In due time the community dissolved and the members returned to their ancestral spheres. Margaret Fuller, who was a frequent visitor there, betook herself to matrimony in sunny Italy, William Henry Channing to the Church, Bronson Alcott to the education of the young, Frank Cabot to the world of work, Mr. and Mrs. Ripley to literature, and Charles A. Dana to the press. Mr. Dana was very fortunate in his family relations. His wife, Miss Eunice MacDaniel, and her relatives sympathized with him in all his most liberal opinions. During the summer at Glen Cove I had the pleasure of several long conversations with Miss Frances L. MacDaniel and her brother Osborne, whose wife is the sister of Mr. Dana, and who is now assisting Miss Prestona Mann in trying an experiment, similar to the one at Brook Farm, in the Adirondacks.

Miss Anthony spent a week with us in Glen Cove. She came to stir me up to write papers for every Congress at the Exposition, which I did, and she read them in the different Congresses, adding her own strong words at the close. Mrs. Russell Sage also came and spent a day with us to urge me to write a paper to be read at Chicago at the Emma Willard Reunion, which I did. A few days afterward Theodore and I returned her visit. We enjoyed a few hours' conversation with Mr Sage, who had made a very generous gift of a building to the Emma Willard Seminary at Troy. This school was one of the first established (1820) for girls in our State, and received an appropriation from the New York legislature on the recommendation of the Governor, De Witt Clinton. Mr. Sage gave us a description that night of the time his office was blown up with dynamite thrown by a crank, and of his narrow escape. We found the great financier and his wife in an unpretending cottage with a fine outlook on the sea. Though possessed of great wealth they set a good example of simplicity and economy, which many extravagant people would do well to follow.

Having visited the World's Exposition at Chicago and attended a course of lectures at Chautauqua, my daughter, Mrs. Stanton Lawrence, returned to the city, and as soon as our apartment was in order I joined her. She had recently been appointed Director of Physical Training at the Teachers' College in New York city. I attended several of her exhibitions and lectures, which were very interesting. She is doing her best to develop, with proper exercises and sanitary dress, a new type of womanhood.

My time passed pleasantly these days with a drive in the Park and an hour in the land of Nod, also in reading Henry George's "Progress and Poverty," William Morris on industrial questions, Stevenson's novels, the "Heavenly Twins," and "Marcella," and at twilight, when I could not see to read and write, in playing and singing the old tunes and songs I loved in my youth. In the evening we played draughts and chess. I am fond of all games, also of music and novels, hence the days fly swiftly by; I am never lonely, life is ever very sweet to me and full of interest.

The winter of 1893-94 was full of excitement, as the citizens of New York were to hold a Constitutional Convention. Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi endeavored to rouse a new class of men and women to action in favor of an amendment granting to women the right to vote. Appeals were sent throughout the State, gatherings were held in parlors, and enthusiastic meetings in Cooper Institute and at the Savoy Hotel. My daughter, Mrs. Stanton Blatch, who was visiting this country, took an active part in the canvass, and made an eloquent speech in Cooper Institute. Strange to say, some of the leading ladies formed a strong party against the proposed amendment and their own enfranchisement. They were called the "Antis." This opposing organization adopted the same plan for the campaign as those in favor of the amendment. They issued appeals, circulated petitions, and had hearings before the Convention.

Mrs. Russell Sage, Mrs. Henry M. Sanders, Mrs. Edward Lauterbach, Mrs. Runkle, and some liberal clergymen did their uttermost to secure the insertion of the amendment in the proposed new constitution, but the Committee on Suffrage of the Constitutional Convention refused even to submit the proposed amendment to a vote of the people, though half a million of our most intelligent and respectable citizens had signed the petition requesting them to do so. Joseph H. Choate and Elihu Root did their uttermost to defeat the amendment, and succeeded.

I spent the summer of 1894 with my son Gerrit, in his home at Thomaston, Long Island. Balzac's novels, and the "Life of Thomas Paine" by Moncure D. Conway, with the monthly magazines and daily papers, were my mental pabulum. My daughter, Mrs. Stanton Lawrence, returned from England in September, 1894, having had a pleasant visit with her sister in Basingstoke. In December Miss Anthony came, and we wrote the woman suffrage article for the new edition of Johnson's Cyclopedia.

On March 3, 1895, Lady Somerset and Miss Frances Willard, on the eve of their departure for England, called to see me. We discussed my project of a "Woman's Bible." They consented to join a revising committee, but before the committee was organized they withdrew their names, fearing the work would be too radical. I especially desired to have the opinions of women from all sects, but those belonging to the orthodox churches declined to join the committee or express their views. Perhaps they feared their faith might be disturbed by the strong light of investigation. Some half dozen members of the Revising Committee began with me to write "Comments on the Pentateuch."

The chief thought revolving in my mind during the years of 1894 and 1895 had been "The Woman's Bible." In talking with friends I began to feel that I might realize my long-cherished plan. Accordingly, I began to read the commentators on the Bible and was surprised to see how little they had to say about the greatest factor in civilization, the mother of the race, and that little by no means complimentary. The more I read, the more keenly I felt the importance of convincing women that the Hebrew mythology had no special claim to a higher origin than that of the Greeks, being far less attractive in style and less refined in sentiment. Its objectionable features would long ago have been apparent had they not been glossed over with a faith in their divine inspiration. For several months I devoted all my time to Biblical criticism and ecclesiastical history, and found no explanation for the degraded status of women under all religions, and in all the so-called "Holy Books."

When Part I. of "The Woman's Bible" was finally published in November, 1895, it created a great sensation. Some of the New York city papers gave a page to its review, with pictures of the commentators, of its critics, and even of the book itself. The clergy denounced it as the work of Satan, though it really was the work of Ellen Battelle Dietrick, Lillie Devereux Blake, Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, Clara Bewick Colby, Ursula N. Gestefeld, Louisa Southworth, Frances Ellen Burr, and myself. Extracts from it, and criticisms of the commentators, were printed in the newspapers throughout America, Great Britain, and Europe. A third edition was found necessary, and finally an edition was published in England. The Revising Committee was enlarged, and it now consists of over thirty of the leading women of America and Europe.

The month of August, 1895, we spent in Peterboro, on the grand hills of Madison County, nine hundred feet above the valley. Gerrit Smith's fine old mansion still stands, surrounded with magnificent trees, where I had played in childhood, chasing squirrels over lawn and gardens and wading in a modest stream that still creeps slowly round the grounds. I recalled as I sat on the piazza how one time, when Frederick Douglass came to spend a few days at Peterboro, some Southern visitors wrote a note to Mr. Smith asking if Mr. Douglass was to sit in the parlor and at the dining table; if so, during his visit they would remain in their own apartments. Mr. Smith replied that his visitors were always treated by his family as equals, and such would be the case with Mr. Douglass, who was considered one of the ablest men reared under "The Southern Institution." So these ladies had their meals in their own apartments, where they stayed most of the time, and, as Mr. Douglass prolonged his visit, they no doubt wished in their hearts that they had never taken that silly position. The rest of us walked about with him, arm in arm, played games, and sang songs together, he playing the accompaniment on the guitar. I suppose if our prejudiced countrywomen had been introduced to Dumas in a French salon, they would at once have donned their bonnets and ran away.

Sitting alone under the trees I recalled the different generations that had passed away, all known to me. Here I had met the grandfather, Peter Sken Smith, partner of John Jacob Astor. In their bargains with the Indians they acquired immense tracts of land in the Northern part of the State of New York, which were the nucleus of their large fortunes. I have often heard Cousin Gerrit complain of the time he lost managing the estate. His son Greene was an enthusiast in the natural sciences and took but little interest in property matters. Later, his grandson, Gerrit Smith Miller, assumed the burden of managing the estate and, in addition, devoted himself to agriculture. He imported a fine breed of Holstein cattle, which have taken the first prize at several fairs. His son, bearing the same name, is devoted to the natural sciences, like his uncle Greene; whose fine collection of birds was presented by his widow to Harvard College.

The only daughter of Gerrit Smith, Elizabeth Smith Miller, is a remarkable woman, possessing many of the traits of her noble father. She has rare executive ability, as shown in the dispatch of her extensive correspondence and in the perfect order of her house and grounds. She has done much in the way of education, especially for the colored race, in helping to establish schools and in distributing literature. She subscribes for many of the best books, periodicals, and papers for friends not able to purchase for themselves. We cannot estimate the good she has done in this way. Every mail brings her letters from all classes, from charitable institutions, prisons, Southern plantations, army posts, and the far-off prairies. To all these pleas for help she gives a listening ear. Her charities are varied and boundless, and her hospitalities to the poor as well as the rich, courteous and generous. The refinement and artistic taste of the Southern mother and the heroic virtues of the father are happily blended in their daughter. In her beautiful home on Seneca Lake, one is always sure to meet some of the most charming representatives of the progressive thought of our times. Representatives of all these generations now rest in the cemetery at Peterboro, and as in review they passed before me they seemed to say, "Why linger you here alone so long?"

My son Theodore arrived from Paris in September, 1895, and rendered most important service during the preparations for my birthday celebration, in answering letters, talking with reporters, and making valuable suggestions to the managers as to many details in the arrangements, and encouraging me to go through the ordeal with my usual heroism. I never felt so nervous in my life, and so unfitted for the part I was in duty bound to perform. From much speaking through many years my voice was hoarse, from a severe fall I was quite lame, and as standing, and distinct speaking are important to graceful oratory, I felt like the king's daughter in Shakespeare's play of "Titus Andronicus," when rude men who had cut her hands off and her tongue out, told her to call for water and wash her hands. However, I lived through the ordeal, as the reader will see in the next chapter.

After my birthday celebration, the next occasion of deep interest to me was the Chicago Convention of 1896, the platform there adopted, and the nomination and brilliant campaign of William J. Bryan. I had long been revolving in my mind questions relating to the tariff and finance, and in the demands of liberal democrats, populists, socialists, and the laboring men and women, I heard the clarion notes of the coming revolution.

During the winter of 1895-96 I was busy writing alternately on this autobiography and "The Woman's Bible," and articles for magazines and journals on every possible subject from Venezuela and Cuba to the bicycle. On the latter subject many timid souls were greatly distressed. Should women ride? What should they wear? What are "God's intentions" concerning them? Should they ride on Sunday? These questions were asked with all seriousness. We had a symposium on these points in one of the daily papers. To me the answer to all these questions was simple—if woman could ride, it was evidently "God's intention" that she be permitted to do so. As to what she should wear, she must decide what is best adapted to her comfort and convenience. Those who prefer a spin of a few hours on a good road in the open air to a close church and a dull sermon, surely have the right to choose, whether with trees and flowers and singing birds to worship in "That temple not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," or within four walls to sleep during the intonation of that melancholy service that relegates us all, without distinction of sex or color, to the ranks of "miserable sinners." Let each one do what seemeth right in her own eyes, provided she does not encroach on the rights of others.

In May, 1896, I again went to Geneva and found the bicycle craze had reached there, with all its most pronounced symptoms; old and young, professors, clergymen, and ladies of fashion were all spinning merrily around on business errands, social calls, and excursions to distant towns. Driving down the avenue one day, we counted eighty bicycles before reaching the post-office. The ancient bandbox, so detested by our sires and sons, has given place to this new machine which our daughters take with them wheresoever they go, boxing and unboxing and readjusting for each journey. It has been a great blessing to our girls in compelling them to cultivate their self-reliance and their mechanical ingenuity, as they are often compelled to mend the wheel in case of accident. Among the visitors at Geneva were Mr. Douglass and his daughter from the island of Cuba. They gave us very sad accounts of the desolate state of the island and the impoverished condition of the people. I had long felt that the United States should interfere in some way to end that cruel warfare, for Spain has proved that she is incompetent to restore order and peace.