The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps
from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our
brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here, idle? Is life so
dear, is peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and
slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take;
but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.
--Patrick Henry.
The pictures in the American newspapers of the starving reconcentrados are
true. They can all be duplicated by the thousands. I never before saw,
and please God, I may never again see, so deplorable a sight as the
reconcentrados in the suburbs of Matanzas. I can never forget to my dying
day the hopeless anguish in their despairing eyes. Huddled about their
little bark huts, they raised no voice of appeal to us for alms as we went
among them.... Men, women, and children stand silent, famishing with
hunger. Their only appeal comes from their sad eyes, through which one
looks as through an open window into their agonizing souls.
The Government of Spain has not appropriated and will not appropriate one
dollar to save these people. They are now being attended and nursed and
administered to by the charity of the United States. Think of the
spectacle! We are feeding the citizens of Spain; we are nursing their
sick; we are saving such as can be saved, and yet there are those who
still say it is right for us to send food, but we must keep hands off.
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