Willis Fletcher Johnson

“ From 5,000 to 7,000 of these people accompanied the triumphal return of Sherman's expedition, and I defy any human being with as much feeling in his bosom as even Legree in Mrs. Stowe's immortal story to look on such a scene unmoved. Old men with the frosts of 90 years upon their heads, men in the prime of manhood, youth, and children that could barely run, women with their babies at their breasts, girls with the blood of white men in their veins, old women tottering feebly along, leading children and grandchildren, dear to them as our own sons and daughters are to us. ”

“ Imprudent exaltation of the republican ideals of France finally led the children of Hayti to rise in a horrible revolution. A race of men that had come to the coasts of America not in royal vessels and clad in steel to plant standards with the sign of Redemption, but locked up in the stench of a closed hold, the body naked and in chains, to irrigate with their sweat and blood the land of slavery, rose in defence of the natural laws, demolished the banner at the sight of which the most powerful nations of Europe had trembled, and conquered the outraged rights of humanity. ”

“ Lack of skilled labor is the curse of the country. Because a man is employed on work which requires skill and experience is no sign that he is fully competent to do it. The tramps who bind the farmer’s wheat, the cast-aways and chance laborers who build some houses in the West, the riff-raff who are gathered together occasionally to work a mine, or sail a ship, or do the work of a plantation or a farm for a short season, are the most costly labor that could be employed, and a great deal of work supposed to be done by experts in the United States is almost as expensive. ”

“ It was incredible that they should have prevailed against the trained forces of Spain. It was not for them, at such close contact with events, to realize that while they were fighting for their homes, for freedom, for their families, for their very lives,—for capture meant as sure death as any bullet of the enemy could bring,—after all the Spanish troops were only hirelings, fighting for pay and not for a principle, and that it has been the history of the world, since its beginning, that when the home is at stake sooner or later victory comes to its defenders. ”

“ Death has at last conquered the hero of so many campaigns; our cities and towns and villages are decked with flags at half-mast; the muffled drum and the funereal boom of cannon will resound over the land as his dead body passes to the final resting place, and the American people stand mournfully gazing into the void left by the sudden disappearance of the last of the greatest men brought forth by our war of regeneration—and this last also finally become, save Abraham Lincoln alone, the most widely beloved. ”

“ No tribute could be too high to render to these devoted women, who were always ready to make personal sacrifices of time, of strength, of money, of work, for the cause of humanity. Amid all its historic fiestas and pageants, Havana has seen no fairer or more inspiring spectacle than that of the Red Cross women, Senora Menocal at their head, marching in stately procession through her streets to manifest their devotion to the cause and to arouse others to equal earnestness. ”

“ The burning of immense piles of débris is continued at night, and the red glare of the flames at the foot of the hills seems like witch-fires at the mouth of caverns. The camp-fires of the military on the hills above the Conemaugh burn brightly. Volumes of smoke pour up all over the town. Along the Pennsylvania Railroad gangs of men are working all night long by electric light, and the engines, with their great headlights and roaring steam, go about continually. Below the railroad bridge stretches away the dark, sullen mass of the drift, with its freight of human bodies beyond estimate. ”

“ Nothing perhaps is more startlingly novel or strikingly beautiful than when, in early summer, the touring car, rounding a curve, suddenly brings to view a line of flamboyans in full bloom. Lips open in surprise, eyes fasten on what seems a forest of fire. The great banks of brilliant red and golden yellow waving in the breeze need only smoke to proclaim the roadside all ablaze. The camouflage of Nature is perfect and strangers of the tropics will bid the chauffeur pause until they can feast their eyes on this riot of color. ”

“ Our vases and cups may not be more exquisitely wrought than the vases and cups of Benevento Cellini, but they are wrought, not like his, for Popes and Emperors, but for Smith and Jones, and all the branches, collateral and direct, of the immense families of Smith and Jones. Our roads are not built at a vast expense, for some royal progress, or the passage of a conquering army, but are built to roll from house to house the precious treasures of industry, or a happy freight of excursionists, giving their hearts a holiday of merriment and innocent delight. ”

“ But the supreme and most enduring satisfaction will come from some assurance that I have brought to the appreciative attention of the world not merely the Cuba of four centuries past, with all its legends of adventure and romance, and too often of cruelty and crime, and with its fluctuating though still persistent progress toward the "foremost files of time," but also and still more the Cuba of this present moment and, we may hope, of unmeasured future time. It is a Cuba that is beautiful for situation, opulent in resources, entrancing in charm, illimitable in potentialities ”

“ Your government claims to favor liberty for the country; why then does it not consent to freedom of one's principles? Why does it not admit of neutrality? Why does it force people to take up arms without distinction of persons? Why has it always been opposed to speaking out in public? Why did it oppose the country's acceptance, when so close, of General Dulce's concessions? Why does it persecute to death whoever tries to separate himself from said government without having any intention of waging war against it? ”

“ He could not, in the greatness of his own soul, bring himself to believe it possible for men, for men calling themselves Cuban patriots, to do such things as those which Jose Miguel Gomez and Alfredo Zayas and Orestes Ferrara and their coparceners did. He was not moved by weakness, but by a desire to protect Cuba from the ravages of sordid revolution and from the unscrupulous exploitation of bushwhacking bandits, and to preserve for the Cuban people and their Republic the good name which had been so fairly and as he thought fully established during the years of his first administration. ”

“ Though the corruption and degradation of the court at Madrid had a baneful influence upon the Spanish colonies, the island which had enjoyed the blessings of his rule and caught a breath of the spirit of such men as Arango and Montalvo could never again be contented unquestioningly to accept the dictates of that court. The flood of new liberal ideas which, coming from France, swept over the whole world, could not be turned back at el Morro. They found their way into the hearts and the minds of the people and slowly but surely taught them to see where their ultimate salvation lay. ”

“ Nearly every great war has given birth to but one great general. No other country but our own has produced three such eminent commanders as Grant, Sherman and Sheridan. The second in years was called from us first; the next followed next; while the senior in age has been spared to us until the last. The badges of mourning which were laid aside after the last sad funeral rites of his illustrious predecessors are again brought forth to serve as emblems of our sorrow in our recent loss, and the Nation again finds herself standing within the shadow of a profound grief. ”

“ The immense volume of water was roaring along, whirling over huge rocks, dashing against the banks and leaping high into the air, and this seething flood was strewn with timber, trunks of trees, parts of houses, and hundreds of human beings, cattle, and almost every living animal. The fearful peril of the living was not more awful than the horrors of hundreds of distorted, bleeding corpses whirling along the avalanche of death. We counted one hundred and seven people floating by and dead without number. A section of roof came by on which were sitting a woman and girl. ”

“ Nothing would please me more than to be able to infuse a patriotic spirit into the American people—make them feel that they have a flag and need a navy to protect it. I wish we had some of the energy and patriotism exhibited by our forefathers, for, according to present indications, we will one day be humiliated by some fifth-rate naval power which will come to our shores and teach us a lesson. No reason exists why we should be exempt from war, for we are easily excited, and, like the school-boy, dare any one to knock the chip from our shoulder, though not able to fight. ”

“ In the ranks of independence we have to count all the free sons of Cuba, whatever may be the color of their race—the brave nations of South America, who inhabit our soil and who have already made trial of the strength and conduct of our tyrants—the sturdy islanders of the Canaries, who love Cuba as their country, and who have already had an Hernandez and a Monies de Oca, to seal with the proof of martyrdom, the heroic decision of their compatriots for our cause. ”

“ It cannot be disguised that those who had the real good of the island of Cuba at heart, patriots, Cubans who loved their country, men who longed to stand upright, to put off the yoke of Spain, and to look the inhabitants of free countries in the face as equals, were withdrawing their heartfelt allegiance from Spain, and were longing for independence. That this desire had been created by Spanish oppression, and nurtured by Spanish injustice, is a self-evident fact. ”

“ Two years will not have been spent in vain if the North now, by another magnificent upheaving of the real people, again fill the ranks of your proven and tried regiments, and assure them that, through good report and evil report, you will stand by them. If Ohio will do this, and if the great North will do this, then will our army feel that it has a country and a government worth dying for. As to the poltroons, who falter and cry quits, let them dig and raise the food the army needs—but they should never claim a voice in the councils of the nation. ”

“ For noise, there is heavy splashing of the Conemaugh over the rapids below the bridge, the petulant gasping of an unseen fire-engine, pumping water through the hose, and the even more rapid but greater puffing of the dynamo-engine that, mounted upon a flat car at one end of the bridge, furnishes electricity for the lights. There is little else heard. People who are yet about gather in little groups, and talk in low tones as they look over the dark, watchfire-beaconed gulf. Everybody in Johnstown looks over that gulf in every spare moment, day or night. ”

“ ALTHOUGH the forests of Cuba abound in several varieties of the citrus family growing wild within their depths, the fruit was probably brought from Spain by the early conquerors. The beautiful, glossy-leafed trees of the wild sour and bitter oranges are met today throughout most of the West Indies, and are especially plentiful in this island. The seeds have probably been carried by birds, but the wild fruit, although seldom if ever sweet, with its deep red color, is not only ornamental to the forest, but often refreshing to the thirsty individual who may come across it in his travels. ”