Dos
Rios Camp, May 18, 1895
Mr
Manuel Mercado
My
dearest brother: Now I can write, now I can
tell you how tenderly and gratefully and
respectfully I love you and that home which
I consider my pride and responsibility. I am
in daily danger of giving my life for my
country and duty for I understand that duty
and have the courage to carry it out-the
duty of preventing the United States from
spreading through the Antilles as Cuba gains
its independence, and from empowering with
that additional strength our lands of
America. All I have done so far, and all I
will do, is for this purpose. I have had to
work quietly and somewhat indirectly,
because to achieve certain objectives, they
must be kept under cover; to proclaim them
for what they are would raise such
difficulties that the objectives could not
be attained.
The
same general and lesser duties of these
nations-nations such as yours and mine that
are most vitally concerned with preventing
the opening in Cuba(by annexation on the
part of the imperialist from there and the
Spaniards) of the road that is to be closed,
and is being closed with our blood, annexing
our American nations to be brutal and
turbulent North which despises
them-prevented their apparent adherence and
obvious assistance to this sacrifice made
for their immediate benefit.
I have
lived in the monster and I know its
entrails; my sling is David's. At this very
moment-well, some days ago-amid the cheers
of victory with which the Cuban saluted our
free departure from the mountains where the
six men of our expedition walked for
fourteen days, a correspondent from the
Herald, who tore me out the hammock in my
hut, told me about the annexationist
movement. He claimed it was less to be
feared because of the unrealistic approach
of its aspirants, undisciplined or
uncreative men of a legalistic turn of mind,
who in the comfortable disguise of their
complacency or their submission to Spain,
half-heartedly ask it for Cuba's autonomy.
They are satisfied merely that there be a
master- Yankee or Spanish- to support them
or reward their services as go-betweens with
positions of power, enabling them to scorn
the hardworking masses-the country's
half-breeds, skilled and pathetic, the
intelligent and creative hordes of Negroes
and white men.
And
that Herald correspondent, Eugene Bryson,
told me more: about a Yankee syndicate,
endorsed by the customs authority who are
too closely associated with the rapacious
Spanish banks to be involved with those of
the North, a syndicate fortunately unable,
because of its sinewy and complex political
structure, to undertake or support the idea
as a government project. And Bryson continue
talking, although the truth of his reports
could be understood only by a person with
firsthand knowledge of the determination
with which we have mustered the revolution,
of the disorganization, indifference, and
poor pay of the untried Spanish army, and of
Spain´s inability to gather, in or out of
Cuba, the resources to be used against the
war, resources which it had obtained the
time before from Cuba alone. Bryson
recounted his conversation with Martinez
Campos at the end of which Martinez Campos
gave to understand that at the proper time,
Spain would doubtless prefer to come to
terms with the United States than hand the
island to the Cubans. And Bryson had still
more to tell me: about an acquaintance of
ours whom the North is grooming as a
candidate from the United States for the
presidency of Mexico when the term of the
president now in office expires.
I am
doing my duty here. The Cuban war, a reality
of higher priority than the vague and
scattered desires of the Cuban and Spanish
annexationists, whose alliance with the
Spanish government would only give them the
relative power, has come to America in time
to prevent Cuba's annexation to the United
States, even against all those freely used
forces. The United States will never accept
from a country at war, nor can it occur, the
hateful and absurd commitment of
discouraging, on its account and with its
weapons, an American war of independence,
for the war will not accept annexation.
And
Mexico, will it not find a wise, effective,
and immediate way of helping, in due time,
its own defender? It will indeed, or I shall
find one for it. This is a life-and death
matter, and there is no room for error. The
prudent way is the only way to worth
considering. I would have founded and
proposed it. But I must have more authority
placed in me, or know who has it, before
acting or advising. I have just arrived. The
formation of our utilitarian yet simple
government can still take two more months,
if it is to be stable and realistic. Our
spirit is one, the will of the country, and
I know it. But these things are always a
matter of communication, influence and
accommodation. In my capacity as
representative, I do not want to do anything
that my appear to be a capricious extension
of it. I arrived in a boat with General
Máximo Gómez and four others. I was in
charge of the lead oar during a storm and we
landed at an unknown quarry on one of our
beaches. For fourteen days I carried my
rifle and knapsack, marching through bramble
patches and over hills. We gather people
along the way. In the benevolence men's
souls I feel the root of my affection for
their suffering, and my just desire to
eliminate it. The countryside is
unquestionably ours to the extent that in a
single month I could hear but one blast of
gunfire. And at the gates cities we either
won a victory, or reviewed 3 000 troops in
the face of enthusiasm resembling religious
fervour. We continue on our way to the
center of the island where, in the presence
of the revolution which I instigated, I laid
aside the authority given me by the
settlements abroad and acknowledged by the
island, and which an assembly of delegates
form the Cuban people-revolutionaries in
arms-must replace in accord with the new
conditions. The revolution desires complete
freedom in the army, without the obstacles
previously raised by a Chamber without real
sanction, without the distrust of its
republicanism by a suspicious faction of the
young, and without the jealousy and fears,
which could become too great a threat in the
future, of a punctilious or prophetic
leader. But at the same time the revolution
is eager for a concise and respectable
republican representation-the same decent
spirit of humanity, filled with a desire for
individual dignity in representing the
republic, as that which encourages and
maintains the revolutionaries in this war.
As for me, I realise that a nation can not
be led counter to or without the spirit that
motivates it; I know how human hearts are
inspired, and how to make use of a confident
and impassionate state of mind to keep
enthusiasm at a constant pitch and ready for
the attack. But with respect to forms, many
ideas are possible, and in matters of men,
there are men to carry them out. You know
me. In my case, I defend only what I
consider a guarantee of, or a service to,
the revolution. I know how to disappear. But
my thoughts will never disappear, nor will
my obscurity leave me embittered. The moment
we take shape, we will proceed; trust this
to me and the others.
And
now, having dealt with national interests, I
will talk about myself, since only the
emotion of this duty could raise from a
much-desired death the man who, now that
Nájera does not live where you can see him
better and cherishes as his heart's delight
that friendship with which you fill him with
pride.
I know
his silent gestures of annoyance, after my
voyage. And however much we told him, from
the bottom of our hearts, there was no
response! What a fraud he is, and how
callous that soul of his, that the honor and
tribute of our affection has not moved him
to write one more letter on the paper of the
maps or newspapers that fill our day!
There
are affections of such fragile honesty.
