Puerto Rico’s Sorrowful Condition
James Creelman cables from San Juan, Puerto Rico, under date of March 19, to the San Francisco Examiner: “I looked to-day on the most sorrowful sight ever seen on American soil. Vast multitudes of merchants, bankers, planters, and laborers, headed by the mayor of San Juan and the president of the Chamber of Commerce, walked in death-like silence, like a great funeral procession, to the palace to ask the American Government not to make the American flag the symbol of oppression in American territory. . . . Meetings are held to-day in all the cities and towns of Puerto Rico. . . . Meanwhile special prayers are offered in all the churches. This morning, for hours, I watched American men with tears in their eyes distributing relief to hundreds of white, trembling widows and orphans. Hundreds of women in the mountains are almost naked.”