Cuba, Old and New Part 6

XI

_FILIBUSTERING_

The term "filibuster" affords an interesting example of the way in which words and their uses become twisted into something altogether different from their original meaning. It comes from a Dutch word, several centuries old, _vrijbuiter_, or free vessel or boat. It got somehow into English as "freebooter," and into Spanish as _filibustero_. The original referred to piracy. Two or three centuries later, it meant an engagement in unauthorized and illegal warfare against foreign States, in effect, piratical invasions. In time, it came into use to describe the supply of military material to revolutionists, and finally to obstruction in legislative proceedings. In his message of June 13, 1870, President Grant said that "the duty of opposition to filibustering has been admitted by every President. Washington encountered the efforts of Genet and the French revolutionists; John Adams, the projects of Miranda; Jefferson, the schemes of Aaron Burr. Madison and subsequent Presidents had to deal with the question of foreign enlistment and equipment in the United States, and since the days of John Quincy Adams it has been one of the constant cares of the Government in the United States to prevent piratical expeditions against the feeble Spanish American Republics from leaving our sh.o.r.es."

In 1806, Francisco Miranda, a Venezuelan patriot whose revolutionary activities preceded those of Simon Bolivar, sailed from New York on what would have been called, some years later, a filibustering expedition. His three vessels were manned chiefly by Americans. There are always those whose love of excitement and adventure, sometimes mixed with an active sympathy for an under dog, leads them to engage in such an enterprise. This one was productive of no important results. There were plenty of American pirates and privateers in earlier days, but I have found no record of any earlier actual expedition whose purpose was the creation of a new republic.

But during the next hundred years, including the considerable number of Americans who have engaged in the present disorder in Mexico, such enterprises have been numerous. Among the most notable are the several Lopez expeditions to Cuba, about 1850, and the Walker expeditions to Lower California, Nicaragua, and Honduras, a few years later. The steamer _Virginius_, to which reference is made in another chapter, was engaged in filibustering when she was captured, in 1873, and many of her crew and pa.s.sengers unlawfully executed, by Spanish authority, in Santiago. But that was only one of many similar enterprises during the Ten Years' War in Cuba.

It is very doubtful if the war could have continued as it did without them.

During our own Civil War, we called such industries "blockade-running," but it was all quite the same sort of thing. The Confederate army needed arms, ammunition, medicine, and supplies of many kinds. On April 19, 1861, President Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of the ports of the seceded States, with a supplementary proclamation on the 27th that completed the line, and thus tied the South hand and foot. In his _History of the United States_, Elson notes that raw cotton could be bought in Southern ports for four cents a pound while it was worth $2.50 a pound in Liverpool, and that a ton of salt worth seven or eight dollars in Na.s.sau, a few miles off the coast, was worth $1700 in gold in Richmond before the close of the war, all because of the blockade.

There is, naturally, a lack of detail regarding the many expeditions, large and small, of the Ten Years' War, but they began soon after the opening of hostilities. In his _Diary_, Gideon Welles notes, under date of April 7, 1869, the prevalence of "rumors of illegal expeditions fitting out in our country to aid the Cuban insurgents," and states that "our countrymen are in sympathy with them." In December, of that year, President Grant reported that a number of illegal expeditions had been broken up, but did not refer to those that had succeeded. In October, 1870, he issued a general proclamation, without specific reference to Cuba, warning all persons against engagement in such expeditions. During the years of the war, Spanish warships, at different times, seized American vessels, a proceeding which led to some active diplomatic negotiation, and which, on several occasions, threatened to involve this country in war with Spain. The problem of the industry variously known as filibustering, blockade-running, gun-running, and the shipment of contraband, has two ends. There is, first, the task of getting the shipment out of one country, and, second, the task of getting it into another country. While it is generally cla.s.sed as an unlawful enterprise, there frequently arises a difficulty in proving violation of law, even when goods are seized and the partic.i.p.ants arrested.

There is, perhaps, a moral question involved also. Such shipments may be a violation of the law. They are generally so regarded. But they may be, as in the case of the struggling Cubans, struggling against actual and generally admitted wrongs, the only means of serving a worthy and commendable end. There is no doubt that, in Cuba's revolution of 1895, Americans who knew about the work were p.r.o.ne to regard a successful expedition to the island with satisfaction if not with glee. They were inclined to regard those engaged as worthy patriots rather than as law-breakers.

Under date of February 23, 1898, the House of Representatives requested the Secretary of the Treasury to inform that body "at the earliest date practicable, if not incompatible with the public service, what has been done by the United States to prevent the conveyance to the Cubans of articles produced in the United States, and what to prevent 'filibustering,' and with what results, giving particulars, and at what expense to the United States." A reply was sent on the 28th. It makes a very good showing for the activities of the officials responsible for the prevention of such expeditions, but from all I can learn about the matter, it is quite incomplete. There were a number of excursions not set down in the official records. Sailing dates and time and place of arrival were not advertised in the daily papers.

The official statement shows that sixty reports of alleged filibustering expeditions were brought to the attention of the Treasury Department; that twenty-eight of them were frustrated through efforts of the Department; that five were frustrated by the United States Navy; four by Spain; two wrecked; one driven back by storm; one failed through a combination of causes; and seventeen that may be regarded as successful expeditions. The records of the Cuban _junta_ very materially increase the number in the latter cla.s.s. The despatch of these expeditions was a three-cornered battle of wits. The groups engaged were the officials of the United States, the representatives of Spain, and the agents of the revolution. The United States employed the revenue service and the navy, aided on land by the Customs Service, the Secret Service, and other Federal officers. The official representatives of Spain employed scores of detectives and Spanish spies. The Cuban group sought to outwit them all, and succeeded remarkably well in doing so. A part of the story has been told, with general correctness, in a little volume ent.i.tled _A Captain Unafraid_, described as _The Strange Adventures of Dynamite Johnny O'Brien_. This man, really a remarkable man in his special line, was born in New York, in 1837, and, at the time this is written, is still living. He was born and grew to boyhood in the shadow of the numerous shipyards then in active operation along the East River. The yards were his playground. At thirteen years of age, he ran away and went to see as cook on a fishing sloop. He admits that he could not then "cook a pot of water without burning it," but claims that he could catch cod-fish where no one else could find them. From fisherman, sailing-master on private yachts, schooner captain, and officer in the United States Navy in the Civil War, he became a licensed East River pilot in New York. He became what might be called a professional filibuster at the time of the revolution in Colombia, in 1885, following that with similar experience in a revolt in Honduras two years later. The Cubans landed a few expeditions in 1895, but a greater number were blocked.

In March, 1896, they applied to O'Brien and engaged him to command the _Bermuda_, then lying in New York and ready to sail. Captain O'Brien reports that her cargo included "2,500 rifles, a 12-pounder Hotchkiss field-gun, 1,500 revolvers, 200 short carbines, 1000 pounds of dynamite, 1,200 _machetes_, and an abundance of ammunition." All was packed in boxes marked "codfish," and "medicines."

The _Bermuda_ sailed the next morning, March 15, with O'Brien in command, cleared for Vera Cruz. The Cubans, including General Calixto Garcia, who were to go on the expedition, were sent to Atlantic City, there to engage a fishing sloop to take them off-sh.o.r.e where they would be picked up by the _Bermuda_ on her way. The ship was under suspicion, and was followed down the bay by tugboats carrying United States marshals, customs officers, and newspaper reporters. O'Brien says: "They hung on to us down through the lower bay and out past Sandy Hook, without getting enough to pay for a pound of the coal they were furiously burning to keep up with us. I don't know how far they might have followed us, but when we were well clear of the Hook, a kind fortune sent along a blinding snow-storm, which soon chased them back home." General Garcia and his companions were picked up as planned, and that part of the enterprise was completed. The vessel was on its way. A somewhat roundabout route was taken in order to avoid any possible overhauling by naval or revenue ships. The point selected for the landing was a little harbor on the north coast about thirty miles from the eastern end of the island. The party included two Cuban pilots, supposed to know the coast where they were to land. One of them proved to be a traitor and the other, O'Brien says, "was at best an ignoramus." The traitor, who, after the landing, paid for his offence with his life, tried to take them into the harbor of Baracoa, where lay five Spanish warships. But O'Brien knew the difference, as shown by his official charts, between the Cape Maisi light, visible for eighteen miles, and the Baracoa light, visible for only eight miles, and kicked the pilot off the bridge. The landing was begun at half-past ten at night, and completed about three o'clock in the morning, with five Spanish warships barely more than five miles away. The United States Treasury Department reported this expedition as "successful."

The vessel then proceeded to Honduras, where it took on a cargo of bananas, and returned, under orders, to Philadelphia, the home city of its owner, Mr. John D. Hart. Arrests were made soon after the arrival, including Hart, the owner of the vessel, O'Brien, and his mate, and General Emilio Nunez who accompanied the expedition as the representative of the _junta_. The case was transferred from the courts in Philadelphia to New York, and there duly heard. The alleged offenders were defended by Horatio Rubens, Esq., of New York, the official counsel of the _junta_. One of the grounds of the defence was that the defendants might be guilty of smuggling arms into Cuba, but with that offence the courts of the United States had nothing to do. The jury disagreed. The indictments were held over the heads of the members of the group, but no further action was taken, and two or three years later the case was dismissed by order of the Attorney General of the United States.

This expedition fairly ill.u.s.trates the science of filibustering in its elementary form, a clearance with some attendant risk; a voyage with possibility of interference at any time; and a landing made with still greater risk and danger of capture. The trip had been made so successfully and with such full satisfaction to the promoters that the _junta_ urged O'Brien to remain with them as long as there should be need for his services, and he agreed to do so. A department of expeditions was organized under the general control of Emilio Nunez, with O'Brien as navigator.

Credit for the numerous successful expeditions that followed lies in differing degrees with Nunez, Palma, Rubens, O'Brien, Hart, Cartaya, and others less well known in connection with the enterprises. But for the work they did, the risks they ran, Cuba's revolution must have failed. All of them risked jail sentences, and some of them risked their lives in ways perhaps even more dangerous than fighting in the field. The success of the _Bermuda_ expedition, carried out by what may be called direct evasion, quite seriously disturbed the authorities in this country, and excited them to greater precautions and wider activity. Whatever may have been their personal feelings in the matter, it was their duty to see that the laws of the country were enforced as far as they could be. The players of the game for the Cubans met the new activities with complicated moves, many of which puzzled the watching officials, and landed a number of expeditions.

Meanwhile, minor expeditions continued. The official report notes that on March 12, 1896, the _Commodore_, a 100-ton steamer, sailed from Charleston with men, arms, and ammunition, and landed them in Cuba. The _Laurada_, a 900-ton steamer, was reported by the Spanish Legation as having sailed on May 9, meeting three tugs and two lighters, off the coast, from which were transferred men and arms. The report states that "some of the men landed in Cuba, but the larger part of the arms and ammunition was thrown into the sea," which may or may not have been the case. On May 23, the tug _Three Friends_ left Jacksonville, took on men and arms from two small vessels waiting outside, and landed all in Cuba. A month later, and again two months later, the _Three Friends_ repeated the trip from Florida ports. On June 17, the _Commodore_ made another successful trip from Charleston.

While these and other minor expeditions were going on, the department of expeditions in New York was busy with a more extensive enterprise. An order was placed for 3000 rifles, 3,000,000 rounds of ammunition, 3 12-pound Hotchkiss field-guns and 600 sh.e.l.ls, _machetes_, and several tons of dynamite. The steamer _Laurada_ was chartered, and the ocean-going tug _Dauntless_ was bought in Brunswick, Georgia. A part of the purchased munitions was ordered to New York, and the remainder, two car loads, shipped to Jacksonville by express. Ostensibly, the _Laurada_ was to sail from Philadelphia to Jamaica for a cargo of fruit, a business in which she had at times engaged. Her actual instructions were to proceed to the vicinity of Barnegat, about forty miles from New York, and there, at sea, await orders. The arms and ammunition came down from Bridgeport on the regular boat from that city, and were left on board until night. There was no particular secrecy about the shipment, and detectives followed it. But when, at dark, the big gates of the dock were closed and locked and all seemed over for the day, the watchers a.s.sumed that nothing would be done until the next day, and went away. But, immediately after their departure, a big lighter slipped quietly into the dock across the wharf from the Bridgeport boat, a swarm of men appeared and, behind the closed gates, in the semi-darkness of the wharf, rushed boxes from steamer to lighter. The work was finished at midnight; a tug slipped up and attached a hawser to the lighter; and the cargo was on its way to Cuba. Johnny O'Brien was on the tug. The _Laurada_ was met off Barnegat, as arranged, and the cargo and about fifty Cubans put on board of her. She was ordered to proceed slowly to Nava.s.sa Island where the _Dauntless_ would meet her. General Nunez and O'Brien returned to New York on the tug, and while the detectives suspected that something had been done, they had no clue whatever to guide them.

Nunez and O'Brien started immediately for Charleston, with detectives at their heels. The _Commodore_, a tug then owned by the Cubans, lay in the harbor of that city, with a revenue cutter standing guard over her. She was ordered to get up steam and to go through all the motions of an immediate departure. But this was a ruse to draw attention away from the actual operations. Rubens, meanwhile, had gone to Jacksonville where he busied himself in convincing the authorities that the tug _Three Friends_ was about to get away with an expedition. With one revenue cutter watching the _Commodore_ in Charleston, the other cutter in the neighborhood was engaged in watching the _Three Friends_ in Jacksonville, thus leaving a clear coast between those cities. In Charleston were about seventy-five Cubans waiting a chance to get to the island. O'Brien states that about twenty-five detectives were following their party. Late in the afternoon of August 13, while the smoke was pouring from the funnels of the _Commodore_, the regular south-bound train pulled out of the city. Its rear car was a reserved coach carrying the Cuban party, numbering a hundred or so.

Detectives tried to enter, but were told that it was a private car, which it was. They went along in the forward cars. At ten o'clock that night, the train reached Callahan, where the Coast Line crossed the Seaboard Air Line.

While the train was halted for the crossing, that rear car was quietly uncoupled. The train went on, detectives and all. The railroad arrangements were effected through the invaluable a.s.sistance of Mr. Alphonso Fritot, a local railway man whose authority enabled him to do with trains and train movement whatever he saw fit. He was himself of Cuban birth, though of French-American parentage, with ample reason, both personal and patriotic, for serving his Cuban friends, and his services were beyond measure. By his orders, when that train with its band of detectives had pulled away for Jacksonville, an engine picked up the detached car and ran it over to the Coast Line. A few miles away, it collected from a blind siding the two cars of arms and ammunition shipped some days before, from Bridgeport. A little further on, the line crossed the Satilla River. There lay the _Dauntless_, purchased by Rubens. Steam was up, and a quick job was made of transferring cargo and men from train to boat. Another tug brought a supply of coal, and soon after sunrise another expedition was on its way to Cuba. All this may be very immoral, but some who were on the expedition have told me that it was at least tremendously exciting.

On August 17, the pa.s.sengers and cargo were landed on the Cuban coast near Nuevitas. The tug then proceeded to Nava.s.sa Island to meet the _Laurada_.

Half of the men and half of the cargo of the steamer were transferred to the tug, and all were safely landed in a little cove a few miles west of Santiago. The landing was made in broad daylight. There were a number of Spanish naval vessels in Santiago harbor, and the city itself was filled with Spanish troops. The tug then returned for the remainder of the _Laurada's_ pa.s.sengers and cargo, all of which were landed a few days later at the place of the earlier landing. The _Laurada_ went on to Jamaica and loaded with bananas, with which she sailed for Charleston. Arrests were made as a result of the expedition, and the owner of the ship, Mr. John D.

Hart, was convicted and sentenced to sixteen months in the penitentiary.

After serving four months of his term, a pardon was secured. He is said to be the only one, out of all those engaged in the many expeditions, who was actually convicted, and his only offence was the chartering of his ships to the Cuban revolutionists. The _Dauntless_ was seized on her return to Jacksonville, but was soon released. An effort was made to indict O'Brien, but there was too much sympathy for the Cubans in Florida, where the effort was made. A number of minor expeditions were carried out in the next few months, by the _Dauntless_, the _Three Friends_, and the _Commodore_, the latter being wrecked in the last week in December.

In February, 1897, another complicated manoeuvre was successfully executed.

This involved the use of the _Bermuda_, the _Laurada_, and no less than seven smaller auxilliary vessels, tugs, lighters, and schooners. Rut the _Laurada_ landed the cargo on the north-eastern coast of the island.

As...o...b..ien tells the story, this successful expedition so angered Captain-General Weyler, then the ruler of the island, that he sent a message to the daring filibuster, through an American newspaper man, somewhat as follows: "Tell O'Brien that we will get him, sooner or later, and when we do, instead of having him shot along with his Cuban companions, I am going to have him ignominiously hanged from the flag-pole at Cabana, in full view of the city." Cabana is the old fortress across the bay, visible from nearly all parts of Havana. To this, O'Brien sent reply saying: "To show my contempt for you and all who take orders from you, I will make a landing within plain sight of Havana on my next trip to Cuba.

I may even land an expedition inside of the harbor and take you away a prisoner. If we should capture you, which is much more likely than that you will ever capture me, I will have you chopped up into small pieces and fed to the fires of the _Dauntless_." A few months later, this little Irishman, whom Weyler denounced as a "bloodthirsty, dare-devil," and who may have been a dare-devil but was not bloodthirsty, actually carried out a part of this seemingly reckless threat. He landed a cargo within a mile and a half of Morro Castle.

By this time, vessels of the United States navy were employed, supplementing the work of the Revenue Service. This, of course, added both difficulty and danger to the work. In March and April, several expeditions were interrupted. For the Spanish blockade of the Cuban coast, there was only contempt. Captain O'Brien told a naval officer that if the navy and the revenue cutters would let him alone he would "advertise the time and place of departure, carry excursions on every trip, and guarantee that every expedition would be landed on time." In May, 1897, two carloads of arms and ammunition were shipped from New York to Jacksonville, but, by the authority of Mr. Fritot, they were quietly dropped from the train at a junction point, and sent to Wilmington, N.C. Their contents were transferred to the tug _Alexander Jones_, and that boat proceeded nonchalantly down the river. Soon afterward, an old schooner, the _John D. Long_, loaded with coal, followed the tug. Two revenue cutters were on hand, but there was nothing in the movements of these vessels to excite their interest. Off sh.o.r.e, the tug attached a towline to the schooner that was carrying its coal supply, its own bunkers being crammed with guns and cartridges. Off Palm Beach, General Nunez and some sixty Cubans were taken from a fishing boat, according to a prearranged plan. Two days later, at an agreed upon place, they were joined by the _Dauntless_ which had slipped out of Jacksonville. The excursion was then complete. About half the cargo of the _Jones_ was transferred to the _Dauntless_ and was landed, May 21, a few miles east of Nuevitas. A second trip took the remainder of the cargo of the _Jones_ and most of the Cuban pa.s.sengers, and landed the lot under the very guns, such as they were, of Morro Castle, and within about three miles of the Palace of Captain-General Weyler. All that time, a force of insurgents under Rodriguez and Aurenguren was operating in that immediate vicinity, and was in great need of the supplies thus obtained. Some of the dynamite then landed was used the next day to blow up a train on which Weyler was supposed to be travelling, but in their haste the Cubans got one train ahead of that carrying the official party. The row that Weyler made about this landing will probably never be forgotten by the subordinates who were the immediate victims of his rage.

These are only a few of the many expeditions, successful and unsuccessful, made during those three eventful years. The Treasury Department report of February 28, 1898, gives seventeen successful operations. As a matter of fact, more than forty landings were made, although in a few cases a single expedition accounted for two, and in one or two instances for three landings. The experiences run through the entire gamut of human emotions, from absurdity to tragedy. The former is ill.u.s.trated by the case of the _Dauntless_ when she was held up by a vessel of the United States navy, and boarded by one of the officers of the ship. He examined the tug from stem to stern, sat on boxes of ammunition which seemed to him to be boxes of sardines, stumbled over packages of rifles from which b.u.t.ts and muzzles protruded; and failed utterly to find anything that could be regarded as contraband. The mere fact that a vessel is engaged in transporting arms and ammunition does not, of necessity, bring it within reach of the law. But that particular vessel was a good deal more than under suspicion; it was under the closest surveillance and open to the sharpest scrutiny. The temporary myopia of that particular lieutenant of the United States navy was no more than an outward and visible sign of a well-developed sense of humor, and an indication of at least a personal sympathy for the Cubans in their struggle. Tragedy is ill.u.s.trated by the disaster to the steamer _Tillie_. One day, late in January, 1898, this vessel, lying off the end of Long Island, took on one of the largest cargoes ever started on a filibustering expedition to Cuba. The cause is not known, but soon after starting a leak developed, beyond the capacity of the pumps. A heavy sea was running, and disaster was soon inevitable. The cargo was thrown overboard to lighten the ship and the vessel was headed for the sh.o.r.e on the chance that it might float until it could be beached. The water in the ship increased rapidly, and extinguished the fires under the boilers; the wind, blowing a high gale, swung into the northwest, thus driving the now helpless hulk out to sea. Huge combing waves swept the decks from end to end. O'Brien tells the story: "We looked in vain for another craft of any kind, and by the middle of the afternoon it seemed as though it was all up with us, for there was not much daylight left, and with her deck almost awash it was impossible that the _Tillie_ should keep afloat all night. The gale had swept us rapidly out to sea. The wind, which was filled with icy needles, had kicked up a wild cross-sea, and it was more comfortable to go down with the ship than even to think of trying to escape in the boats." At last, when there seemed no longer any hope of rescue, the big five-masted schooner _Governor Ames_ came plunging through the heaving seas, and, by masterly seamanship and good fortune, backed by the heroism of her commander and crew, succeeded in taking off all except four, who went down with the ship. But the work went on. There is not s.p.a.ce here to tell of the several vessels whose names, through the engagement of the craft in these enterprises, became as familiar to newspaper readers as are the names of ocean liners today. A few months later, the United States Government sent its ships and its men to help those who, for three hard years, had struggled for national independence.

XII

_THE STORY OF SUGAR_

Chemically, sugar is a compound belonging to the group of carbohydrates, or organic compounds of carbon with oxygen and hydrogen. The group includes sugars, starches, gums, and celluloses. Sugar is a product of the vegetable kingdom, of plants, trees, root crops, etc. It is found in and is producible from many growths. As a laboratory process, it is obtainable from many sources, but, commercially, it is derived from only two, the sugar cane and the beet root. This statement, however, has a certain limitation in that it omits such products as maple sugar, malt sugar, milk sugar, and others having commercial or chemical uses on a limited scale.

But it is only with the crystallized sucrose, the familiar sugar of the market and the household, that we are dealing here. The output of the other sugars is measurable in hundreds or even thousands of pounds, but the output of the sugar of commerce is measured in millions of tons. Long experience proves that the desired substance is most readily, most abundantly, and most cheaply, obtained from the juices of the plant commonly known as sugar cane, and from the vegetable known as the sugar beet.

The mechanical processes employed in producing sugar from cane and from beets, are practically the same. They are, broadly, the extraction or expression of the juices, their clarification and evaporation, and crystallization. These processes produce what is called "raw sugar," of varying percentages of sucrose content. Following them, there comes, for American uses, the process of refining, of removing the so-called impurities and foreign substances, and the final production of sugar in the shape of white crystals of different size, of sugar as powdered, cube, loaf, or other form. In the case of cane sugar, this is usually a secondary operation not conducted in the original mill. In the case of beet sugar, production is not infrequently a continuous operation in the same mill, from the beet root to the bagged or barrelled sugar ready for the market.

The final product from both cane and beet is practically the same. Pure sugar is pure sugar, whatever its source. In the commercial production, on large scale, there remains a small fraction of mola.s.ses or other harmless substances, indistinguishable by sight, taste, or smell. With that fraction removed and an absolute 100 per cent. secured, there would be no way by which the particular origin could be determined. For all practical purposes, the sugar of commerce, whether from cane or beet, is pure sugar.

It is doubtful if an adulterated sugar can be found in the United States, notwithstanding the tales of the grocer who "sands" his sugar, and of the producer who adds _terra alba_ or some other adulterant. In some countries of Europe and elsewhere, there are sugars of inferior grades, of 85 or 90 or more degrees of sugar purity, but they are known as such and are sold at prices adjusted to their quality. Sugars of that cla.s.s are obtainable in this country, but they are wanted almost exclusively for particular industrial purposes, for their glucose rather than their sucrose content.

The American household, whether the home of the rich or of the poor, demands the well-known white sugar of established purity.

There is still obtainable, in this country, but in limited quant.i.ty, a sugar very pleasantly remembered by many who have reached or pa.s.sed middle age. It was variously known as "Muscovado" sugar, or as "plantation sugar,"

sometimes as "coffee" or "coffee crushed." It was a sugar somewhat sweeter to the taste than the white sugar, by reason of the presence of a percentage of mola.s.ses. It was a superior sugar for certain kitchen products, for pies, certain kinds of cake, etc. It has many times been urged in Congress that the employment of what is known as the Dutch Standard, now abolished, excluded this sugar from our market. This is not at all the fact. The disappearance of the commodity is due solely to change in the mechanical methods of sugar production. It would be quite impossible to supply the world's sugar demand by the old "open kettle" process by which that sugar was made. The quality of sugar is easily tested by any one who has a spoonful of sugar and a gla.s.s of water. If the sugar dissolves entirely, and dissolves without discoloring the water, it may be accepted as a pure sugar.

In his book on _The World's Cane Sugar Industry--Past and Present_, Mr.

H.C. Prinsen Geerligs, a recognized expert authority on the subject, gives an elaborate history of the origin and development of the industry. His chapters on those branches are much too long for inclusion in full, but the following extracts tell the story in general outline. He states that the probability that sugar cane originally came from India is very strong, "as only the ancient literature of that country mentions sugar cane, while we know for certain that it was conveyed (from there) to other countries by travellers and sailors." The plant appears in Hindu mythology. A certain prince expressed a desire to be translated to heaven during his lifetime, but Indra, the monarch of the celestial regions, refused to admit him. A famous Hindu hermit, Vishva Mitra, prepared a temporary paradise for the prince, and for his use created the sugar cane as a heavenly food during his occupation of the place. The abode was afterward demolished, but the delectable plant, and a few other luxuries, were "spread all over the land of mortals as a permanent memorial of Vishva Mitra's miraculous deeds." In the time of Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) there appear tales of "a reed growing in India which produced honey without the aid of bees."

The early references are to sugar cane and not to cane sugar. While there may have been earlier experiences, the history of sugar, as such, seems to begin in the 7th century (A.D.). There is a story that the Chinese Emperor, Tai Tsung (627-650 A.D.) sent people to Behar, in India, to learn the art of sugar manufacture. The Arabs and the Egyptians soon learned how to purify sugar by re-crystallization, and to manufacture sweetmeats from the purified sugar. Marco Polo, who visited China during the last quarter of the 13th Century, refers to "a great many sugar factories in South China, where sugar could be freely bought at low prices." The Mohammedan records of that period also show the manufacture, in India, of crystallized sugar and candy. The area of production at that time covered, generally, the entire Mediterranean coast. The crusaders found extensive plantations in Tripoli, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Syria, and elsewhere. The plant is said to have been introduced in Spain as early as the year 755. Its cultivation is said to have been a flourishing industry there in the year 1150. Through China, it was early extended to j.a.pan, Formosa, and the Philippines. The records of the 14th Century show the production and distribution of sugar as an important commercial enterprise in the Mediterranean region. The Portuguese discoveries of the 15th Century carried the plant to the Azores, the Cape Verde islands, and to possessions in the Gulf of Guinea. The Spaniards took it to the Western Hemisphere in the early years of the 16th Century. The Portuguese took it to Brazil at about the same time. While a Chinese traveller, visiting Java in 424, reports the cultivation of sugar cane, it was not until more than twelve hundred years later that the island, now an important source of sugar supply, began the production of sugar as a commercial enterprise. By the end of the 18th Century there was what might be called a sugar belt, girdling the globe and extending, roughly, from thirty-five degrees north of the equator to thirty-five degrees south of that line. It was then a product of many of the countries within those limits. The supply of that time was obtained entirely from cane.

The early years of the 19th Century brought a new experience in the sugar business. That was the production of sugar, in commercial quant.i.ties, from beets. From that time until now, the commodity has been a political shuttlec.o.c.k, the object of government bounties and the subject of taxation.

In 1747, Herr Marggraf, of the Academy of Sciences, in Berlin, discovered the existence of crystallizable sugar in the juice of the beet and other roots. No practical use was made of the discovery until 1801 when a factory was established near Breslau, in Silesia. The European beet-sugar industry, that has since attained enormous proportions, had its actual beginning in the early years of the 19th Century. It was a result of the Napoleonic wars of that period. When the wars were ended, and the blockades raised, the industry was continued in France by the aid of premiums, differentials, and practically prohibitory tariffs. The activities in other European countries under similar conditions of governmental aid, came a little later. The total world supply of sugar, including cane and beet, less than 1,500,000 tons, even as recently as 1850, seems small in comparison with the world's requirement of about twelve times that quant.i.ty at the present time. The output of beet sugar was then only about 200,000 tons, as compared with a present production of approximately 8,000,000 tons. But sugar was then a costly luxury while it is today a cheaply supplied household necessity. As recently as 1870, the wholesale price of granulated sugar in New York was thirteen and a half cents a pound, or about three times the present average.

Cane sugar is produced in large or small quant.i.ties in some fifty different countries and islands. In many, the output is only for domestic consumption, or in quant.i.ty too small to warrant inclusion in the list of sources of commercial supply. Sixteen countries are included in the list of beet-sugar producers. Of these, all are in Europe with the exception of the United States and Canada. Only two countries, the United States and Spain, produce sugar from both beet and cane. British India leads in the production of cane sugar, with Cuba a close second on the list, and Java the third. In their total, these three countries supply about two-thirds of the world's total output of cane sugar. Hawaii and Porto Rico, in that order, stand next on the list of producers. Under normal conditions, Germany leads in beet-sugar production, with Russia second, Austria-Hungary third, France fourth, and the United States fifth, with Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, and Denmark following. The island of Cuba is the most important source of commercial cane sugar. Immediately before the revolution of 1895, its output a little exceeded a million tons. The derangement caused by that experience covered several years, and it was not until 1903 that so large a crop was again made. Since that time, the output has more than doubled. The increase is attributable to the large increase in demand in the United States, and to the advantage given Cuban sugar in this market by the reciprocity treaty of 1903. Practically all of Cuba's export product is in the cla.s.s commonly known as 96 degree centrifugals, that is, raw sugar of 96 per cent, or thereabout, of sugar content. Under normal conditions, nearly all of Cuba's shipments are to the United States.

The sugar industry was introduced in Cuba very soon after the permanent settlement of the island, by Spaniards, in the early years of the 16th Century, but it was not until two hundred and fifty years later that Spain's restrictive and oppressive colonial policy made even its fair extension possible. In 1760, two and a half centuries after the first settlement, the sugar exports of the island were a little less than 4,400 tons. In 1790, they were a little more than 14,000 tons. Some relaxation of the laws regulating production and exportation, made possible an increase to 41,000 tons in 1802, and further relaxation made possible, in 1850, an output somewhat unreliably reported as 223,000 tons. It reached 632,000 tons in 1890, and the stimulus of the "free sugar" schedule of the United States brought it, in the next few years, to more than a million tons.

Production in recent years has averaged about 2,500,000 tons.

In forty years, only a little more than a single generation, the world's supply of sugar has been multiplied by five, from a little more than three million tons a year to nearly eighteen million tons. The total world output in 1875 would not today supply the demand of the United States alone.

This increase in production has been made possible by improvements in the methods and the machinery of manufacture. Until quite recently, primitive methods were employed, much like those used in the production of maple sugar on the farm, although on larger scale. More attention has been paid to varieties of the plant and some, though no very great, change has been made in field processes. In Cuba, the cane is planted in vast areas, in thousands of acres. Some of the estates plant and cultivate their own fields, and grind the cane in their own mills. Others, known as "_colonos_," are planters only, the crop being sold to the mills commonly called "_centrales_." In its general appearance, a field of sugar-cane looks quite like a field of corn, but the method of cultivation is somewhat different. The slow oxen are still commonly used for plowing and for carts. This is not because of any lack of progressive spirit, but because experience has shown that, under all conditions of the industry, the ox makes the most satisfactory and economical motive power, notwithstanding his lack of pace.

The Encyclopaedia describes sugar-cane as "a member of the gra.s.s family, known botanically as _Saccbarum officinarum_. It is a tall, perennial gra.s.s-like plant, giving off numerous erect stems 6 to 12 feet or more in height, from a thick solid jointed root-stalk." The ground is plowed in rows in which, not seed, but a stalk of cane is lightly buried. The rootlets and the new cane spring from the joints of the planted stalk which is laid flat and lengthwise of the row. It takes from a year to a year and a half for the stalk to mature sufficiently for cutting and grinding.

Several cuttings, and sometimes many, are made from a single planting.

There are tales of fields on which cane has grown for forty years without re-planting. A few years ago, ten or fifteen years was not an unusual period. The present tendency is toward more frequent planting, but not annual, as offering a better chance for stronger cane with a larger sugar content. The whole process of cultivation and field treatment is hard, heavy work, most of it very hard work. Probably the hardest and heaviest is the cutting. This is done with a long, heavy-bladed knife, the _machete_.

The stalk, from an inch to two inches in thickness, is chopped down near the root, the heavy knife swung with cut after cut, under a burning sun.

Only the strongest can stand it, a wearying, back-breaking task. After cutting, the stalk is trimmed and loaded on carts to be hauled, according to distance, either directly to the mill or to the railway running thereto.

The large estates have their own railway systems running to all the fields of the plantation. These are private lines operated only for economy in cane transportation. Most of the crushing mills measure their daily consumption of cane in thousands of tons. While every precaution is taken, there are occasional fires. In planting, wide "fire lanes," or uncultivated strips are left to prevent the spread of fire if it occurs.

Mill installations vary on the different plantations, but the general principle of operation is the same on all. The first process is the extraction of the juice that carries the sugar. It is probable that this was originally done in hand mortars. Next came the pa.s.sing of the cane between wooden rollers turned by ox power, the rollers standing upright and connected with a projecting shaft or beam to the outer end of which the animal was attached, to plod around and around while the cane was fed between the rollers. The present system is merely an expansion of that old principle. At the mill, the stalks are dumped, by carload or by cartload, into a channel through which they are mechanically conveyed to huge rollers, placed horizontally, arranged in pairs or in sets of three, and slowly turned by powerful engines. The larger mills have a series of these rollers, two, three, or even four sets, the stalks pa.s.sing from one to another for the expression of every possible drop of the juice, up to the point where the cost of juice extraction exceeds the value of the juice obtained. The expressed juices are collected in troughs through which they are run to the next operation. The crushed stalks, then known as _baga.s.se_, are conveyed to the huge boilers where they are used as fuel for the generation of the steam required in the various operations, from the feeding and the turning of the rollers, to the device from which the final product, the crystallized sugar, is poured into bags ready for shipment.

All this is a seasonal enterprise. The cane grows throughout the year, but it begins to ripen in December. Then the mills start up and run until the rains of the next May or June suspend further operations. It then becomes impossible to haul the cane over the heavily mired roads from the muddy fields. Usually, only a few mills begin their work in December, and early June usually sees most of them shut down. The beginning of the rainy season is not uniform, and there are mills in eastern Cuba that sometimes run into July and even into August. But the general grinding season may be given as of about five months duration, and busy months they are. The work goes on night and day.

The next step is the treatment of the juices expressed by the rollers and collected in the troughs that carry it onward. The operations are highly technical, and different methods are employed in different mills. The first operation is one of purification. The juice, as it comes from the rollers, carries such materials as glucose, salts, organic acids, and other impurities, that must be removed. For this, lime is the princ.i.p.al agent.

The details of it all would be as tedious here as they are complicated in the mill. The percentages of the different impurities vary with the variation of the soils in which the cane is grown. The next step, following clarification, is evaporation, the boiling out of a large percentage of the water carried in the juice. For this purpose, a vacuum system is used, making possible a more rapid evaporation with a smaller expenditure of fuel. These two operations, clarification and evaporation by the use of the vacuum, are merely improved methods for doing, on a large scale, what was formerly done by boiling in pans or kettles, on a small scale. That method is still used in many parts of the world, and even in the United States, in a small way. For special reasons, it is still used on some of the Louisiana plantations; it is common in the farm production of sorghum mola.s.ses in the South; and in the manufacture of maple sugar in the North. In those places, the juices are boiled in open pans or kettles, the impurities skimmed off as they rise, and the boiling, for evaporation, is continued until a proper consistency is reached, for mola.s.ses in the case of sorghum and for crystallization in the case of plantation and maple sugars. There is an old story of an erratic New England trader, in Newburyport, who called himself Lord Timothy Dexter. In one of his shipments to the West Indies, a hundred and fifty years ago, this picturesque individual included a consignment of "warming pans," shallow metal basins with a cover and a long wooden handle, used for warming beds on cold winter nights. The basin was filled with coals from the fireplace, and then moved about between the sheets to take off the chill. He was not a little ridiculed by his acquaintances for sending such merchandise where it could not possibly be needed, but it is said that he made considerable money out of his enterprise. With the covers removed, the long-handled, shallow basins proved admirably adapted for use in skimming the sugar in the boiling-pans. But the old-fashioned method would be impossible today.

The different operations are too complicated and too technical for more than a reference to the purpose of the successive processes. Clarification and evaporation having been completed, the next step is crystallization, also a complicated operation. When this is done, there remains a dark brown ma.s.s consisting of sugar crystals and mola.s.ses, and the next step is the removal of all except a small percentage of the mola.s.ses. This is accomplished by what are called the centrifugals, deep bowls with perforated walls, whirled at two or three thousand revolutions a minute.

This expels the greater part of the mola.s.ses, and leaves a ma.s.s of yellow-brown crystals, the coloring being due to the mola.s.ses remaining.

This is the raw sugar of commerce. Most of Cuba's raw product is cla.s.sed as "96 degree centrifugals," that is, the raw sugar, as it comes from the centrifugal machines and is bagged for shipment, is of 96 degrees of sugar purity. This is shipped to market, usually in full cargo lots. There it goes to the refineries, where it is melted, clarified, evaporated, and crystallized. This second clarification removes practically everything except the pure crystallized sugar of the market and the table. It is then an article of daily use in every household, and a subject of everlasting debate in Congress.