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The Picturesque in the War: Excellency

The interview proceeded as follows, under the usual common consent that it was not an interview, a little finesse of the exalted officials in many lands. "Your Excellency," I said, through my interpreter, "the American women have a very bad opinion of you. I am very much afraid of you myself, but I have come to ask the honor of an interview with you, in order that I may write something which will reassure the women of America that you are not treating women and children unmercifully."

The general smiled. "I do not give interviews," he said. "I am willing, however, to answer any question you wish to ask."

So it was with this understanding that we conversed. The general has allowed me to have the conversation published. "In the United States," I said, "an impression prevails that your edict shutting out newspaper correspondents from the field is only to conceal cruelties perpetrated upon the insurgent prisoners. Will your Excellency tell me the real cause?" "I have," replied the general, "shut out the Spanish and Cuban papers from the field, as well as the Americans. In the last war the correspondents created much jealousy by what they wrote. They praised one and rebuked the other. They wrote what their passions dictated instead of facts. They even created ill feeling between the Spanish officers. They are a nuisance." "Then I can deny the stories that have been published as to your being cruel?" The general shrugged his heavy shoulders as he said, carelessly: "I have no time to pay attention to stories. Some of them are true, and some are not. If you will particularize, I will give direct answers; but these things are not important." "Does not your Excellency think that prisoners of war should be treated with consideration and mercy?"