Santiago de Cuba

I had the opportunity to visit there in 1996 on a religious mission.

And I traveled everywhere from Havana across the country to Santiago de Cuba near Guantanamo.

Wonderful people who are living in desperate situations.

But I could see the tourism market being rejuvenated, investments being made.

So there was a family connection to family members who were still there.

I went down with a group of 25 Americans.

It was a Religious mission, I would call it was called the Cuban Jewish Aid Society and we brought religious and medical aid and supplies to the various synagogues that were spotted through the island from to in Havana all the way across to Camagüey, Cienfuegos and on to Santiago de Cuba and what impressed upon me was that taking aside the government part and looking at the MIG jets in exhibition and, and the military portion of it, the people themselves were beautiful people.

They were warm.

Like what the rhythm was, how to play it.

There's other groups that are very, very important that I have to mention, like La Monumental, and many groups from Santiago de Cuba.

But I'm gonna focus on Van Van because they have so many recordings.

Yeah.

The Rough Riders by Theodore Roosevelt, 1899.

On behalf of the Rough Riders, I dedicate this book to the officers and men of the five regular regiments which together with mine made up the cavalry division at Santiago.

Chapter 1, Part 1, Raising the Regiment.

During the year preceding the outbreak of the Spanish War, I was Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

In the Northwest, I had spent much of my time for many years either on my ranch or in long hunting trips and had lived and worked for months together with the cowboy and the mountain hunter, faring in every way precisely as they did.

Secretary Alger offered me the command of one of these regiments.

If I had taken it, being entirely inexperienced in military work, I should not have known how to get it equipped most rapidly, for I should have spent valuable weeks in learning its needs, with the result that I should have missed the Santiago campaign and might not even have had the consolation prize of going to Puerto Rico.

Fortunately, I was wise enough to tell the Secretary that while I believed I could learn to command the regiment in a month, that it was just this very month which I could not afford to spare, and that therefore I would be quite content to go as Lieutenant Colonel if he would make Wood Colonel.

He is almost well now.

and who ever heard of yellow fever running its course in less than twelve hours besides this patient's wife was very ill also the first part of the night and her symptoms were entirely unlike those of the man and aside from extreme exhaustion partly consequent upon her fright she is now quite recovered the others had listened with grave attention and confirmatory nods their experiences had been quite similar no one could offer any solution of the difficulties involved so after a thoughtful silence they separated and went to their homes later in the day the doctors returned to the court and all the patients were found to be doing well if physicians had not been so promptly summoned it seemed probable that several would have died but as it was they all made a good recovery and only one or two were confined to their beds after the first day these two were women and had been badly frightened the doctors carefully questioned all the patients and compared notes afterwards but nothing essential was elicited the water supply was the same as the entire city had the families dealt with different tradesmen and there was no one item of diet that had been indulged in by all the families in the court the doctors were as much in the dark at the end of their investigations as at the beginning a year went by one day a doctor who had been working with great success among the yellow fever patients at santiago de cuba after the surrender using remedies of his own returned to the city wherein dudley court is situated for arrest calling upon his old friends in the profession he found himself one evening seated in the study of dr macleod in company with the young doctor from the south and giving them the history of his cuban campaign that form of treatment for yellow jack is your own isn't it inquired the young doctor interestedly

where did you get it on to the idea

right here in this city replied the doctor from cuba with a smile oh professor krebs gave me the idea with his search after that universal germ destroyer he has been trying to find for years past he had a laboratory over on the south side till about a year ago and used to inoculate all sorts of animals with all the diseases of which he could procure the germ cultures then when he had a well-advanced case of the disease under investigation on hand He would dose it with his germ destroyer and kill it off.

It is hard to take the lottery seriously, for the day when it was worthy of abuse has passed away, and indeed there are few men or measures so important as to deserve abuse, while there is no measure if it be for good so insignificant that it is not deserving the exertion of a good word or a line of praise and gratitude.

And only the emotion one can feel for the lottery now is the pity which you might have experienced for William M. Tweed when, as a fugitive from justice, he sat on the beach at Santiago de Cuba and watched a naked fisherman catch his breakfast for him beyond the first line of breakers, or that you might feel for Monte Carlo, were it to be exiled to a fever-stricken island off the swampy coast of West Africa, or to pay the lottery a very high compliment indeed, that which you give to that noble adventurer exiled to the Isle of Elba.

There was something almost pathetic to me in the sight of this great, arrogant gambling scheme that had in its day brought the good name of a state into disrepute, that had boasted of the prices it paid for the honor of men, and that had robbed a whole nation, willing to be robbed, spinning its wheel in the back room in a hot, half-barbarous country, and to an audience of gaping Indians and unwashed Honduran generals.

Sooner than fall as low as that, it would seem to be better to fall altogether, to own that you are beaten, that the color has gone against you too often, and like that honorable gambler and gentleman, Mr. John Oakhurst, who struck a streak of bad luck above the middle of February 1864, to put a pistol to your head and go down as arrogantly and defiantly as you had lived.

He is almost well now.

and who ever heard of yellow fever running its course in less than twelve hours besides this patient's wife was very ill also the first part of the night and her symptoms were entirely unlike those of the man and aside from extreme exhaustion partly consequent upon her fright she is now quite recovered the others had listened with grave attention and confirmatory nods their experiences had been quite similar no one could offer any solution of the difficulties involved so after a thoughtful silence they separated and went to their homes later in the day the doctors returned to the court and all the patients were found to be doing well if physicians had not been so promptly summoned it seemed probable that several would have died but as it was they all made a good recovery and only one or two were confined to their beds after the first day these two were women and had been badly frightened the doctors carefully questioned all the patients and compared notes afterwards but nothing essential was elicited the water supply was the same as the entire city had the families dealt with different tradesmen and there was no one item of diet that had been indulged in by all the families in the court the doctors were as much in the dark at the end of their investigations as at the beginning a year went by one day a doctor who had been working with great success among the yellow fever patients at santiago de cuba after the surrender using remedies of his own returned to the city wherein dudley court is situated for a rest calling upon his old friends in the profession he found himself one evening seated in the study of dr mcleod in company with the young doctor from the south and giving them the history of his cuban campaign that form of treatment for yellow jack is your own isn't it inquired the young doctor interestedly where

did you get it on to the idea

right here in this city replied the doctor from cuba with a smile old professor krebs gave me the idea with his search after that universal germ destroyer he has been trying to find for years past he had a laboratory over on the south side till about a year ago and used to inoculate all sorts of animals with all the diseases of which he could procure the germ cultures then when he had a well-advanced case of the disease under investigation on hand he would dose it with his germ destroyer and kill it off he never managed to kill the disease without also killing the animal as long as i knew him i got some yellow fever cultures from him experimented and you know my success where is professor krebs now inquired dr mcleod he is in vienna replied the other with a laugh it won't do the old fellow any harm to tell on him now but i guess i am the only one who knows why he abruptly left this country after he had asserted that he meant to make it his permanent home you see the old fellow was a trifle careless with his experiment and got a great fright in consequence his laboratory opened on a garden back of his house and he kept the animals in a sort of glorified chicken house there was half chicken house and half hot house in the garden it used to have all sorts of small animals and birds there for as you know some animals are not susceptible to certain diseases at all well one time about a year ago he had just killed off a stock of animals restocked the place with a new lot of healthy animals inoculated them with the diseases that did best with each variety of animal or bird and was waiting for the diseases to develop i think he told me he had cholera yellow fever smallpox tetanus and that queer disease from india but the patient turned a beautiful blue at any rate some enterprising chicken thief climbed the professor's fence one night and carried off the whole menagerie the professor was sure enough he had started several hopeful epidemics and in fear and remorse he left for vienna as soon as he could get out of town dr mcleod was just asking if anything had been heard of the thief or his plunder when the young doctor sprang up with an excited exclamation dr mcleod looked at him with mild surprise what's the matter with you ed he asked the young man spoke up excitedly