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Oldtime newshawks grinned reminiscently as the week progressed. Day by day the revolution seemed to be following the "Cuba Libre" insurrection of 1895 which led to the blowing up of the Maine and U. S. intervention. Last week, as in 1895, the insurrectos were split up into dozens of little bands, raiding, ambushing, running away to raid again somewhere else. Last week as in 1895 a stiff press censorship was clamped down on war news. Foreign correspondents were not allowed to leave Havana and spent their time like the late Richard Harding Davis collecting news from cafe tables on O'Reilly St.
In the U. S., of the great figures of the Spanish-American War only William Randolph Hearst, who headlined the country into war, and the Lindbergh of 1898, Richmond Pearson Hobson who sank the Merrimac in the mouth of Santiago harbor, are alive (Hero Hobson is now a Prohibition and antinarcotic lecturer— TIME, March 2). All the others— Roosevelt, Dewey, Shafter, Leonard Wood, Sampson. Schley, even Col. William Jennings Bryan of the Nebraska Volunteers —have died. Cuban revolutionists live longer. President Machado, General Menocal and Colonel Mendieta are all veterans of Cuba's War of Independence. Even Cosme de la Torriente, Cuba's grave member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, suddenly remembered his youth as an officer under Garcia and wrote violent articles last week, throwing his lot in with the new insurrectos.
Death of a Warrior. It was a last revolution for one old fighter, General Francisco Peraza. Even 1895 was no novelty for intrepid General Peraza, who was then 44 years old. He was a 17-year-old "Colonel" in the first war for independence in 1868. He fought through the Spanish-American War as a General. In 1917 he buckled on his ancient horse pistol and went out as a rebel against President Menocal. For this revolution he had made peace with Menocal and joined his forces, partly through a mutual hatred of Machado the Rooster, and partly because —Que Diablo!—a good revolution doesn't come every day. Federal troops cornered the white-haired old warrior near Los Palacios in Pinar del Rio. He escaped to the hills on horseback with 22 followers. Again there was a traitor. The Federals followed to Peraza's secret camp on Toro Hill. There was a rush, a rattle of musketry. Ten were shot where they lay, ten were captured, two escaped. The old man reached for his rifle and fell with three bullets in him. So rough was the trail that it took 18 hours to carry the old fighter's body five miles to the nearest village. Up and down the length of Cuba went another story. General Peraza, veteran of four wars, had been killed by one of his own men.