he sufferers. This did a great deal of good, but all the
poor people could not be reached and they continued to die. Finally,
the United States told Spain that she ought not to have such a cruel
man at the head of affairs, and after a while Spain sent another
general to take his place. This new governor's name was Blanco, and he
really tried to help the poor people, but Spain had very little money
to send him to buy food for them, and so they went on dying. The
soldiers, too, were in a very bad condition; they had not been paid
for a great many months; they did not have enough to eat, and so they
too sickened and died by thousands. You can see that unless something
was done to help the poor people, they would all die and their
beautiful island would become a wilderness.

Besides being very proud, Spain was very poor. She had spent millions
of dollars trying to conquer the islanders, and had no money to buy
food for the sufferers that she had driven from their homes and
huddled like cattle in yards and gloomy inclosures. So she asked the
United States to help feed them, and the Red Cross Society, of which I
will tell you later, sent hundreds of tons of food, medicines and
clothing to them. These supplies were distributed by competent
persons, and the relief was very great, but very soon some of the
Spaniards began to say that the United States had no business to
interfere in the affairs of the island, and to stir up the people.
The feeling became so strong that our representative, Consul-General
Lee, notified the authorities in the United States that, the lives and
property of American citizens living in the island were not safe. It
was for this reason that the battleship Maine was sent to Havana, the
chief city of the island. I will tell you about this ship later.

[Illustration: President McKinley.]

Well, in spite of all that the United States had done to help Spain,
matters grew worse, and finally the United States was obliged to tell
Spain that, unless she took her soldiers away from the island and let
the people govern themselves, she would help them to become a free and
independent nation. When Spain received this message, she regarded it
as a declaration of war, and both sides prepared for the conflict.

But before telling you about the war, shall I tell you something about
the island and the group to which it belongs?

[Illustration: Map of the West Indies.]

The island is called Cuba. It belongs to a larg