thoughtcriminal
28th February 2003, 00:23
http://web.usf.edu/~lc/MOOs/cuba/martimon.htm
Jose Marti
Unfinished letter to Manuel Mercado, Dos Rios, Cuba, May 18, 1895
My dearest brother:
Now I can write, now I can tell you how tenderly and gratefully and respectfully I love you and that home which I consider my pride and responsibility. I am in daily danger of giving my life for my country and duty, for I understand that duty and have the courage to carry it out - the duty of preventing the United States from spreading through the Antilles as Cuba gains its independence, and from overpowering with that additional strength our lands of America. All I have done so far, and all I will do, is for this purpose. I have had to work quietly and somewhat indirectly, because to achieve certain objectives, they must be kept under cover; to proclaim them for what they are would raise such difficulties that the objectives could not be realized.
The same general and lesser duties of these nations - nations such as yours and mine that are most vitally concerned with preventing the opening in Cuba (by annexation on the part of the imperialists from there and the Spaniards) of the road that is to be closed, and is being closed with our blood, annexing our American nations to the brutal and turbulent north which despises them - prevented their apparent adherence and obvious assistance to this sacrifice made for their immediate benefit.
I have lived in the monster and I know its entrails; my sling is David's. At this very moment - well, some days ago - amid the cheers of victory with which the Cubans saluted our free departure from the mountains where the six men of our expeditions walked for fourteen days, a correspondent from the Herald, who tore me out of the hammock in my hut, told me about the annexationist movement. . . They are satisfied merely that there be a master - Yankee or Spanish - to support them or reward their services as go-between with positions of power enabling them to scorn the hardworking masses - the country's halfbreeds, skilled and pathetic, the intelligent and creative hordes of Negroes and white men. . .
I am doing my duty here. The Cuban war, a reality of higher priority than the vague and scattered desires of the Cuban and Spanish annexationists, whose alliance with the Spanish government would only give them relative power, has come to America in time to prevent Cuba's annexation to the United States, even against all those freely used forces. The United States will never accept from a country at war, nor can it incur, the hateful and absurd commitment of discouraging, on its account and with its weapons, an American war of independence, for the war will not accept annexation
Our America : writings on Latin America and the struggle for Cuban independence / by José Martí ; translated by
Elinor Randall, with additional translations by Juan de Onis and Roslyn Held Foner ; edited, with an introd. and notes by Philip S. Foner
Jose Marti
Unfinished letter to Manuel Mercado, Dos Rios, Cuba, May 18, 1895
My dearest brother:
Now I can write, now I can tell you how tenderly and gratefully and respectfully I love you and that home which I consider my pride and responsibility. I am in daily danger of giving my life for my country and duty, for I understand that duty and have the courage to carry it out - the duty of preventing the United States from spreading through the Antilles as Cuba gains its independence, and from overpowering with that additional strength our lands of America. All I have done so far, and all I will do, is for this purpose. I have had to work quietly and somewhat indirectly, because to achieve certain objectives, they must be kept under cover; to proclaim them for what they are would raise such difficulties that the objectives could not be realized.
The same general and lesser duties of these nations - nations such as yours and mine that are most vitally concerned with preventing the opening in Cuba (by annexation on the part of the imperialists from there and the Spaniards) of the road that is to be closed, and is being closed with our blood, annexing our American nations to the brutal and turbulent north which despises them - prevented their apparent adherence and obvious assistance to this sacrifice made for their immediate benefit.
I have lived in the monster and I know its entrails; my sling is David's. At this very moment - well, some days ago - amid the cheers of victory with which the Cubans saluted our free departure from the mountains where the six men of our expeditions walked for fourteen days, a correspondent from the Herald, who tore me out of the hammock in my hut, told me about the annexationist movement. . . They are satisfied merely that there be a master - Yankee or Spanish - to support them or reward their services as go-between with positions of power enabling them to scorn the hardworking masses - the country's halfbreeds, skilled and pathetic, the intelligent and creative hordes of Negroes and white men. . .
I am doing my duty here. The Cuban war, a reality of higher priority than the vague and scattered desires of the Cuban and Spanish annexationists, whose alliance with the Spanish government would only give them relative power, has come to America in time to prevent Cuba's annexation to the United States, even against all those freely used forces. The United States will never accept from a country at war, nor can it incur, the hateful and absurd commitment of discouraging, on its account and with its weapons, an American war of independence, for the war will not accept annexation
Our America : writings on Latin America and the struggle for Cuban independence / by José Martí ; translated by
Elinor Randall, with additional translations by Juan de Onis and Roslyn Held Foner ; edited, with an introd. and notes by Philip S. Foner