It was during this year that Weyler's ever infamous "concentration" policy, which was really a policy of extermination, reached its infernal climax and was then repudiated and abandoned. This system, as already related, was decreed on October 21, 1896. It required all Cubans, men, women and children, to leave their homes in the rural regions and enter concentration camps. These were simply huge pens, enclosed with fences and barbed wire and guarded by Spanish soldiers. There the hapless prisoners were huddled together, without shelter from the elements, and with little or no food save such as could be procured by stealth. There was none to be had within the enclosures, of course, and the prisoners could not go out to get any, even if any was to be found in the devastated country around them. Their friends outside seldom dared approach the camps to bring them food, because as they had not themselves surrendered as commanded by Weyler, they were liable to be shot at sight. Elsewhere Cubans by thousands were driven into towns and cities which were still under Spanish control, and were there kept prisoners within the Spanish lines. They were not quite so badly off as those in the concentration camps, though the difference was not great. They had no means of obtaining food, save as the municipal authorities, more merciful than Weyler, opened "soup kitchens" and thus in charity kept some of them from starvation. As it was the mortality from starvation, disease and exposure was appalling. As it was reported that many of these sufferers were American citizens, the President of the United States asked Congress to appropriate $50,000 for their relief. This was done, and the sum was sent to the Consul-General at Havana. He was, however, able to reach only a small proportion of the sufferers, and thus was presently compelled to report that he had been unable to expend more than a fraction of the sum at his disposal. This monstrous policy of waging war against non-combatants, including women and children, did more perhaps than anything else to crystallize public opinion throughout the United States against Weyler and against the Spanish government which he represented and which was responsible for him, and to strengthen the demand that was being made for intervention in behalf of humanity.