The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1881-04-21
THE NEW MEXICO.

hC AAAAC 1OA PViAbANoA
every Sunday afternoon in our sister
Republic is ended. The brohing of |
incas. the expulsion of dictators and |
the before breakfast pastime Of
shooting empefors are among the |
things that were. Mexico has pass
ed through many vicissitudes,
away back through a dimn vista,
from the ancient purity and great |
ness ofthe Aztec race down through
a period of Spanish invasion, and
then through amalgamation and
mediocrity and decay and anarchy,
until at last, startled somewhat by
the shock of a new Americanism,
and then aroused by the presump-
ton of European kings, it held itself
in poise, revived, and is to-day putting
on a new existence, which promises
to make it, even within q generation,
one of the important powers, or
component part of the most power
full power on the faceeof the globe.
Strange it is, but true, however. that
war is one of the most civilizing of
influences, and yet under certain
conditions it is often the
most brutalizing and degrad-
, ing, Mexico has ever derived
profitable lessons from its wars with
foreign civilized powers, while its
civil strifes have degraded its ma
tionality, and produced among its
masses the most wretched and the
most impoverished people on earth.
Since the victorious armies of the
United States swept over its terri
tory in 1847, when the dictatorship
of Santa Anna ended, when the
country was humiliated by tyr
amy at home and by vic
tory from abroad, the magnificent
wealth of its undeveloped mines,
the productiveness of its soil and its
luxuriant pastures have been COW
eted by foreigners, and the oppor-
tunity only was awaited for our
capitalists to inaugurate system
of acquisition beyond the Rio
Grande, destined to revolutionize
Mexico. But this is no revolution
marked by pronunciamento, and the
rattle of musketry and the ballot of
beans; it is signalized by more studied
plans and more expensive and more
decided ends-contracts secured by
financial giants, the roar of iron
Transports and by the final execution
of the bond, where no adroit judge,
like Portia, may stipulate an avoid
ance of the forfeit. Mexico is begin
ming to pass through its greatest
revolution, which, when ended, will
have placed it in the hands
of q new people, whether under 6
new or an old form of government
1t can as much stand the pressure o.
these forces, now laying gentle
hands upou it, as though at thu
mercy of n thousand cOnquerorI
like Cortez. This is to be {
quiet revolution, attained NOR
rapidly than many would i'm
agine. 1t is progressing witt
every mile of railway that capita
from the United States lay
down across its territory. The ploy
and the scraper and drill opens tn
way for the march of the iron horse
and in his wake tens and hundred
of thousands and millions of hard.
, people will follow, not to become th'
; subjects of Mexico and of Mexicans
/ as they are, but to create for them
: selves government of their own o
to engraft the new upon an old one
= The history of the coming
Mexico will be similar to that o
Texas, excepting that money will d'
what bravery, and bloodshed AM
privation accomplished; and yet
may be best, unless we have a nev
born government at home, that tn
new Mexico follow not the cours
of Texas in all things.