The herald., 1896-10-12

haciendado's Gland owner's) truck store.
On the hacienda the peon gets from IS
to 30 cents per day for his work and
hut to live in, if he builds it himself. The
peon gets no money except on feast days
and for religious offerings. BY this sys-
tenn he is always in debt to the hacien-
dado. This form of slavery has been
forbidden for number of years, but
two-thirds of the poems do not know It,
as they can neither read nor write and
their masters take good care not to teach
them this fact.
Organized labor is unknown here,
which Is considered a great blessing.
But the country today that has the best
system of trade organizations and the
greater number of union men per cap
ita of it's population is the foremost in
wealth, progress and happiness Of its
people.
The cry is raised that there are no
poorhouses in Mexico, but that is no in
dication Of the absence of poverty, as
your committee can fully testify without
fear Of contradiction, as the voice of the
mendicant supplicating aims rang in
our ears all through the country.
In the cities of Zacatecas and GUIANA
juato, with populations of 10000 and TO-
900, respectively, we failed to get butter
and potatoes on the tables of the best
hotels. On inquiry we were informed
that if we paid 81 pound for butter it
would be purchased and kept for our
exclusive use.
Your committee would caution Amer
lean workmen against going to Mexico
without sufficient funds to bring them
back or to have employment secured be-
fore going there, or they will be obliged
to subsist on cactus and the sap of the
tequla plant, while doing the country.
On asking an American who was con-
Quoting a prosperous business in one Of
the cities which your committee visited
why it was that the foreigners all SEEM
ed to be making money no matter what
business they were engaged in, he, with
characteristic Yankee frankness, re-
piled: "The laborer here is different
from the laborer in the states. Here Ia
Dor is cheap and we have no brains to
contend WITH
The mission entrusted to your COM
mittee is a peculiar one. We were sent
to study the social and financial condi-
tions of far away people. We are plain
toilers, Injured to the hard knocks of the
factory and the workshop and none are
better qualified to investigate or to feel
and sympathize with the workers Of an
other country than men FROM our. ranks.
We did not go loaded with credentials,
to be entertained by the people of the
better classes, nor yet as scholars to
describe the monuments of historic In
terest, nor to have our poetic fancies in
spired by the landscape and serene skies,
nor build up wasted energies in the
healthful air of that southern cline, but
to go among the common people, who are
of our own class, and, study conditions
from that standpoint. Hence this epis-
tie does not abound in high sounding
platitudes on the sublime and beautiful
of that country, but on facts that still
exist and are ready to speak for them
selves to those who will go and seek as
we have done. Should they do so they
will feel as we do, that the American
workingman is a prince compared to
the workingman of Mexico. That in
this country all stand equal in social and
political life and in that political right
they should exercise with care the faith
full discharge of their duties unpreju-
diced and unbiased, by supporting such
principles as will do the greatest good
to the greatest number, irrespective of
party politics or the machinery OF either
party who may manipulate conditions
and measures for personal gain to the
detriment of the whole people.
(Signed) p ]. MAAS.
PATRICK ENRIGHT.
Committee.