Arizona republican., 1898-07-10

"I told the old man all the latest news from Santiago de Cuba, but he simply replied: Well, the next feller that gets along this way may tell me something entirely different
 "At another place I asked whether anyone from their region had enliste' The reply was: Bless you, no. A fev of the young fellows went to town tu enlist. But they had to wait so long and almost beg to be taken that they came home saying they'd be damned if they'd list like that. So they ddn't go. Maybe nobody went. They did at first, but not now. It's too far away. We have to wait too long and then ain't sure of what we hear
 At another crossroad, where sev eral farmers were talking about a new harvester, I asked whether they had heard anything new from the seat of war. They looked in doubt and answered they had not One of them asked, What warp Finally the old est of the trio said: We can't talk much about war with strangers. Them names down in Cuba are stickers. The other day talked to an agent about Commodore Shelly, and he told me it was Sly, not Shelly, and he showed me the name was spelled Schley. We can't remember them Cuban names at all, and them Spanish ships that Dewey sunk, and that Cervera had and that Camara took to Suez, they are Deliberations. No, no one listed from this district
 "At a carpet weaver's humble home on the outskirts of a mountain village the housewife at the fence hailed me. asking, Say, is it true that there's a warp I said yes. Look she ans wered. Henry Boyer's boy was along here yesterday and he allowed he had heard that the war had broke out again. I explained to the woman what this war was, when she said, We are getting a paper, but indeed we have been so busy the past few months that we haven't had time to take the wrappers off yet. Flour has gone up they say, but wheat has gone down. Flour is always last to fall when anything goes on. My father sold his mules at a good price. They said the war caused mules to go up.'
 Another old mountainside farmer said: I don't believe there's war, and will not believe it until I see a uniform. I remember when the war of '61 was first reported. I would not believe it. At last I saw Jimmy Becker, who used to go on sprees very much, coming down the road in a blue uniform. He was rolling drunk, and said he had listed. We'll, he fwent off and stayed off, and then l begin to realize there was a war. have not yet seen any uniforms for the Spanish war. Yes I read the pa fpers, but I would like to see for my bself whether the army is called out. None of our neighbor boys have listed vet. There is no draft. and no de- mand for soldiers about here.'
 "In the days of '61 newspapers were publicly read at the blacksmith shops, shoemaker shops, country stores, etc., before whole crowd, and people in the back country districts were ex- cited. Ths is not the case now. It may become more exciting as time passes, but there is very little about it thus far among the back country far mers. Not that they are not shrewd and intelligent and of good common sense. Only the first ripples of the war wave have hardly awakened them to the full realization that the United States is really at war with Spain"