The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-01-08
THEIR IDOL SHATTERED
The Porto Ricans Have Opened
Their Eyes.
IT WAS A SAD AWAKENING
American Troops and Adventures Have
Shattered an Idol-They Have
All Tried to Do the
Dagos.

correspondence of the Associated Press
San Juan, Porto Rico, Dec. 1.-THE
Porto Rican business man is of keen
intelligence and of quick perceptions.
His relations in the past have been
largely with old established and relia-
Bile European concerns and to-day he is
making comparisons between the 'pio-
ne4rs of American commerce" VINO
with baggage and sample trunk are
daily landing upon the shores of his
island home, and the business men of
the continent whom he has known in
the past. The result of this keen scru-
tiny and comparison is not overwhelm-
ingly favorable to the American pioneer;
it has, in fact, brought into life the old
Spanish word buscones. Buscar, to
hunt, to seek; buscones, hunters, seek
ers, adventures. and some even say the
term means cheats and pilferers.
The Porto Rican is hard to fool Be-
cause his island is in a far-aWay corner
OF the West Indies, the location of which
had only lately become known to the
| majority of Americans not in schools,
and because he has lived quietly at
nome and attended to the business and
pleasures OF community of some $780,
ooo people, he is none the less a pretty
| good Judge of men and manners. The
Americans who are to-day in evidence
upon this island have been weighed
and found wanting
commercially we are making the
same mistake here that we have al
| ready made in another Latin American
country and that has been to underesti-
mate the intelligence, the perception
and the culture of the business men
thereof.
AS the Porto Rican is quick to detect
the roughness, the bad manners, the
lack OF courtesy, the receptions and the
| guile or some of his recent visitors, so
is ne equally quick to perceive contrary
qualities in others among them. On the
first points he Is perhaps oversensitive
| ana may be said to fail in appreciation
OF the rough diamond. On the other
hand, there are qualities present in the
AnSlo-SaXon gentleman of breeding
that are as incomprehensible to the men
OF this capital as is the idea of cold and
snow to the ignorant laborer of this
tropical island
In the beginning, the Porto Rican
oVerestlmated us, and part of the
awakening he is now experiencing is a
natural reaction. In the beginning the
pest IN the way of government civiliza-
tlon, advancement, education, manners
ana commerce. Our country and its in
stltutions was looked up to by the
masses IN a way that is difficult to I'M
derstand to-day. Americans fresh from
the states We're regarded as almost SUI
peflor beings; when we landed here be-
fore the war the islanders invested us
with a glamor of the wonders in wash
lngton and New York that we had but
recently gazed upon. Anything and ey-
erythlng American was considered to he
pre-emlnently the best of it's kind. In
the beginning our welcome was based
upon these conceptions. It was thought
that the passing of Spain and the ac-
ceptance of the stars and stripes would
carry with it some magical influence
from the great country up north, suffi-
Client in itself to put an end to all that
was unjust and wrong and to straight
en- out the affairs of this unhappy ISL
and as with a fairy'S wand From this
unreal mental attitude there has come
the consequential awakening, which
mas been furthered and forced to the
other extreme by the representatives of
the United States who are now in evil
dence in Porto Rico.
The misbehavior of the American
troops came first. 1t was disappointinp
TO discover that the saviors of the
coently pehaVed with unmistakable
rowdyism This was hardly in acc1r,l-
ance with preconceived ideas. But the
msdemeanors seemed to continue, and
although we found many staunch de-
tenders, men and women, too, who said
that it was unfair to judge an army bv
the actions of some few of it's soldiers
ana much more unjust to judge a peo-
pie by volunteer soldiers recruited from
the lower and worse classes; that SOL
ion
for their gentle manners, that things
would soon be better, etc Talk nf ,,1Ir
undlsclplined troops prevailed in the To-
cal papers and examples of their mis-
dolngs We're printed and repeated by
word of mouth. Some men reasoned
that these actions were in truth no fair
criterion of a people; such men could
perceive the self-respecting men in fine
army. In a way that was pathetic be-
cause of its ill-concealed disappoint-
ment a Wellknown local paper argued
for fair judgment and the refraining
from hasty and unjust general criti-
clsm. Some natives saw the matter in
TINS light, but the majorit-- did not; the
majority judged the army and the
country by the acts of the few and the
mal-reputation of our soldiers grew
apace. The pendulum swung back too
far in the other direction-this is a
country and a language of exaggerated
WordS-and the army got worse than it
deserved. Still there was much truth
in the many assertions. A gentleman
of the writer's acquaintance. 80 years
resident of Ponce and a man of Gull
ture, education and much knowledge of
our country and Europe said that he
had lived in Porto Rico during many
troubled years and under many modes
OF administration; that he had always
avoided politics and attended quietly to
his profession of doctor and that dur
ing all his residence here life had not
seemed impossible. But that now 1t
did In the past his family had always
been able to attend mass, to walk on
the plaza of a Sunday evening and to
sit out on their porch, which is on the
second floor, without molestation of any
KIND from any one. But that now his
daughters could not even sit at their
own windows without being subjected
to insults, much less go on the streets
Consequently his family were as pris-
oners within the walls of their own
home and it was his firm intention to
remove himself and them to a country
where such things did not prevail.
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