The San Francisco call., 1909-02-23
~MANANA" HABIT CHIEF OBSTACLE

for the company
s.MANANA" HABIT CHIEF OBSTACLE
But scratch them deep and you will
find their evaporation with the ma
mana habit and with many petty Off
cial exactions 1t takes time, red
tape and much law to accomplish any
thing unless you can deal directly with
Diaz or use sum of money in polite
manner in the right place.
The omnipresent labor problem is
complicated by something besides
unions, for the Mexican will work only
when it pleases him. Nothing must
interfere with any saints day or ma
tional holiday or any holiday of his
own choosing. If he does not care to
go to work in the morning he does not
go. His grandmother is always dying
by way of excuse.
II have one clerk who has lost a
hundred grandmothers," said an Ameri-
can mine manager DO you wonder
that Diaz allowed the Mormons to prac-
tice their religion in MeXico|
Some mines have tried, with little
success. to insure continuity Of labor
by giving extra pay to any man who
would report for every working day OF
a month.
IF you want a gang of men you dc
not go after them yourself" railroad
contractor told me. You speak to the
comandante. He sends out certain
type of political rufflan hanger on, who
knows the poems and can bring them
to work where you would fail. Then
you pay them so much for every tie
laid and so much for every cubic yard
Of excavation. Some days you may
have 500 men and some only a hun
dred. One Italian at home will do as
much as four poems" But that is a
much disputed point. l have heard the
italian as a standard quoted all the way
from one and a half to five. Much ce-
pends upon the conditions and how pro-
Mexican the speaker is.
If there is any labor saving device
you may be sure that it is American
An American, finding that one woman
was necessary for every eight labor
ers in order to grind corn fresh for
their tortillas, invented a system by
which mill ground corn -four could be
preserved to the Mexican taste.
The ingenious fellow who carries his
wares in a satchel and his fortune in
his facile tongue may sell an internal
preparation for making black eyes
blue in Mexico and an external prepa-
"a ton for taking the kink out of black
hair in the West Indies. That glorious
American product, the get rich quick
promoter, once found a fertile field for
the home market of widows and or
phans savings in plantations, but of
late business has been bad. Waste
your money in any way you please,
but do not put it in rubber planta-
ton in Mexico. Rubber grows here,
it is true, though not as yet success
fully, and never on the plantations you
read about.
AMERICANS DOMINATE
All types from the railroad and the
mine president to the deadbeat may be
found abundantly in the City Of Mex
leo, which is different from any place
the world over where Europeans and
Americans form a colony among q
backward native race. Elsewhere the
American sings small and the newspa-
pers carry ca ables about cricket and
European politics. Both of the news
papers in the English language here
are American. We have our revenge
on the English resident in daily base
ball scores, Wall street prices and the
latest sensation from home.
American residents live chiefly in one
locality, the CoIonia Roma. They are
a world within the Mexican world, that
duplicates the business and profes-
sional life of one Of our own cities.
score Of social cliques gossip and COM
pete All have one common ground
that makes them kin: The tourist OF
the winter months, who disregards
Spanish customs and demands that
everybody speak English. Visitors
who have been in Spain should train
themselves out Of the Castilian lisp. fol
Diaz is not Diath to the MeXicans
Diath is as sure sign of effeminaey
as the broad "a and one eyeglass in
Goldheld. New.
In the halls of the happy little Uni
versity club hang the banners of every
American college, it seemed to me
from coast to coast. Graduates OF
technical and mining schools predomi-
nate A flight of half an hour in ar
automobile brings you to the Country
club, with its golf links. on that won
derful plain Z 400 feet above the leve
of the sea- at the foot of Popocatapet
and Ixtaccihuatl and their eterna
SHOWS.
At the American club in town a
luncheon the talk is much the same
that 1t is I'm a club at home. 1t turn:
frequently on real estate, which has
risen almost as fast as in our bes
boom towns in the last 10 years
Everybody seems to be holding a few
lots for a rise. The panic, reaching
this tentacle's end OF the great finan
cial system a little late, struck the
boom hard.
ALL LOOK FORWARD To RETURN
Mexico has brought fortune to man,
Americans indeed; to newsboys and t(
brakemen; and every American looks
forward TO returning home when his
pile is made. / met only one Ameri-
can citizen who purposes remaining in
Mexico for life. Another conspicuous
exception, proving the rule, was Mr.
Braniff, who made himself a million.
aire out Of contracts in the early DAYS
became a Mexican citizen, and shared
the general Mexican feeling thai
Americans were too brusque and money
grubbing to be companionable and cuI.
tured. His son is one of the best ANA
teur bull fighters in the world. who
delights TO appear in the public ring.
Call 1t provincialism II you will. the
failure of their surroundings to influ.
ence them shows how set is American
character. Ten years residence does
not change men whom you knew al
home, except that, so high above the
level of the sea their hearts having tc
pump faster, their energy is slightly
diminished. The altitude serves as the
universal goat. II a man does not like
to rise early. il he is divorced, If he
can not pay his bills. it is the altitude
The big things of Mexico. then, are
ours with the Englishman sharing In