The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1910-10-21
FABULOUS WEALTH is WIRING
FROM OPPRESSED Poems IN
THE DOMAIN OF DIAZ.
POVERTY STRICKEN
And Many Are Hungry-Sourees Of
News Are Barred-He Is After
The Insurgents Hard.
(By Montana Newspaper Man,

mere are Two view points 10 every
subject. To the American who visits
Mexico as tourist and casually OBJ
serves conditions as they appear,
from the exterior to the veneer of
deception, Mexico is country of de-
lights. of legends of the Aztecs, of IA
bled tales of the Montezumas, of SEN
suous music, enhancing tropical
nights, in fact, story book land
But the dark cloud that is behind
the veil which obscures the vision of
the tourist is one which for years
threatened, and still threatens, the
disruption of the Mexican republic
at no distant DAY. To the American
who delves and lives in this land of
untold and undeveloped wealth,
comes a story of blood crimsoned
soil, of tyranny, of graft, oppression,
immortality, (not immortality, which
is appalling and silently compelling
in all of its extreme horror.
Since the capitulation of Pueblo,
since the first terms of the present
president, Porfirio Diaz, Mexicos
great peon population has been kept
in subsection by the military, con-
dition absolutely necessary to quell
and suppress the insurrectionary
blood which flows through the veins
of these people. But trough all the
years that have passed an organized
system Of graft has been maintained
which has Slapped the life of the ma
ton, and made it's people squirm in
vain under the mailed hand of per-
feet military despotism.
Ninety millions of dollars. Think
of it! This is the sum which Presi-
dent Diaz has on deposit in the bank
of England. The president of the i'm
poverished nation of twelve millions
of people, more than 80 per cent of
whom are illiterate, is one of the
richest men in the world so far as
the possession of actual cash is con-
cerned.
When one passes through the inte-
rior of Mexico and sees the abiect
poverty of which millions of people
of this bounteous land of sunshine
live, and when you say abject poverty
the term applies in all it's distress
ing import.
President Diaz has great chests
OF gold awaiting his disposition in
the worlds greatest bank; he has
private safe deposit in the city of
Mexico, which contains millions of
dollars worth of priceless gems.
Many strange and fascinating stories
are told of these gems, of buried
treasurers on the Mexican coast, of
the loot of conquest, of adventure.
romance, war and death. Nearly all
were bathed in blood, and the glis-
tening bones of dead men lay in the
blistering tropical sun-the fttest
survived.
Ragged, half clad. and more often
not clad at all, are the people of the
interior of the sister republic. While
one coming into the harbor at Tampi-
co, or into the great docks at Vera
Cruz, is impressed with the stability
of the harbors, they do not see be-
yond the fringe of cocoanut trees
which meets the view of the land
ward horizon.
Mexico is graft ridden and tax bur
dened. Its people are lazy in the ex-
IRENE, and were it not for the Amer
lean spirit, against which there is
such pronounced prejudice at the
present time, the grass would be
growing in the principal streets of
the cities.
Corn is the staple food of the re-
public, and it is from this product
that the tortilla is made, the nationa.
food of all the lower classes and gen.
orally recognized as the sustenance
of the nation. AS an example of the
shiftlessness of the people, and the
fact that no attempt has been made,
outside of establishing very few
poor schools, to improve conditions
Of the people of Old Mexico do not
raise sufficient corn for their own
consumption, and that is practically
all they raise aside from the trop-
ical fruits, nearly all Of which grow
without any cultivation.
Large cargoes of corn are shipped
in from other countries with which
Mexico maintains cordial trade rela-
tions. A few bushels will supply all
the requirements of Mexican family
for whole year. A few ounces Of
chilli. and an occasional cake Of dulce,
or sweets, of which the dark skinned
people of the tropics are 30 fond, is
all that is needed to fill their cup of
contentment to the brim.
-ms1ecDls Of Mexico are without