The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1912-08-06
From the Louisville CONVERSATIONAL.

ME 4aqu1 1nd1anS, VINO are report
ed to have killed several hundred
L Mexican rebels in Sonora, have
been at war with white men most of the
time for the better part of four CEN
turtles. If a Mexican should hear the
American saying that the only good In
dian is a dead Indian his belief that it
originated with some one familiar with
the Yaquis would be unshakabe But
persons who have looked at the Yaquis
with an unprejudiced eye regard them as
a people not without virtues who might
amount to a good deal if they were
ne.ghbors of a government that could
compel their respect.
1t is said to be the settled opinion of the
Yaquis that civilization is not desirable.
There is a settled opinion among persons
who have an i'll opinion of the Mexicans
that the Yaquis have received their i'm
preston of civilization from observing
the raw edges of the Mexican social IA
brio where it brushes the Yaqui country,
and that they are not to be blamed for
believing that civilized man is inferior to
savage In a moral, physical. military
and social sense.
The Yaquis, whether right or wrong,
are of fixed Opinion, and are quite willing
to die supporting their views. As units
they have done so for very considerable
period. As a nation they have remained
Intact and unconquered while the North
American continent, between the Rio
Grande and the Hudson Bay country has
been transformed from a wilderness full
OF bison, bear, untutored red men and
me- gnihcent distances, into a thickly pop
ulated trust ridden area of highly i'm
proved real estate from which the Anglo
Saxon invaders have showed the aborigine,
cdt the timber, killed the game and
caught the fish, and where they are now
fighting over the water as it runs out of
the ground, with a view of finding out
which of them can prevent the others
frcm making use of it.
The Yaqui has been content to remain
In the state of Sonora and enjoy the
compensations of the simple life while
the American citizen. once lonely colo
MIST who dug CLAIMS and hunted deer on
the Atlantic coast-between battles with
the original tenants who claimed the right
of squatter sovereignty-has become one
of 90.OoO,O00 uncrowned kings, each of
whom has an automobile or believes that
he would have one if the class to which
he belongs were not being ground under
the heel of the oppressor.
Almost the only out-of-door sport en-
joyed by the Yaqui is killing Mexicans
He is as keen upon it as the late Geroni-
mo was, and when Geronimo was exhib-
tied as an Indian relic at the Louisiana
exposition, when he was upward of 70,
he was very much depressed because he
was not allowed to lead a. war party of
Apaches against the Mexican exhibits.
In the Yaqui country the slogan, Swat
the Mexican" expresses a sentiment as
universal as Swat the Fly in centers
of population and scenes of sanitation on
this side of the Rio Grande.
The Mexicans and Yaquis have occa-
sionally made treaties of peace which
neither side intended to regard beyond
the necessity of the moment, and the mu-
ttal expectation of the breaking of each
and every treaty has been fulfilled. Each
side has seemed, during the last century,
TO be ambitious to eclipse the other In
the matter of treachery toward the enc
my. The question of which is ahead Is
unsettled. That peace has been declared
and win be permanent is periodically an
nbunced in dispatches from the City OF
Mexico. They are not taken any more
seriously than the annual announcement
of the farewell tour OF Sarah Bernharot'
which has appeared pretty regularly since
little after the sepoy mutiny The
Yaquis have never participated In the
IL. IRRIGATION of such dispatches They
have always been at home cuitvatins
their crops or whetting their weapons,
and have left to the Mexicans the busi-
ness of circulating falsehood by making
use Of the printing press, the telegraph,
steam transportation and other modern
in, entions.
The Yaquis seem to be temporarily en-
81 ged on the side of the more or less
established government of Mexico. Their
Willingness to fight rebels is probably due
10 the fact that they figure that they can
always nght the Mexican government and
tbat there is little variety in fighting
rovolutionists. 1t hardly means that the
temporary understanding between the
Mexicsh government and the Yaquis will
| last dny great length of time. The terri
BILE slaughter reported is not surprising