El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-09-27
Mexico Wireless Expensive
Manager Wagner, of Smefting Plants,
Says His Company Has Abend-
Oned Idea; Little IntervieWs.

x" IRELESS was considered
M for our Mexican smelt-
ing plants" general man
ager H. r. Wagner, of the Ameri-
can Smelling and Refining company
said. but we learned from the en-
gineers who install these plants that
the expense was so much greater than
the cost of installing plants at sea on
Eh1ps that we finally dropped the
plan and will continue to depend upon
the telegraphS and mails for cOmmuni-
cation between our smelling properties.
The wireless would have been an eX-
cellent thing during the revolutionary
times, for the reYOlutiOniStS make a
practice of cutting wires between sta
lions and interrupting service where
matter seriously until we learned that
the initial cost was so great, and
then decided to drop it"
Just 80 years ago today I arrived
over the Texas & Pacific to make my
home in Ell Paso," judge f. E. Hunter
said Friday afternoon, as he handed
out cigars to his friends. Until my
college mate judge Foster had written
to me about Ell Paso, had never
heard of it and when I got out a map
of the United States, 1 saw that Ell
PaSo was on the Rio Grande, a river
Ohio on one of the excursions which
was run from my Indiana home to
the Kentucky town which is the to-
bacco and WhiSkey center of the uni
verse. The first thing I looked for
when I reached FL Paso and got off the
train at the old Stanton street sta
ton was to see the steamboats, and
masts on the river. 1 knew that the
river could not run on the north side
for the mountains were there and I
looked down every street toward the
river to see these ships. 1 am still
looking for them. W. A Hawkins was
one of the first men I met after
reaching here and he invited me to go
across the river with him, as he was
local papers at that time. I kept
watching for the river and when we
finally reached it there was enough
water in it to get your feet wet and
no more. I could have stepped across
it in many places and jumped across
it at any place along the river.
El PasO was an adobe town in
that time-that was on September 20,
1SS3-and there were few houses north
of the tracks and as few south of
Overland street. JuareZ did not have
a single brick building at the time
and it was a typical Mexican town.
There were only two banks. the First
and the State banks, doing business,
and OF the lawyers now living, Judge
T. A. FalVey, Capt 7. J. Beall, Judge
J. A Buckler. and Judge A G. Foster, are
the only ones who were here then.
Emerson & Berrien, r. c. LightbOdy and
Pete Kern were the only business
men who are here now, and good
many of my friends have passed over
the river with their boots on since
came here, a tenderfoOt Hoosier from
the felt boot district of Indiana"
Pierre Schon, a local salesman for
motor car company, has been in
Kansas City and sized up the Mexican
situation for the Kansas City Times
as follows;
'aThe trouble is too deep seated.
The poems have found they can shake
a government that refuses them the
right to own land, and they will never
be satisfied with any peace that re-
turns them 20 the old conditions They
want equal votes, the right TO own
land and a division of the big estates
virtually the platform Madero was
elected on.
You can't blame them for wanting
the land divided. One family in Chi
huahua, the Terrazas, owns nine mil
lion acres. They are cattle raiSerSY
which means they do not cultivate any
of the land. The laws exempt uncul-
tivated lands from taxation So the
Terrazas with all that big estate.
pay no real estate tax And they will
sell none of their land.
-'The rebel state government in
now. It controls the whole state.
with the exception of Guaymas. Bust
ness goes on, but it is Handicapped
greatly because the railways are de-
moraliZed-
have no hope that an election will
improve it The Huerta election pro-
gram can be enforced only in those
places controlled by Huerta'e men.
And in at least two of the huge
northern states his army barely has a
foOthold."