The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1914-06-11
SHOULD War
With VII MEXICANS
Congressman William Kent Says It
Would Mean Fight With Barbaric
People, 80 Per Cent Indian.
ENTITLED TO BETTER CHANCE
Know Nothing of Civilized Methods
of War-Calls Those Plotting,
and Fomenting War Senseless.

By Congressman G. H. Tavenner.
Washington, June -11.-Congress.
man William Kent of California, an,
pears to belong to no party in par.
ticular, but whenever he rises in his
place on the floor of the house of rep
resentatives to speak, he invariably
says something worth while.
He said something worth while on
the Mexican situation, which ought
to be read by all those who are in
sisting upon war, whether it can be
averted or not
eve have to decide" said Mr..
Kent, whether we feel it incumbent
on us to go into Mexico and to de-
clare war on the Mexican people,
100000 in number, who cannot
understand us any more than we can
understand them, and to fight
through war to it's indefinitely dis
tant conclusion.
"These people are barbaric. We
ought to know that They are 80
per cent Indians. The wars among
themselves have been cruel they
shoot prisoners as a matter of course
ana torture as matter of course
So-called civilization has been cruel
to them; they are only gentle when
kindly and alphabetically treated
within the last ten years l know
OF my own knowledge and can give
the names of a new type of Ameri-
cans that have been going to Mexico
men who have sympathy with the
common people, who have treated
them as human beings These men
have shown the honest, hardworking
people of Mexico that ahead of them
was opportunity for food, clothing
and, most of all. for their children
to have a better chance than they
had. To my own knowledge these
common people have responded to
this appeal and have worked faith
fully, so that their children might
be educated and become self-suppont-.
ing and self-respecting. We have
been sending there mining and civil
engineers and railroad contractors
and other producers of things
naNn1n hn
exploit or rob the Mexicans. We
have sent men who have realized that
these backward people, who are liv-
ing in a fifteenth century, of Indian
and Spanish origin, simple and
backward, yes, and cruel though they
are, after all, good honest, kind
ly human beings, entitled to chance
and worthy of it.
II could bring many men here who
could tell of their own knowledge
that these common Mexicans whom
we propose to kill are the kindest-
hearted people in the world; could
tell of the antecedent causes of their
backwardness. If you believe that
we can send an army of men into
Mexico that will so comport itself
that the survivors of these people
will have a better understanding of
the altruistic impulses of this. coun-
try such impulses having been shot
into them, I think you are not think
ing.
eff we can have ten years more of
peace, I believe the Mexicans will
come to be friendly with us. l can
not tolerate the thought of war with
these people, looked at either from
our viewpoint or theirs. Thousands
of our soldiers would be killed by a
people fully armed, incompetent in
many warlike ways, but a people in
a fighting state of mind.
eff we fight, it will be against a
people who do not know civilized
methods of war; and who can blame
them for not understanding the alb
surd refinements of murder? I know
what such war would mean; the SO
years, the 100 years, the $50 years
of Misunderstanding and bitterness
eff those on this side of the line
who are chiefly plotting, planning
and fomenting war against this peo-
pie were free of the lust of profit and
land, We should merely call them
senseless; we would not call them