The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-04
Mexican Boys Show Spirit of Peoples Hostility To-
 ward Americans
MOST AMERICANS
 DO NOT WANT WAR
Screens Almost Unknown in Vera Cruz and Flies Make Life Burden Especially at
 Meal Time
By LEANDER POOLE

By LEANDER POOLE
 Vera Cruz, Mexico, May 2s.-(Special Correspondence )--1onight finds the office
 force happy for it begins to appear that the efforts of our great President to com pose a complicated situation will be suc- cessful and that we may return to the country that all of us will know better
 how to appreciate when we get back.
 If flies were as dangerous as the doctors
 back home would have us believe. we would all die for we but seldom eat a meal without there being a fly in some dish Screens are unknown down here; at Gambrinis tonight dhe principal res2 taurant here) there was fly in my dish of green peas and one in Funias roast beef We shut our eyes and went ahead fnishing up an enjoyable supper even though one of the four of us famed the flies off the food while the others ate. They have splendid way of making soup. They are also experts on fish, but you have to have 1t ordered ''mucho friesta' oget it thoroughly cooked. The average Greek restaurant keeper would go raving crazy if he had to handle the walters here. Hurry is word not known to them and 1 know beyond all peradven- ture that they were the men who put the
 "s'' in slow.
 l had my first experience watching school being taught today. was passing along one of the streets keeping tab on the carriers to see if they were pleas ing the public. 1 heard a drooning noise as I passed by a window, and looking Tn I found a big bunch of youngsters of all colors and ages trying to learn how to add The teacher had the figures on the black board and each child was answering in unison the result. It was "ocher and sais is una quarto' from all over the house. peculiar feature of their schools system is that they teach them that all foreigners are their enemies, so l am told.
 Small Boy Against Americans
 The small boy home would like the school system here because they do not have to buckle down like he does. and then again he could get some of the finest candy imaginable at very small cost. A pennys worth of candy here is about five times what it is in the states. They make it mostly out of cocoanut grated and pure brown sugar. the cocoa nuts being knocked off the trees, which | think accounts for the candy being so fresh
 The small boy of Mexico Is to some ex tent "agin the Americanos.' AS l was coming down the street last night heard a call and looking up I saw boy making a motion as If a man was being hung, and I felt sure he would have liked to hang me. He gave the key to the reason why the conquest of this country would be attended with great difficulty. It will take long time to change his mind to see that the "Americanos' are his friends. His mother reproved him for his act, and just then a soldier came by. and when
 pointed up to the window the little fellow
 shot into the casa In a hurry. Their
 houses here are all above the business
 places and they do not know what real
 comfort is. South Highlands with its
 pretty homes would be revelation to the
 average native, and I do not think they
 would know what to do with a house that
 had screens.
 Does Not Want Son to Fight Down on the plaza I met the usual bunch who nightly congregate to cuss the policies of the country they claim protection from. This time l met lady who formerly lived in Nashville, and she was berating Mr. Taft, MT. Wilson. MT. Bryan and every other American promi- nent in our public life. She owns. or has an interest in, $4,OoO,oo0 worth of property and her jeopardized dollars cause her to cry out nightly. When I put the ques- ton to her if she was willing to put her boy In the ranks and let him be shot like A common soldier, she slde-stepped. have not met any so-called Americans down here who are ready to volunteer and go to the front and be shot to death for dol lars that seem paltry when compared to human life.
 The closer one comes in touch with war the more of an adherent to The Hague does he become. One needs only to walk the streets of this city and see the widows wearing mourning for husbands killed in the engagement here and the mothers or mere boys who were shot to death in the Naval college to feel that ultimately the way to fame will not be by ladder strung with human skulls for rungs over which ruthless feet must tread to reach inc p,upacle, nor along the path that runs red with human blood, nor pass by the humble home where the wall of widow and child left fatherless by Mauser bull lot breaks the stiffness of the evening air.
 One needs only to see the waste which sarnt.war causes to get farther and farther away from the Hobsonian idea of innumerable engines of war to keep famed that spark of patriotism which finds it's best expression in snuffing out lives that came from an All Wise Gre ator's hands.
 Oniv tonight heard an officer from the l Des Moines expressing the desire to be put in the firing squad to extinguish the life If MT. Bryan because he desired to compose this trying situation. Again, when one looks at monster battleships that ccrry 9c0 men and figures the cost of caring for them he must begin to realize | that even America may present the spec | tacIe of a "beggar at barracks door if the idea of my good friend Hobson was carried out.
 Cause of Discomfort | There will come time when interna- tional difficulties will be settled by pa cific means, and as Leach of Leslie's, thlnks, the adhcrents to The Hague will grow in numbers as the years go py. When one thinks that these poor peons down here only earn about 35 cents Mex-' ican. or 12 cents gold. he can eaaily see | that 50 small a wage per day must in- evitably tend to bring discontent and that revolutions are easy where all 10 to
 be saIned thereby And yet our good American friends down here tell us that | they must not be paid more because they would not work more than three days out of six, thus unconsciously giving proof to what a great many of us feel-that they wo,,ld not be so ready to sacrifice human fife in warfare were 1t not to make easier the exploitation of poor ignorant human litv. Not all refugees favor this. I have met a few who feel that there is just l ground for revolution which can only bo 1 avoided when the peon has an opportunity | to make a home of his own and under | his own vine and ng tree work out his l Ideetlny.
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