Evening star., 1914-07-05

cut were issued from Washington last
April. Then it was developed that
Americans were settled not only in the
accessible sections but in the remotest
places. The more remote they were
the more unwillingly they came out.
These Americans are of all classes.
few-a very few-are exiles who have
a reason for leaving the United States
A small proportion are derelicts SIM
ply drifting about Ninety-nine per
cent of the Americans in Mexico are
creditable citizens of their own coun-
try, and useful residents of Mexico
They are little more adventurous
than the people who stay at home, but
In every other respect they are the
same
: Wherever a group or colony of
Americans are to be found they cele-
brate the Fourth of July and usually
Thanksgiving. 1 knew a lone Ameri-
can on a ranch in Sonora once who
celebrated the Fourth all by himself.
lie did it by giving the poems powder
nd shot and telling them to shoot
I'll they wanted. provided they didn't
shoot one another.
The poems did not understand what
the celebration was about. but they
used lot of powder and made plenty
-pf noise 1t was noise that the lone
minded him of the celebration at home.
He had left before the safe and sane"
Fourth took the place of firearms and
-bonfres.
~.
In Mexico City a Thanksgiving ball.
which Is for charity, used to hold a
place equal to the celebration of the
Fourth. The big American colony there
had made it an annual institution. Com
ing in on the train from Pueblo once. at
the THANKSGIVING season, a young Amer
r. lean told me he had ridden eighty miles
across country to the railroad just so he
could spend Thanksgiving in Mexico City
with other Americans. Some people IN
the United States do not understand how
this national spirit permeates Americans
in Mexico
In the estimates of foreign capital IN
vested in Mexico which were formerly
made. the American investment was
placed at approximately a billion dollars.
The value of these investments has
shrunk enormously since the Madero
revolution. and every dollar Of shrinkage
represents not only financial loss, but
also suffering and hardship to some in
dfvidual American
Americans have been the nainstay in
: developing Mexican mines, and 1t is in
= tho mining localities that the American
characteristics come out most strongly.
No mining proposition has been too diff
cult or too risky for some American group
OF capitalists to take hold of il. The re-
suit was that American colonies were to
be found everywhere in the mining dis
triots-at Ratapolis. Cananea. Parral and
scores Of other points. The smelters at
Chihuahua Aguascahentes, San Luis Po-
tosi and other points are the outgrowth
of the mining. development.
These American mining colonies were
typical of the American miner abroad
The superintendents and head men gen
-raily were graduates of American UNI
rersities with highly technical training
aer subordinates were Just ordinary
Americans. independent, confident and in
dustrious. Wherever possible their fani-
lies were with them. and tho social life
of the homes they had left was repro
duced in Mexican environment
The club was the center of social life,
and know of at least one place where
service Sunday.
In another place there were enough
- women TO form a woman's club. They
did not consult their husbands about it.
but simply notified the men that they
would take possession of the clubhouse
one afternoon and one evening every
week. They had planned to apply for ad-
mission 10 the Federation of Women's
Clubs of the United States. when the
shutting down of the mines caused them
to be scattered.
The Tampico oil felds-although Brit
tsh and Dutch fnanciers have large in
z,terests there-have been developed al
most entirely by American oil men. This
petroleum colony. as 1t was sometimes
b called. was spread over much Of the