The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1916-07-15

You read it newspapers and the Magazines
the Colonel it and the Perknses and
pussyfoO it and the Cranes and divers whisper it.
And yet in the years war which freed the
American colonies from British rule the struggle often
descended to guerilla warfare and it has been held ~
to the highest proof of unquenchabe patriotism
that George Washington held the ragged remnant of
his together for the winter at Valley Forge when
he all but deserted by the infant (straw
if please) government of the American colonies.
To this day England's complaint is that FORE
fathers fought from cover, in Indian STYLE and
then, in the eyes of respectable Europe ragged
bandits who preferred to the woods and plains
| and to fight rather than to work. The men of rs
were outlaws and traitors by royal decree.
After four of independence and organized
government ourselves plunged into civil which
wasted far greater proportion of the life and property
of the North and South than has yet been sacrificed by
the warning nations of Europe. And because Lincoln
could not end that civil in two years-or three
will history be permitted to tag him with frac-
ton of the epithets heaped upon Carranza?
Not that suggest comparison Of Carranza
with Lncoln-but the less having in mind the
variation due to race, environment and circumstances
Mexico is going through much the purgatory
that America did in 1776 and in 1861, except that
Mexico is getting hers in dose instead of two.
The American coonists saw their government (the
of lands forests mines trading concessions and the
of virgin continent to royal favotes like
Lord Baltimore and the Penns and to trading and
plotting companies (the forerunners of MODERN i'm
personal corporatons)
The of the American Revolution was fought to
free land and opportunity to the colonists.
The American Civil War fought to free men.
The Mexican poems fighting for those two things
Listen what writer in the Worlds Outlook says:
I'm Mexico the farmer is king.
"YOu look out across level plain and you mag
n6cent house of stone covering sometimes much
| half Surrounding it other houses hun
you not looking at town. but at a ranch set
more than little houses put together-lives
the hacendados and his family. In the little houses
typical farm in Mexico not of 80 but
The territory of Roo double the size of Massa
chusets is divided eight companies The greater
portion of the states of Yucatan is held by 80
kings of ssa hemp More than half of the agricultural
and granite lands of the great state of Chihuahua is
Alabama nearly al held by five great corporations
rd eonnrY ds des
produce enough corn and beans to feed her own
peon population
Very many of the great ranches and land holding
corporations are owned by Americans.
Are not the ragged Mexican poems fighting fights
of 1776 and 1861? They fighting to secure "Mexco
for Mexcans" while being tempted to fight
to secure Mexico for Americans.
| Who shall blame peon for being 'lazy' when he
has no plot of ground Of all those millions of acres
whereon he work?
Who shall say he ought to stay at home when "home
canesalk shack whose shelter he holds only at
the will of native nabob foreign ranch boss or
| mine manager?
We hold no brief for Mexico the Mexcans, but
that history is not without it brutal
and blind and bloody struggles against greed and In
! justice and oppression
! We believe that history teaches that peace in
! Mexro would naturally and remain forever it
each industrious Mexican had chance to own piece
| of Mexico and free to work it,
Mexico cannot be ''pacifed" by shooting poems or
| holding them in terror of guns. Peace cannot
Mexico long the birthright of the Mex1-
cans is in the loot-bags of their masters
And let us remember that the last time went to
war the alleged auspices Of Divine Providence
we ''benevolently assmilated the Philippine islands
Remember that we have national indigestion ever
since. Remember that after Is years we have not
got the little brown brother bit further along the
road than is the Mexican peon. Remember we have
tried shooting water-curing and bribng without avail
We ourselves, in 1875 and 1861, fought longer and
more bitterly against foreign exploitation and in civil
strife than have the Mexcans and we were not nearly
! in such pitiful distress
If would peace in Mexico let US let the Mext-
cans retake Mexico for themselves.
It will hurt Hearst and his kind, it. will sell no mu-
nitons; it may not boost the stock market price of
! American-owned mexican Petroleum." but Mexicans,
free to till Mexico's soil and work her mines FOR
THEMSELVES will bring end to laziness. BUSH
whacing sothfulness ignorance and physical and
tai filth. It will end those things in Mexico surely
it has ended them in Switzerland or in New Zealand.
| There is but one reason why the country is calm
amid the dreadful alarms of the tmesit has faith in
1.-the man at the helm. :~t,. >s<.. ~
Let no criticize what wilson has done who is
afraid to what he would have done In like circum-
stances. . Whist would, You have done NJ. Hushes'
h M