The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-10-14
Mexico The Exploited
 -by--
 FREDERIC c. HOWE Author of Why War? Socialized Germany etc.

The Mexican question is very sim- splt. And it is actually being solved Nby the Mexican people in a very sim z ne way. That is why we do not un- i ~~rstand it. We are so accustomed to ! having it said that industrial and so- { cfa1 problems, and especially those ! wkich involve finance, are complex. They cannot be understood by the l common man. There nust be eX- l perts to work out a solution. They l should be submitted to the courts or 1 arbitration. That is the way the Ang- [ Ilo-Saxon mind>> approaches political and social pToblems. We distrust our selves.
 The Latin peoples do not have that same veneration for such problems. EThey are not awed by them. When the French want to do anything they Ido 1t in a straightforward way. The Mexicans are much like the French. Tn. fact they are steeped in French |.history and especially the history of inc R4yolution. They knpw that the French were the only people in Eu- robe who really got any parucuia< rood out of the revolution. The Eng |1ish put on plasters that have Kept fhe sores alive tol this day, but the French used an axe on their wrongs and cut them out at the root. Ana that Is what the Mexican people are dofnr! They are performing sur gical operation instead Of giving an
 anAesthetic. < \ That is what mystifies the people Eof the United States. It affronts our tf,t,Ancial investors as it does those or
 Enx1and. France and Germany the ce0Rntrfes that have the largest finan- risk { stakes in Mexico. They want Ml2 Co to settle it's problems in the Nold European way; in a way that rec 0rk &es, all, of the jargon of diplomacy. cF crecv of negptfations; they want .rT lTtha conventions observed and vfH them all of the legal writings fh have been signed between the ex-
 1id}brs and the gamblers Of these Ss,nfries and Mexico, during the long
 fSirn of Diaz and his advisers.
 5 Isut to the Mexican the Mexican < ,,rof,lem is not one of diplomatic ad- S1i dtcation. He says there are cer- fain, things, that cannot be arbitrated aJhsH one of them is the right or one man to keep another man in slavery Ehv means of contracts in which the isve. I,ad no hand in the making. To itha Mexican-that is to almost all Of !fR " sMexfcans who are not in conspir- sew with Americans and Europeans |4hS trouble is that by some hook or < <s5ffook everything worth owning in P1texico is owned by foreigners.
 < The Mexicans own nothing. They IrStet nothfnE.g They work all of the fvsar round and at the end of that ffyne they areano better sof than they
 were at the beginning. Often they
 arA worse off for they are in debt at the company store. Millions and mill iions of wealth go annually from the country as a result of their labors tf1t none of it stays at home. The
 mon who get the wealth have for the
 most part never set foot in Mexico.
 Many of them have never invested
 more than a few thousand dollars and that has gone in bribes or cor
 rlptfon to high officials. For. such Al, Insignificant, investment, the for eienGr got control of the country. He owned everything worth owning-the
 railroads, ~mtnesl oil wells, gold and
 diver mines, plantations, etc. He teven owned the government itself up
 to 1910, which was thrown in for good
 measure. With the government he
 obtained control of taxation which he
 used to exempt the things he owned.
 from taxation.
 Owning the government he control led education and education was not rood for the p9on. Tt made him too Independent; He might want to rise above his place In the world And by the game means he secured the banks, When the peon went, to the store to sspend the little that he was given for hts labor he spent it at the company store owned by a Frenchman or a German. When he wanted a loan for Ethe the planting or the harvesting of his crops he only secured it at usuri- 0ts interest Along with these econ on1ic conditions that are not so com- plex but that even an ignorant Mex Etcan can understand them, the for teisner gave him an oppressive, cruel and murderous government. He gave l him Diaz; he gave him Huerta.
 Mexico was just like France prior to the French Revolution only the seigneurs did not have the single vir- tue of being Mexican. They lived abroad instead of at Versailles. They / gambled the rents and profits wrunr From their Mexican serfs. not only Io,, l fz---- -7T---