The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-03-15
NU A sui JUDI
Uncle Sam VIII Find Captur-
ing Villa Is No Snap.
Mexican PeOn Good Shot and
Game Fighter.
WILL UNITE AGAINST INVADER
Rank Dislike for GringOes Due
to Long Oppression.
Natural Conditions Repel I'm
seasoned Pursuer.
BY JOHN REED.

New York March live Ameri-
cans really consider other races than
ours as inferior. We call aliens DO
hunks. 'swops," and "chinks,' and
.'greaser'' is the common name of
Mexican. When we think of a Mex
lean we usually picture, half derlslVe-
" an understood. treacherous little
half-breed fit to kick around on sec
tion gang, but really not worth mucn
Most people laugh when they speak
of a Mexican battle and picture wv"
ragged bands of bad marksmen run
ming away from each other without
any damage done
This is a serious mistake. The Mex
deans are a primitive people, and al
most totally uneducated. They have
rich folk poetry. folk music and folk
drama but they have never had a re-
publican form of government. Anc
they can fight-though they are not
trained as a modern army.
Are Natural Fighters.
The American eXpeditionary force
is not up against towards. Il VIII en-
counter ignorant poems, unframed IN
military maneuVers. badly fed, badly
equipped and armed with a dozen diff
ferent kinds of rifles, dating from a
dozen different revolutions But they
are as good natural rifle shots as there
are in the world.
They are seasoned by five years in
cessant, gruelling warfare. And they
are led by Francisco Villa, whom Cen
eraI Hugh L. Scott. chief of staff OF
the American army, called great
natural soldier"
In all the year and half l was in
Europe following the armies of every
belligerent country except Austria, i
have never seen Drawer men than the
Mexicans At Gomez Palicio, L saw
ragged. barefooted poems attack seven
times a hill 800 feet high, in the face
of artillery. 1 saw them walk up
street, toward a wall crowned with
five machine guns suffering req
death, carrying nothing but bombs
made of a stick of dynamite sewed up
in COW skin. light them by cigarettes
they smoked, and hurl over the wall.
Eight times they attempted it and
eight times they were almost annlhi-
lated; so that next day when L rode
into the town the street was so heaped
with dead-hundredS-t could
not get through. They went into bat
tie laughing and joking and running
races.
illustration of Bravado.
Al La Cadena 1 saw a man shot
twice through the lungs stagger up,
get on his horse and ride back into
the thick of it. And that was the
scrap where twenty-five men out of
1OO-haIf of them officers-rode out
to hold off 1,20O Colorados while the
rest got away. They were killed, of
course.
However much the Mexicans fight
among themselves, believe that they
will unite against the invader, espec-
tally if he is an American. Why do
they hate the Gringoes? 1 will tell
you.
They hate us because when they
come to this country we beat them,
starve them and kill them. In the
southwest many Mexicans are killed
every year, like dogs, because the
southwestern American considers a
Mexican an animal.
They hate us finally because Amer
lean mining companies and oil COM
panies go down into Mexico and es-
tablish slave pens there, where Mex
leans are treated worse than they are
even by expIoiters of their own race.
So I think that before our troops,
every Mexican-man, woman and
child-will be a partisan of Villa
In Old Outlaw Haunts.
The state of Chihuahua, where Villa
is hiding, is p great arid plateau aris-
ing into mountains in the west. There,
in his old outlaw haunts, where he
acted the part of a Mexican Robin
Hood, to the thousands of poor poems
who love him and where for % years
ne eluded all efforts of President
Diaz's splendid constabulary. the ru-
rales, to capture him, Villa has prob
ably retired Two railways lead south
from Ell Paso; one sweeping around &c
the west from CdSaS NTrdnueS, WheTt
Villa was reported today, and the 9th
or, the Mexican Central. directly south
OF Chihuahua
Both railways have been wrecked
again and again by the various revo-
1utionary factions Almost all roll
ing stock is destroyed. Along tht
Mexican Central, in the five hundred
miles that lie between FL Paso and
Chihuahua, there are only some sever
or eight stations.
Hills close by the railroads per-ni
small bands to sweep down out of tn,
mountains and cut the line at almos
any point unless the country Is com
pletsIy garrisoned.
No Crops, No Water.
Water is scarce and wells far be
tween. The country is PRACTICAL,
swept clean of the vast herds of cat
tie that used to Craze there. Their
are no crops and have not been 10
four years.
A Mexican army. accustomed to liv
ing on dead horses. mules. an occa
ACT E0D o-I GETS