New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1917-09-26

From the island of Martinique few
miles south of St. Croix came Jose
phine, Empress of France. She may
not appeal to all as glittering example
OF womanhood, but she was the product
OF an age which differed greatly from the
sentiments Of the present time. She was
possessed of powers which appealed to
the ambitious Corsican artilleryman,
and it was through his marriage that he
received the assignment to command
the Italian invasion, which led directly
to power and ultimately to the throne
of France.
Marines in Swell Qua rters
Saint setCroix was policed by detach-
ment of American Marines and they
were quartered in the governors palace.
! visited them in their palatial quarters
and one of them kindly showed me
around.
Under Danish rule the governor
general resided in St. Thomas six
months and in st. Croix the balance
Of the year. This accounts for the state
buildings in the two places. The palace
or governors building at st. Croix
while somewhat denuded Of furnishings
by the retiring Danish government, still
retains many features of interest. The
furniture remains, and the walls are
decorated with enormous paintings of
members of the Danish royal family.
The chandeliers are all of frosted glass
displaying the Danish coat of arms and
the fresco work and carvings in most
cases represent a crown. In an upper
room is a mammoth bed, of hand carved
mahogany, with a towering headboard
and the bed itself was of such ample
proportions that / wondered that the
marines did not lay out base ball dia-
mond and use the headboard for back
stop.
Noticing so many paintings of kings,
and the various insignias of royalty /
asked my guide how they managed to
call on king full.
ooh we leave out the kings when we
play poker" he replied. Some of the
boys are so blamed shifty they try to
ring in some of the kings on the wall,
so we leave out the kings entirely
Tropic Problems.
As / have said before we, as nation,
have little knowledge of the tropics, nor
are we familiar with colonization. Cir
cumstances have led us into it. We
acquired these islands as measure of
protection. We need control of the
Virgin passage for below lies the Pana-.
ma Canal with 100000 American
dollars invested. In acquiring the har-
Dor defenses Of st. Thomas we also
acquire some 81, 900 people who will be
come citizens in a year. We will have
social problem on. our hands and we will
have an educative problem, which will
probably be enlightening to both sides
before we are through with it. The
Virgin Islands present a problem all of
their own. They are as unlike the Porto
Ricans as Gay from night The Porto
Ricans are unlike the Santo Domingans,
and they in turn are unlike the Mexicans.
Yet all are problem in themselves. To
protect our interests and foreign interests
we are forced to intervene and as time
goes on we will be repeatedly called upon
to restore order.
The one best solution to these vexed
problems is the school house. Just as
ignorance is the safeguard to autocracy,
so is.the school house the safeguard to
democracy. This means time. Too
many years have already been lost for
the good Of the people of the American
tropics. Had General Scott planted
school houses in Mexico in 1849 we
would have less trouble today.
Nor should we put the burden en-
tirely on cur neighbors. It is the. duty
of every high school in the United States
to teach Spanish We have enough Of T
dead languages and European languages