New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1917-05-23
THE LAND OF MoNANA
Where Soft Novels Make Soft
Answer Turn Away Tasks UNI
to the Morrow. American and
Spanish Temperament which Can
not Mix.
No. 2

way to the Danish West indies, or
Virgin Islands as they are now called,
the United States has deferred granting
citizenship to the Porto Ricans until
this year. Therefore with the purchase
of the Danish West Indies, and the grant
of citizenship to Porto Rico we have
gained in the neighborhood Of million
and half citizens at the same time.
Porto Rico is so densely populated
that we feel, safe in saying that we have
gained more citizens to the square mile
than in any other part of the country.
And what are these citizens?
A Mixed Race
Ask them and they will inform you
that they are Porto Ricans, that is,
if you can talk Spanish. Look at them
and you will guess them all the way
from Brown Leghorns up to White
Wyandottes. They run the list OF
colors from light to dark with all the
intervening shades. But when you get
down to castles you will find as many de-
grees of caste as there are shades. All
dark persons are not Africans, and by
the same token all light persons are not
Caucasians. Four hundred years OF
time in which the currents and cross
currents of humanity have ebbed and
flowed across the island has naturally
produced much mixed race, in which
the Spanish and Indian predominant.
In the interior the bulk OF the people are
of pure Spanish descent. Near the
coast and in the larger cities there are
a great number Of negroes. 10 the
casual observer there seems to be no
color line, but in social life there is but
little mingling.
There are many pure Spanish, and
the merchants and many of the larg-
er planters belong to this class. They
are keen business men and to their
thrift and foresight much OF the Sue
cess of the island may be attributed.
The Porto Rican of the poorer class
is not overburdened with energy. To-
morrow will do as we'll as today. He
is satisfied with existence, and takes
the ups and downs of life-mostly
downs a calm philosophy. He
will work if necessary, but he prefers
not to. He is the thorn in the side of
the planter, who must depend on him
to harvest the crop. Labor problems
produce more gray hairs than any other
cause.
A Question OF Temperament
Thew will never understand the Ameri-
can with his push and sweat and worry,
nor will the American ever understand
the Porto Rican with his lassitude, inepti-
tude, and representation. The Porto Ri
can has watched the American invasion.
He has stood still while so per cent OF the
wealth of the island has been absorbed
bv Americans. He has watched values
go up and up and up, and still he dreams
on. He has seen land go from a few
pennies to as many dollars an acre and
he has failed to get on and ride up with
the procession. He has seen the jungles
give place to rich orchards of grape fruit;
the barren lands spring to life with rich
irrigated cane fields; the acreage of to-
bacco and coffee multiplied almost as
by magic, but it has mattered not. He
has seen filth and disease give way to
cleanliness and sanitation; he has seen
the roads gradually fill with snorting
automobiles, crowding the slow OK teams
to the side, and introducing rapid transit
all over the island, and still he has not
awakened from his four hundred year
nap, He has seen school houses spring
up all over the land, colleges planted
here and there, swift sailing steam vessels
plying to and from his ports, but it has
changed him not. To be suddenly
awakened and showed four hundred years
ahead in a single day is too much to ex-
pect of frail human nature especially
when leavened by the yellow rays of the
tropics. And so the Porto Rican finds
himself bad third in the race for lame,
the finish being Americans first, Spanish
second and the Porto Rican way back
down the stretch.
Will they awaken? That is, the
question every humanitarian is ask
ing who is interested in the problem.
The department Of education, the army,
the clergy, are all working on the problem
They see improvement, but it is dread
fully slow. The hope is in the coming
generation. The schools are industrious
ly teaching English, the ''oficial lang
uage." Results SO far are scarcely
perceptible. The children take readily
to books but so far as the language is
concerned they lapse into Spanish as
soon as the school door is closed behind
them. Officially, English is spoken
but one cannot go far on that. Ask a