The daily commonwealth. (Greenwood, Leflore Co., Miss.) 1916-1919, 1917-01-09

Entered at Greenwood postoffce as second-class matter.
GREENWOOD, MISS, JANUARY 9, 1917.
WHAT NEXT AND WHEN NEXT?
After months of palavering and dickering with
Carranza we are right where we were before it
commenced.
We are in the position of the dog that has
lust been kicked and doesn't possess the nerve
to bite back.
General Carranza has officially and definite
" refused to ratify the protocol signed by the
American and Mexican commissioners, and by this
act has again demonstrated the Mexican con-
tempt for everything American.
Kicked! Just plain kicked again!
II the American people have no pride left
if the honor of our country and the lives Of our
people mean nothing-WHAT ABOUT THE
AMERICAN POCKETBOOK? Even the most
craven wretch on earth is sensitive to the welfare
OF his nurse.
1t would be of interest to know just what this
Mexican tiasco is costing the country per day.
With Pershing and his twelve thousand men in
Mexico, with thousands and thousands of Nation
al Guardsmen sucking their thumbs on the bor-
der, with every available officer and man in the
regular army doing police duty along the Rio
Grande, the cost is piling away up into the mil
lions.
The American tax payer is putting up this
money and he gets nothing in return for it. He
doesn't even gain the respects of other countries
and other peoples.
Two facts are self evident. Carranza hasn't
the power to take Villa if he would; he hasn't the
inclination to do so if he could. Time has proven
the truth of both of these statements.
Another one. Carranza hasn't the power to
protect American lives and American property in
Mexico. And he wouldn't if he could, for Carran-
"a is a Mexican of Mexicans, as stubborn as a
mule and as blind as a bat to all things except his
own assininity.
And yet we wheadle and dawdle and ~palaver!
We keep an army on a war footing at enor-
nous expense to the tax payers, and yet we are
not at war; we haven't even an enemy at whom we
can consistently point a gun. Because neither
congress nor our government officials seem willing
to admit the fact that conditions exist in our
back yard that would have started the guns of
other nations to belching fire and lead years ago.
But one thing is evident, and from that we
can not escape. The bills are piling up and we
tax payers have to meet them. In plain street
parlance, we have to dig down and whack up.
General Pershing was sent into Mexico to cap
ture a NOTORIOUS brigand who was at least re-
sponslble for the shooting up Of an American town
and the slaughter of American citizens. By or
der OF our government Pershing's army is COOP
ed up in camp and not allowed to make move,
while this same brigand has been swapping his
fingers at them and capturing towns under their
noses and making himself ruler Of all northern
Mexico.
Great, isn't it, MR.. TAX PAYER?
We have had so many fool moves in connection
with Mexico that we are wondering what the
next one will be, and when it will be-?
The people of this country do not thirst for
war with Mexico, but they do want justice, and the
time is coming when they will demand it in no
uncertain terms.
And, too the people are becoming tired Of pay
ing taxes for the purpose of keeping a big army
on the border when that army has nothing more
exciting to do than to play baseball and leap frog.
We love peace as ardently as any red blooded
human, but we are rapidly coming to the conclu-
sion that the only thing left for US to do is to go
into Mexico with a gun in one hand and a scrub
broom in the other.
Europe has again kicked the dove Of peace
into the official dump heap. But the baseball sea-
son will be along on schedule time and the Office
boys grandmother will continue to die every Sat-
urday afternoon. Cheer up and smoke up!
Some one asks what has become of the boy
who used to raise chickens and thereby pay for
his W clothes. Well, evidently he has become a