New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1917-05-23

them. Officially, English is spoken,
but one cannot go far on that. Ask a
policeman TO- direct. you and he wi i
greet You With an APOLOGIZE srnileS but
you will get no urther. Occasionally
chauffeur will talk what he imagines
is English but your mind will not be
enriched by what he tells you. Some
of the clerks in the stores speak Eng
fish, but that is for commercial spur-
poses only The stranger touring the
island will find himself handicapped
at every turn unless he speaks Spanish.
Where Soft Vowels Obtain
The American who has lived for any
length of time in the island has taught
himself Spanish. He sees the need Of
it in his business. The Porto Rican
who could profit to the same extent were
he to learn English has not yet dis
covered that he could turn the same
trick. Occasionally there are exceptions
to the general rule and when we find the
exception we find fellow making good
After struggling against the overwhem-
ing odds of a current of soft voweled
Spanish, it is a blessed relief to find
someone who can speak United States
and one is willing to give up handsomely
just to hear the language, and in most
cases the giving is good.
If the foregoing has enlightened the
readers of this paper as to the character
and kind of peoples who are now to be-
come United States citizens your cor
respondent, is delighted. If however,
after reading the foregoing, you have
to admit you know no more about
them than before, you will be in the
same class with your correspondent.
in the same general class with most of
the Americans who have inhabited
Porto Rico since the occupation. No
one claims to understand the native.
Conquest of territory would be fun
if it were not for the people. We Ameri-
cans have a happy faculty OF judging
the amount of revenue to be squeezed
out of proposition. When we oc-
cupied Porto Rico we were not long in
sizing up the money making possibilities.
We went in ande made good. Sugar,
tobacco, cocoanuts, coffee, grape fruit
and oranges. We have developed
mineral possessions, guano fields and
veins of coal. We have hoated irriga-
ton projects water supplies, trolley
roads, electric lights, and all modern
necessities. While this has been going
on the man on the ground who knew all
the soil and it's resources, long before
the American occupation has merely
looked on. |
Tropic Philosophy
He has politely stepped aside and
watched us work our heads off, and he
don't understand yet why we do it.
The Filipino once said to the missionary,
GAS I understand it, you want me to
accept your faith, cram my head with
education, in order to fit m sell. for a
life inswhich may win wealth and1honor
and retire to a restful old age?' The
agreed that he had the right |
idea. "Then," said the Filipino, "why
go to all that trouble? have nothing
to do row." And this is the philosophy
of the Porto Rican: He points out that
even the honey bee rests from labor in
Porto Rico. There are flowers the We r
round, so why worry? He finds the
American interesting and amusing, but
he is not stimulated in any way to
example, and possibly his is the sanest
philosophy. Who know? Anyhow,
the longer one remains in the tropics,
the nearer one comes to- understanding
his point of view.
t. D. MacWethv