Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1921-03-17
HOW THE USE OF RUBBER AFFECTS THE PEOPLE
OF TWO ZONES, In REL ALTON TO THE AUTOMOBILE
INDUSTRY, IS RELATED WITH NOT A LITTLE WIT

!Of this chain agents in the tropics be-
gan coercing the natives. The word
was passed through the tropics to
speed up. One day a lean native
came into the rubber district and told
the natives that the white men were
iangry and were going to beat them.
He said that high god named Ford
in place called America had vast
herd of animals that needed many
gourdfuls of rubber day. These ami
mails were called "motahs", and they
ran loose all over the country vent
ling strange smells and emitting loud
noises and constantly demanding
! fresh rubber, and consequently the
natives must give up their hours of
leisure and cut rubber, constantly to
; meet the appetite of the "motahs."
The natives were much impressed by
the majesty of the great Henry Ford
and for awhile they did cut rubber
just to do him a favor But no mat
ter how much was cut it wasn't
enough and they grew very tired be-
cause they did not like work anyway.
Pretty soon the natives told themsel-
YES that Henry Ford wasn't their God
anyway and they weren't going to
kill themselves cutting rubber for him,
The agents of the importers, who were
also our agents, said it was no use
to be reasonable and they must now
introduce sterner measures. So they
stated the amount of rubber that must
be brought every day from the rub
Der trees, and any native who did not
fill the order was ,flogged. Yes, and
they tortured them, too. Sometimes
they burned holes in their legs so
they couldn't run away. Thus, that
some pleasant folk in America could
ride in their motors, the lives of
other pleasant folk who live far away,
have been wrecked OF course when
Uncle Sam heard all this he was
properly shocked and ordered it
stopped pronto!
They do not burn the legs of the
atives now but they are made to
work and they hate that. They would
like to live their own life. This
seems unreasonable because we want
rubber 1t is not only rubber. There
is tea, coffee, spices. Countless fam
lilies of natives who would like to
make their own plans must get up
whole lot earlier and produce coffee
for US because we happen to want
coffee for our breakfast. In other
words you and I won't let the tropics
alone or allow the human beings who
live there to stop their work when
they are satisfied. And the chances
are as time goes on, we will manage
him not only industrially but political
lv. We may not be any too good at
order and justice among ourselves
but we think we can administer it to
the native. In short our interference
with that crowd of natives is pretty
extensive "All for their own good?"
Do you like interference from outside?
Suppose the Danes, the Danes are
mentioned in some books - suppose
the Danes discovered a mixture call
ed "Energine" that when it was fed
, to people it made them fly around and
hustle faster than hornets. SuppOslng
the whole Danish nation ate it and
! became outrageously lively and be-
gan flying around the world stirring
things up Suppose they came to the
good old u. S. and insisted on feeding
it to u.s. And that instead of working
! four hours a day we'd have to work
fourteen How would you like it?
What would the unions do?