The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1925-01-15
RoweH Says
BY CHESTER H. ROWELL
Contributing Editor to the Kenosha
Evening News

kOOnbL1Uu GQ1LOI W IA6 AOAOoAo
Evening News.)
Congratulations to our neighbor re-
public of Mexico on political mir
acle!
An elected president has been in
augurated, just because he was elect
I ed. That is the final test of self-gov-
eminent.
There is, to be sure, the additional
ground of congratulation that Presi-
dent Gales will apparently continue
the good government SO happily begun
under President Obregon.
A school teacher, risen from the
ranks of Mexico's landless poor, his
ambition is to give his people the two
things they most need-land and
schools. But the real test of stability
be bad government.
1t is the acceptance by the people
of whatever government they have
given themselves A nation in which
the defeated candidate goes home, can
govern itself. In Mexico, he has usual
ly gone on the war path.
The new Mexican government will
have to meet one more even harder
test. Mexico is undertaking great
business job in establishing it's land
less on the land.
The emotional, moral and political
part of that victory has been won. But
strong feelings and good intentions
do not settle land. That takes intelli-
gence and efficiency.
There have been government land
offices in Mexico seeking to distribute
millions of acres of land with less
equipment than an American real
estate firm would have for suburban
subdivision. Poems, without capital,
tools or training have been thrust on
land where only organized, financed
and scientific development would have
hope of success.
Farvoritism, dishonesty, incompet-
ency and ineficiency have jeopardized
theoretically sound schemes.
great business task is handicap
ped by the lack of business men to
run it and of business principles to
run it on. 1t takes only eloquent
language to promise the people land,
but it takes practical efficiency to give
it to them without doing them more
harm than good. Mexico has at last
met the political test. The business
test is more difficult.
High School Spanish.
Meantime, regiments, brigades and
divisions of American high school stu
dents are taking" Spanish, ostensibly
because it will be useful in the future
closer relations of this country with
Moxria1 he nf nj A ario
At least, this is the fiction; and it
may be the real reason in the minds
of parents and of some teachers. But
not to the pupils.
Not one in thousand of those stu
dents has any plans of engaging in
business in Latin America, or cares
whether the relation of the two Amer
icas is to be close or distant.
Some foreign language is required"
and Spanish is VIGOROUSLY easy.
French is next-easiest, and so is next
in popularity.
German was gleefully given up,
when the war made it unpopular, be-
cause German is hard. Latin is hard,
too. if you really learn it.
But the "small Latin" which is so
popular now is not beyond the men
tai continuity of the jazz age. Par
ents demand it, because in their gem
Grafton it was the hallmark of educa-
tional gentility.
Spanish is a great, beautiful,
noble and useful language. But do
not fatter yourselves that this is what
high school students find in it. All
they need to know is that it is "easy."e
Bryan and Science Advancement.
William J. Bryan's check for mem
bership in the American Association
for the Advancement of Science was
front page news, though the election
of Professor Michael Idyorsky Pupin
as president of the association was
scarcely noted.
Perhaps if telegraph editors had
realized that it is one of DR.. Pupin's
discoveries that makes radio broad
casting possible, he would have been
news, too. But best of all (because
what president says is always news
was President Coolidge's brief address
at a reception to the delegates.
st has taken endless ages to Gre
ate in men the courage that will ac-