Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-08-11
HONEST ELECTION
PLEA IN NICARAGUA
Good Government and Better
. Roads and SchooIhouses
Hope of Future.
BY WHITING WILLIAMS.

recent Pan-American Federation o
Labor convention in Washington. q
move you that we have only one Sc;
sion a day. My reason is that m.
FELLOW representatives from the tropic
are finding the heat here all but I'm
bearable.'
Surprisingly enough, few of on
Central American neighbors live II
places as warm as most OF our owl
American cities. Centuries ago the
Spanish or their Indian forefather
were wise enough to locate their chic
towns in the cooler uplands. Indeed
in those days the lowlands, thanks t
malaria and yellow fever, meant al
but certain death.
Today those American employers
who raise bananas in the hot low
lands find It next to impossible t.
annihilate the traditional prejudice
against anything except upland life
and labor. Much of their work mus
therefore be carried on either BY
negroes imported from Jamaica or ii
the offices by young men from The
States and England.
Laborers' Daily Routine.
For the most part. accordingly. the
real Nicaraguan laborer. besides de
pending upon his few acres, generally
helps some big native coffee or sugar
planter at harvest time. To make
sure that he turns up when wanted
this patron. or employer rs likely to
advance him SO as a carry-oVer from
one season to the next.
This has the advantage of permit
ting the patron, in case the worker
| does not come around when wanted.
| to threaten arrest. And even when he
does turn up. his employer is likely
to find ways of keeping him in debt,
besides expecting him to work at con-
siderably lower rates than do those
4 who present themselves without any
I such binder.
81 Both these groups are likely to bring
their wives and children by the hun
dred to the big coffee ranch, there to
eat their beans and rice-Nicaraguan
for bread and buttcr--cooked in huge
= outdoor boilers: also, worse, to sleep
in little cubicles about 10 feet square
and only 4 or feet high, arranged in
tiers. three or four above one another.
(How the woman I talked with had
managed the birth there of her baby
two weeks before I do not know)
Feudal Conditions Changing.
Luckily, this old feudal relationship
between land owner and land worker
is commencing to change. and largely.
1t must be said, because of the Ameri-
can and English employer. These
more frequently pay their workers By
= the day without endeavoring to mort.
gage their future. During the transi.
tion the newer employer Is likely to
encounter demands for the ndvan.
#tages of both systems. ''They are
Rtickled with the high wages and the
#overtime OF my plan, but they also
want the old plans complete security
against discharge"
Like all the other citizens, these
Nicaraguan workers want q better
government. While they have vir-
ually no industry Of the sort we
snow-the Nicaraguan Federation of
Labor pretty surely numbers well I'M
der 500 henderson the other hand.
their politics far outruns our own
experience.
Properly enough, therefore, the
workers leaders most OF all demand a
free and honest presidential election.
Considering the vast majority of the
local voters who. as earlier mentioned.
can neither read nor write, ii Is hardly
strange that an election which goes
against the particular political gov
eminent which supervises It is prac
tically unknown in Nicaragua or else
where IN 1pHIT1l AHleIICd.
How United States Ma Help.
1t is right here that America can be
of genuine help. Just recently ne
have guaranteed to do everything pos.
sibie to give both parties an untran'
meled chance to express their choice
In 1923. But even with thousands OF
Marines this will be difficult Thou
sands OF illiterate voters can be kept
miles away from any ballot booth by
nothing more than the slightest wills.
per to the effect that election day is
also to be recruiting day" with the
help Of the usual pistol.
But three things are certain. One
IS that conditions will show tremen-
dous improvement for every Mica
raguan as soon as he can free himself
from the bondage Of his governments
poverty, the resultant lack OF roads
and schools and the accompanying bit
terness and deadliness Of political and
military rivalry.
+, The second is that these gains are
admitted by all in Nicaragua to be
Impossible without help from outside.
Still further, 1t is quite sure that,
whether we like II or not. at least as
long as the majority of us Americans
continue to support the Monroe doc
trine and as long as we don't want
anybody else to build the Nicaraguan
canal, most of this help must come
from US.
Country's Greatest Needs.
Those greatest needs--roads and
schools to fight those universal enc
mics, isolation, ignorance and constant
revolution-mean money; money from
us. And this money from us can
hardly be put on the job without some
likelihood of it's return. In the all
sence Of all other sources of taxa.
ton. this has usually meant putting
Americans in the national customs
houses. and this has quite naturally
made us enemies.
It Is pleasant to note, however, that
such neighboring countries as Costa
Rica and Salvador have largely risen
out Of much the same disorganization
and other difficulties as still hold Mica
ragua; and they have risen also largely
with the help of our own statesmen
and financiers. Today they are using
American dollars for paving streets.
constructing roads and building
schools, and they find us both honest
and ohliging. More thai ore Presi-
dent and some cabinet -. ars told
me that they found our leaders more
trustworthy than those of their nearer
go to our American engineers.
Hopeful View Suggested.
The careful observer, therefore.
must not be made hopeless and dis
couraged by such factors in Mica.
: caguan life as these arti les have de-
-