‘Pat’s famous flea never 
give some information that will er- 
plain the rumors that have been cur- 
rent for several weeks. Congress- 
man Rogers wants to “smoke out” the 
Postmaster General and the Secre- 
tary of the Treasurer. It is claimed 
that many colored people who were 
in high fettle during the Taft regime 
have been set down a peg in the new 
administration. 
Harp to Keep TRAcK oF MExIco 
The Wilson administration has evi- 
dently given up trying to keep its 
thumb on the Mexican situation. 
jumped so 
swiftly nor uncertainly as Huerta, 
but since less than five thousand 
Americans are said to still remain in 
the troubled regions of Mexico the 
strain upon the Washington govern- 
ment inflicted by the international 
nuisance in the southwest, has been 
considerably lessened, 
Woopren SuHors Mabe IN THE U. S. 
(From the Forest Service, U. S. De- 
partment of Agriculture.) 
In this country beech is the favor- 
ite material for wooden shoes, the 
manufacture of which has_ reached 
considerable proportions in the Uni- 
ted States according to the depart- 
ment of agriculture, which has just 
issued a bulletin on the use of the 
wood. These shoes, the department 
says, cost from 60 to 75 cents a pair 
and are good for two years. They 
are worn by those who have to work 
in cold or wet places, such as tanner- 
ies, breweries, and livery stables, and 
by workmen in steel mills and glass 
factories who must walk on hot 
grates or floors. Farmers, too, are 
classed among the users. 
Beech wood is put to a very much 
wider range of uses than the average 
person would ‘be likely to suspect. 
The department says beech enters in- 
to hundreds of articles from hobby- 
horse rockers to butchers’ blocks. We 
walk on beech floors, eat off beech 
picnic plates, carry beech baskets, 
play with beech toys, sit on beech 
chairs, and in dozens of other ways 
use articles made of beech almost 
every day of our lives. Its freedom 
from taste fits the wood especially 
for articles which come in contact 
with foodstuffs, and beech meat 
boards, skewers, lard tubs, butter 
boxes, sugar hogsheads, refrigerators, 
dishes, spoons and scoops are widely 
used. 
Only one species of beech grows 
naturally in the United States, but 
few trees in this country have a 
wider commercial range. It extends 
‘rom the Gulf of Mexico into eastern 
Canada, and in practically every place 
MO tot ORB BRE EZ E 
Mexico, a View From the Border 
Little Side Lights of the Big Contest Down Beyond the Rio Grande 
I did not go over into Mexico as I 
had intended. Not because one could 
not go over, but because the getting 
back did not look promising. I went 
along the border the greater part 
from El Paso to Del Rio, but there 
seemed to be a sign out “Abandon 
all Hope Ye Who Enter Here,” and 
I had more hope than anything else, 
and I did not care to lose it. Secre- 
tary Bryan said don’t do it, and I 
pinned my faith to the orator of the 
telatie 
But along the border, in every little 
river town, in Sanderson, Comstock, 
you will find more interesting things 
than over the line and in the ranks. 
In these towns you find the adven- 
turers, the Soldiers of Fortune, the 
men who sit around the round tables 
in the back rooms of the saloons, and 
have more to do with the Mexican re- 
bellion than the barefooted soldiers 
who go out and get shot. 
Here you will see the ten-to-one 
Chance Americans, the fellows who 
just hang onto this revolving old 
sphere and yank a living off of it as 
it rolls over, Disguised as cow pun- 
chers, with unshaven faces, they keep 
along the border, mix with the Mexi- 
can disturbers, help set up the pins, 
and when they have half a show for 
their allies they jump over and take 
a chance of being shot in the back as 
Madero was. 
But it isn’t these uneasy fellows I 
am going to write of. You know 
them. The U. S. is full of them. I 
am going to tell you a little about the 
common herd of Mexicans, the men 
who live in the interior. 
Like the Italians, there are several 
varieties of Mexicans. Down Mexico 
City way you-see one class, the poli- 
tical class, the job holding class, the 
“better” class, so called. 
Over in Northern Mexico you see 
another class. These fellows don’t 
hold any jobs or have any pull. They 
just get out and make trouble, join 
any old thing that promises scrap. 
It is said, and I believe on the au- 
thority of the New York Journal 
(and Editor Hearst has big mining in- 
terests in Mexico) that the common 
class of Mexicans fight just for the 
deviltry of it, and that they don’t 
where it grows it is cut for market. 
The total yearly output of beech 
wood in the United States is approx- 
rately 500 million board feet, 
know what they are fighting about or 
tor, 
It would almost seem so, but why 
it seems so is that we Americans do 
not understand the Indians, 
These men are ignorant, deplorably 
ignorant, and they don’t go after 
things the way a white man would. 
It would seem as if they did 
know what they were after. Some 
disturber will come along with a little 
gold braid and a few brass buttons, 
and he can gather a bunch of follow- 
ers in Just about thirty Mexican min- 
utes. Another fellow with a yard or 
two more braid and a few more but- 
tons can rob the first fellow of his 
army. It would seem they were a 
crazy lot, not knowing or caring much 
who they fought or fought for, but 
the man who knows Mexicans, knows 
the conditions under which they exist 
and who understands the Indian ways 
of the Mananna people, this man 
knows that there are reasons, just 
reasons and big reasons for the up- 
rising in Mexico. 
And the real reason is that Mexi- 
co’s land is in great holdings and the 
common man has no chance. There 
is no hope for him. An existence is 
all there is before him. He lives in 
poverty, deplorable poverty. All he 
can hope for is enough to eat and half 
enovch to wear. 
And these men make up the rebel 
army of Mexico. Given half a chance 
they would be peaceful and contented, 
3ut seven thousand fanilies own all 
the arable land of Mexico, and mil- 
lions of the working class are little 
‘o~ than slaves as a result. 
Feudalism flourishes in Mexico, as 
it has long flourished. The common 
Mexican has something to fight for 
and he is fighting for it—going up 
against it hard. Feudalism has ever 
died hard. It is dying hard over the 
Rio Grande, but it looks as if it was 
going to die. 
From Sanderson they told me I 
could cross the river into Northern 
Mexico without much trouble, but 
they told me it was all up to develop- 
ment whether I ever could get back 
again, and I showed the yellow. 
I talked with an American who had 
been down in the interior. He had 
been four months in jail. He said he 
never knew what they stuck him up 
for, but that they threw him in and 
for sixteen weeks he got “toast, stale 
bread and the holy Bible” and he said 
aKON) © 
