MEXICO COULD BE 'GOOD NEIGHBOR,' OR BASE FOR ATTACK, SAYS BURNHAM
Burnham, John
Mexico Could Be 'Good Neighbor,' Or Base For Attack, Says Burnham Editor of Waupaca County Post On Trip 'Down Mexico Way' Tells of Necessity of Friendship from America [The following article was...
...Already outlying villages and cities are pressing Pr-.s Cardenas to snnd them more troops, in belief that local police cannot handle any post-election situation which may arise...
...The victory for his side, his hero —in this case the matador—is requisite for his enjoyment...
...He can't take it...
...Neither the followers of the pro-Cardenas Candidate Camacho nor those who favor more conservative Almazan can completely accept the result at the polls...
...Mexico Could Be 'Good Neighbor,' Or Base For Attack, Says Burnham Editor of Waupaca County Post On Trip 'Down Mexico Way' Tells of Necessity of Friendship from America [The following article was written by John Burnham...
...Many never before | had learned the use of the wheel...
...Ail the nations under arms in Europe don't buy from us as heavily as Canada alone...
...Canada and coastwise defense in two oceans wouldn't avail much if...
...The tortured, dying bull is merely a tool to help achieve that enjoyment...
...Now, Mr...
...Tell a Mexican how in American service clubs the members introduce into membership opponents in their own line of business and he won't understand...
...Tourist, you are beginning to learn a little of this nation about which you so quickly formed impressions and wrote home generalities a week ago...
...To go into, for instance, the dressing rooms of the University of Wisconsin fieldhouse and see Wisconsin and Purdue players coming from the showers slapping each other on the back and congratulating rival players would be inconceivable to him...
...Baseball is on firm footing in Mexico City, outdoor basketball courts can be seen by the motorist in many of the smaller villages...
...There's a sermon there for Uncle Sam...
...The government of Mr...
...editor of the Waupaca County Post of Waupaca, Wis., who is on a vacation trip to the Republic of Mexico.—EDITOR'S NOTE.] By JOHN BURNHAM MEXICO CITY, D. If nations, like individuals, would make New Year's resolutions, our choice for Uncle Sam would be a solemn resolve to devote the next decade in solidifying between Mexico and the United States, the same neighborly relationship which we have for years enjoyed with Canada...
...Your first shock comes- at seeing the dirt and poverty of Mexico, especially the lack of public sanitation...
...Here's a defense program, too, which can be built with WI.con.sln buticr and Kohler plumbing an I Mexican coffee and summer vacation tours and exchange professorships and new motor cars...
...Mexican Elections You see the result of the attitude, that inability to accept the referee's decision, in Mexican elections...
...Roosevelt's stand on the embargo, u foreign to Mexican journalism...
...Important in the wide program of school building are the athletic fields...
...Burdens carried by men who trot miles In the hot sun with amazing loads carried on their heads or their backs...
...Inaccessible in their mountain fastness, people of scores of these villages never saw an automibile until the Pan-American highway went through, a few years ago...
...The making of clothes, shelters and food all by hand...
...burdens carried by women and children...
...I When the bull fight is hair over the hetel elevators begin to till up ' with Americans — bewildered, distressed, shaken and horrified AmcriI cans who go misty-eyed to their rooms and wonder what kind of a nation is this which condones such calculated cruelty, such systematized sadism...
...Burdens carried by goat-sized burros I and mules...
...More optimistically, the picture today Is much different...
...How much more worthwhile it can be, loo, Dm ii a program of spending for battleships and bullets...
...Plan String of Hotels Announcement this week that an American hotel company was consio-ering constructing a string of hotels from Laredo to Guadalahara, costing millions of dollars and employing Mexican craftsmen and labor, is perhaps the best peace news on the docket...
...Somehow, it amazes you to realize that in their habits, in their thinking and background they arc farther from America than any of a dozen European natioiu regularly visited by the American tourists...
...We hav...
...I think perhaps we like the Germans most...
...Any Canadian will register embarassed distress if you pose the hypothetical question: "If Johnny Bull and Uncle Sam tangled which way would Canada move...
...Rich in metals and oil, protected by ridges of mountains, Mexico could, offer very handy air bases for any nation seeking to harass the United States...
...Welles' recent trip to Europe...
...The Mexican hasn't learned to be a good loser...
...The American forum and debate where disagreement is intellectual and not emotional, is unheard of here...
...Later you smile understanding^ when told there is a 25 peso line for killing a vulture, for by then you know that the vulture is the entire public sanitation department of the nation...
...After three weeks of slow travel and much chance conversation with many Mexicans, it is our opinion that American tourist travel into Mexico is vastly important, that 10 million Americans humming " . . across the border, down Mexico way . . " is probably as valuable an item in America's peace kit as Mr...
...To watch Mexico, with a small upper class and a very large lower class, try to develop a democratic middle class society such as we had almost from the first...
...Fut-baM" Is berninlnj} nil established sport...
...Caidenas regime, whatever you may think of its reddish tinge, is aware of this background In Mexican culture...
...Also, you will learn a little more about your own country...
...The sight of a battered fighter shaking hands with his recent opponent is unknown to him...
...Land tilled with hoes and machetes and the bare hands...
...On our south that same good will should exist...
...The Bull Fight I Then comes your third shock, as the hotel clerk explains that "all j Americans go to the bull fight...
...They buy our oil and trade us their finished goods...
...To disagree without lasting bitterness, to slap the shoulder or shake the hand of a tired and oersplring opponent, to "take it and like it," are the lessons long needed and now being taught in Mexican schools...
...This summer, you hear, "maybe there will be revolution again," after the elections...
...It gives a visitor to Mexico a bit of a shock to realize how far apart, socially and culturally, Americans and Mexicans really arc...
...Social intercourse and economic contact are the best defense guns Uncle Sam can wield...
...The Canucks are our friends...
...Debate is an important part In the curriculum of the new schools...
...Exception is Mexico City where Lions roar and Rolarians meet each week...
...Besides its cultural and social and economic value, that Canadian-United States relationship is tremendously desirable for Uncle Sam's defense...
...If that situation occurs it will be the homeward roosting of an imperialistic eagle which for decades has exploited Mexican resources, has refused to asociate socially or economically with Mexico's people...
...j a block of seats here — all on the I shady side of (he arena...
...To marvel at their handicrafts and not...
...It is I very fine...
...We are protected on the north by good will more sclid than concrete gun emplacements...
...That imaginary boundary between the United States and Canada, without soldiers or barbed wire or fortificationsmiles upon hundreds of miles with no manifestation excepting the sincere handclasp of cordial neighbors — has been termed civilization's greatest achievement...
...He can't accept defeat...
...scoff at their technical lag...
...They ha\e been very good to us...
...for example, a German air base in Mexico went on a bombing spree and played 'drop the hanky' on American cities...
...The Mexican—mixture of Spanish and Indian blood, hasn't the American distaste for blood...
...You must attend...
...Your second shock is at the complete acceptance of hand labor in the inner mountain and tropical villages...
...He is vindictive...
...Two Mexicans who are friends will not, unless sure of agreement, discuss an approaching election for to do so would end that friendship in bitterness...
...War in Europe "That war in Europe,'.'" my Mexican friend says...
...Neither has he the American concept of sport...
...This is the national sport of Mexico...
...America's job is to understand these people with a perspective which considers their background...
...Crops threshed by men who use only wooden clubs and stone dishes...
...A sermon to be taken seriously, with a conscious effort to increase and Improve social and economic Intercourse and not simply spout "good neighbor" words while feeling sorry for oil and mineral companies which sought to exploit a simple people and finally were balked at It...
...No American believes they would ever take arms against us...
...And you don't shoot your customers...
...as we say...
...The picture ot Frank Knox, perennial Republican candidate for president, running a page one editorial upholding Mr...
...The morals of business and politics are expected eventually to improve thereby...
Vol. 10 • April 1940 • No. 15
