HOME AND EDUCATION
Follette, Belle Case L a
Home and Education Conducted hy BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTE A Voyage To An Unknown World By ELIZABETH GLENDOWER EVANS WHO so inveterate a stay-at-home as the better half of Senator La Pollette? Right...
...But everyone had dignity.of bearing and striking courtesy of manner...
...Moreover I Avould have had a chance to have rested my aching bones...
...But it did not matter...
...Had Ave possessed a common tongue, Mrs...
...We did not see the two oceans...
...Irazu it was necessary to go to Cartago, which lies twelve miles to the east of San Jose, on the Continental Divide 5,000 feet above sea level...
...We were told, however, that many of the Fruit Company contracts were about to expire and that the Costa Ricans are hoping hereafter to secure better treatment...
...In 1829 it withdrew from the Central American Federation, declaring its readiness, 'however, to re-enter 'the union should it be again established...
...for it has an area of only 23,000 square miles,—less than half of 'the State of Wisconsin...
...He was as ill-equipped Avith English as Ave Avith Spanish...
...Sometimes little girls Avould be dressed in these graceful, mantles...
...Presently the train began the mountain ascent, winding around sheer precipices clad with a tangle of vegetation, the trees festooned with giant creepers and gay with orchids...
...However, I never doubted I could put through any situation I might be in...
...but it had been completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1842, and destroyed a second time four years ago...
...Some English travelers whom Ave met there were eloquent on the discomforts Ave had escaped...
...So the guide changed with her, and explained by signs that she should use the spurs1 he strapped on her feet, and he gave her a Avhip Avith Avhich to lash my horse from behind...
...It^Avas 6:30 Avhen Ave reached the edge of the crater...
...The humbler people, women as Avell as men, went barefoot...
...I never before felt so deathlike a sensation...
...she was once known to exclaim...
...Thus to the physical well-being of life on the good ship Carrillo, equipped for the tropics with electric fans and artificially cooled shafts of air, was added a flavor of adventure and romance from a bygone age...
...It Avould be impossible to conceiA'e a more beautiful location, nor a city Avhich proved of a more picturesque and a-aried interest...
...For seven halcyon days we sailed on summer seas...
...The ship's officers wore immaculate duck uniforms and white shoes...
...But the proprietress of the hotel would summon her with shrill cries of "Amalia, Ama-lia," and she would be forced to hurry away calling back to us, "I will return, mistress, and tell you more...
...We saw but few women bearing burdens...
...The Government maintains a demonstration farm and an experiment station at which cattle and poultry are bred from imported stocks and studies conducted of the breeds best adapted to Costa Rican conditions...
...And as the train climbed up and up we emerged into a different world...
...I began to find, to my surprise, that I could sit relaxed in my saddle Avithout falling off, and that I could even rest as I rode...
...The air became cool and light...
...We were told that it would take twelve hours on horseback to make the trip, and I was so unpracticed in the saddle that I could only cling on by the aid as it were of fingers and toenails...
...The first thing Avith Avhich one Avas struck was the beauty of the Avomen, most of Avhom Avore fillets about their hair and scarfs about their shoulders, sometimes black but more often of bright colored silk Avith wide knotted fringe, which were vastly becoming and made even the plain women look attractive...
...Not the least of the charms of San Jose is its climate...
...So by nine o'clock Ave started downward...
...Normal schools are maintained from the public treasury, and also high schools for both boys and girls in San Jose...
...But unhappily it is being rebuilt for the most part with corrugated iron...
...and except for its location at the slope of Mt...
...What does it matter...
...We could not get enough of Emily's conversation...
...The rank and file of the people are said to take a keen interest in their public affairs...
...Other members of Congress may take a vacation during the brief intervals between the regular and the special sessions of the past two years or during the sweltering heat of the recurrent summer seasons, but Senator La Fol-lette is in Washington without a day's break,— not keeping bachelor's hall, but with her who is his helpmate in every sense of the word, every day by his side...
...The trees, still unfamiliar in character and giants in size, stood in rows, or detached Avith great spreading branches...
...or rather we did find just one negro child of eleven at work in a shoe factory...
...Numerous policemen, noticeably Avell-mannered, Avere on duty, and there Avere occasional bands of soldiers dressed in striped cotton uniforms...
...e started at midnight,—our guide Avrapped about his shoulders in a gay colored blanket, Indian fashion, and picturesque in leather leggings and a sombrero...
...The air has an almost magic quality...
...and its population is under 400,000,—just about one-tenth that of Wisconsin...
...With Mrs...
...La Follette did, for I am persona nan grata to fleas, this, being my one superiority over her as a traveler...
...Perhaps even worse than tariff or spoils, because more far-reaching and more difficult to remedy, are the narrow interests of the women of the middle and the upper class who it is said take no part in the affairs of the world, and when once they are married rarely leave the house and grow old by the time they are thirty...
...The railroad laAv is comprehensive and up-to-date...
...The rudest villages were well supplied with horses...
...AXTHTLE Panama was the objective point of our journey, we had allowed a margin of time in which to follow any suggestion that might beckon us...
...no waters were ever so sapphire blue...
...In the country districts the women wash on their hands and knees in pools or streams, as apparently is customary among primitive peoples the world over...
...from what we heard in this Central American Republic...
...There is a beautiful insane hospital, with every patient out of doors and free from apparent restraint...
...There Avere the public buildings flying the Costa Rican flag and giAring evidence that Ave Avere at the seat of government, with departments of education, of agriculture, etc., as befits a modern state...
...Hers presently refused to budge, hoAvever she urged him...
...AT EVERY TURN throughout this little Re-public we were struek by the evidences of a well developed social spirit...
...If I am cold I am cold...
...It Avould have been but common sense to have passed the morning on the •mountain, as the clouds Avere shifting about and there Avould presumably be many fine views...
...The help, numbering some forty-five or fifty, two-thirds of whom were men, or well grown boys, were noticeably cheerful at their work...
...Our guide, Avho had no more notion of Avaiting on womenfolk than of treating the horses as if they Avere made of flesh and blood, seemed to think his duties discharged Avhen he had flogged and finally dragged our starved little beasts to the summit...
...It is a fact that few middle-aged or elderly women are seen in the streets,—which accounts for the impression one gets that all the feminine gender are young and beautiful...
...Before its destruction in 1910 Cartago is said to have been a far more interesting city architecturally than San Jose...
...But the building was all open to out of doors, and there seemed to be no speeding...
...Limon lies but ten degrees north of the Equator, upon a strip of coral reef, framed in by mountains rising abruptly from the sea level...
...The streets Avere clean and there were trees and flowers in the courtyards and Avindows of dwelling houses...
...Bob won't stop,—but I must...
...Cattle were herded on horseback ; and it was a pleasant sight to see the boys astride of ponies, driving the cows or riding home from market when the produce was disposed of...
...Such inhumanity to dumb creatures I hope never to Avitness again...
...The cold was said to be severe, and I had with me only the lightest assortment of clothing, carefully selected with a view to my conception of the tropics...
...The clipper, upside down, hung low in the northern sky...
...There is a model penitentiary,—built presumably for the future, as the number of inmates is said to be very small...
...There Avere many men about the streets mounted on horses so minute that they made one think of the enchanted mice of fairy legend...
...and there is a penal colony on an island in the Pacific where the prisoners cultivate the land and build their own little houses, almost without guards, escape being practically impossible, so infested are the waters Avith sharks...
...When Ave had been riding for an hour or tAvo Ave heard a thrush sing in the silent night...
...But presently the mist shifted and Ave could look down into the aAvful chasm...
...There the poor beast was left standing some five hours, bit in mouth and carrying the weight of its heaA7y saddle...
...While the foreign legations, our oavii flying the blessed stars and stripes, gave an international touch to a place so remote of aspect as to seem as if hidden away in a world of its own...
...We saw no symptom of child labor...
...We saw no single drunken person, nor beggar, nor dissolute appearing woman...
...But when we asked about it, everyone looked dubious and spoke of the severity of the undertaking...
...And there are miles of stonewalls like those in New England only more massive, built as in New England in the effort to bring the fields under cultivation...
...Twas a luxury to lounge on deck in light clothing unencumbered by wraps...
...and another State road is contemplated...
...The people, still barefoot and dark-skinned, were Spanish in type, with a dash of Indian...
...We glided past San Salvador, poetic with its historic memories, and past Cuba and Jamaica rising mountainous out of the sea...
...The stars Avere brilliant...
...The Northern Railway, three hundred and sixty miles in length, is operated by the United Fruit Company under a ninety-nine years' lease, at the expiration of which term it shall become national property...
...And another gift of a priest is a public wash-house at Limon, with running water supplying the double series of stone troughs and the workers protected from sun and rain by an overhead shelter...
...Shortly before tAvo o'clock Ave reached our hostelry, the severities of our adventure all forgotten, and Avith a joy as if Ave had conquered a world...
...There Avere ox teams' in the street, the carts of primitive make with solid wheels, and often tastefully decorated...
...In 1913 the mining law Avas remodelled and petroleum and coal are uoav public property and can be operated only under a contract Avith the government...
...At San Jose, which has several parks and four public concerts every week, there is also a wide open tract outside of the city, known as La Sabaiia, where races and other sports are in order...
...The Southern Cross Avould have been visible had Ave known how to distinguish it...
...On either side of the track were groves of tall cocoanut palms...
...Right and left hands these two seem to be, directed by one purpose,—as unremitting, as inevitable as the tides of the ocean or the revolution of the sphere...
...IN PIQUANT contrast to the primitive Avay of life in San Jose which was so abundantly in evidence, Avas its National Theater, a truly sumptuous affair adorned with solid bronze ornaments and with rare Italian marbles and said to have cost tvro million dollars...
...Few people spoke English in Cartago...
...The Pacific Railroad, sixty-eight miles long, was built and is operated by the State...
...A bad feature of the political system of Costa Rica is its method of taxation which is chiefly through customs and which results in an exorbitant cost of living...
...And I think I could not have kept up but that Mrs...
...Its financial credit is good...
...Yet at San Jose in one of the public schools were found the "necessitous children" provided with a substantial mid-day meal from funds collected from private donors...
...A LL the time my friend and I were at San Jose, exploring its interesting customs and revelling in its many beauties, we were thinking about our mountain with its sight of two oceans...
...At the end of our day's journey we found ourselves in San Jose (pronounced San Hose), the capital of the Costa Rican republic...
...By Avhip and spur he forced fonvard the horse he lia'd taken from Mrs, La Follette...
...As we sailed across the Caribbean Sea, we heard about an extinct volcano in Costa Rica from whose summit both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans were to be seen...
...The city, which lies 3,800 feet above sea level, has a mean temperature of from 64 to 74 degrees the year round...
...The,National Palace had a simple dignity, especially the Chamber of Deputies, richly adorned with gold, and with portraits of presidents of the Republic in unbroken line _upon its Avails...
...The quaint little city with its one-storied stucco houses of many hues, lay nestled amid encircling mountains high on the slope of the Pacific...
...This tract was a gift under the will of a priest, with the condition attached, that it should be preserved as an open space, forever...
...As Ave neared the summit, the birds burst into their choir of morning song...
...He had brought no fodder for our horses and he refused to free them from their saddles...
...Mean-Avhile the nation reserves to itself the right to parallel, cross or intersect any privately owned or operated railroad, which it may also expropriate should the welfare of the republic so require...
...Another vicious spot is the spoils system which is said to be of the established order and to obtain in every branch of government service, including the railroad and the army...
...DURING the week my friend and I were in Costa Rica Ave saw no evidence of an exploited class...
...La Follette would have forced him to treat the horses better...
...La Follette forced me to put on her sweater, and once Ave were on top of the mountain, gathered fagots and built a fire Avhich Avarmed me back to life...
...It Avas dark almost all the Avay up the mountain...
...Irazu, and for its tragic history, it lacks every element of attraction...
...Instead of the travesty of a republic hastily assumed by...
...Apparently the Senator is one who can defy every human limitation and thrive on it...
...The public lands are apportioned among the municipalities in proportion to their population, and there are said to be a large proportion of free-holders Avho oavu the soil they till, and a larger proportion than in any other country of people Avho oavii their own homes...
...For a time I was at a loss to account for the excellent social conditions which were evident froth from what we saw and...
...To ascend Mt...
...Even the keen tonic of its air is like that of other mountain places, where the air of San Jose had been of a quality all its own...
...CO CHARMED Avere my friend and I with our quaint find, as Ave considered this little jewel of a city, that we inquired of all who could inform us of its history and its social and political institutions...
...I laughed at the idea of cold...
...but it soon gave out completely and he tethered it in the bushes...
...Its hollow Avas filled with a drenching cloud, Avhich obscured the Avhole outlook...
...she kept repeating...
...San Jose possesses one further merit iu an English boarding house, kept by a Miss Marriot, from whose bedroom Avindows we looked out in tAVO directions on a wide sweep of mountains, and in Avhich, moreover, we found never a flea as a felloAV-lodger...
...That warning, our informant asserted, was enough to put a stop to discriminations such a's we in the United States have suffered from since railroad transportation was invented...
...These comprised his Avhole a-ocabulary...
...However, as offsetting this story, we were told in another quarter that the United Fruit Company has the banana industry of Costa Pica by the throat: under long term contracts with producers it fixes the price, and the fruit it does not want must rot where it falls...
...The price of land is very high and there are said to be many large holdings, of which the chief are those of the United Fruit Company...
...Moreover her greater endurance than mine had been evidenced at many points in our travel.- Thus it happened that she was at her topmost mark throughout our whole strenuous undertaking, while I was sc* spent before Ave reached the summit that several times I was fain to lie doAATi and die...
...There is . no capital punishment in the Republic...
...And she is as much at home in the saddle as on her own stout little legs...
...but we were fortunate in a negro chambermaid who came thence from Jamaica via Brooklyn, NeAV York, who was gifted with a most eloquent speech...
...The trees loomed black against the sky...
...Arl-lright" Avas his signal to get forAvard, and "cum-arn," addressed frequently to my lagging pony...
...But presumably it furnished the reason why she and I set sail together one bright day in April upon a voyage to an unknown world...
...We Avere at a loss to decide whether the mountain Avas more beautiful Avrapped in the mystery of the night, or by daylight Avhen Ave could see the great forest, festooned with trailing gray mosses and gay with orchids...
...Irazu became a goal toward which we set out when our ship came to anchor in Limon, the seaport of Costa Rica on its eastern shore...
...Personal property of every kind, including land, is untaxed...
...Two thousand persons, she declared, were killed and many more were horribly mangled...
...This was supplied to me later in the fact that the original settlers of Costa Rica were peasants of Northern Spain who sought a sparsely settled section of the new world, not as adventurers in search of gold, but to till the soil and make homes...
...Every city has its park, well supplied with seats and always with a bandstand in the center...
...The rise from where we must start out was 6,300 feet, and the path rough...
...Later she made as if to deny the confession...
...Oh, it Avas thrilling,—an experionca never to be forgotten and impossible to adequately translate into Avords...
...It is cool and translucent: it has the purity of mountains but is shut off from its keenness and from se-verc Avinds...
...But the guide Avas impatient to start down...
...It was pleasant to hear in more than one quarter that the women are reputed to be almost uniformly chaste...
...And her descriptions of the last earthquake made one live again its terrors...
...Cartago was the capital of Costa Rica in the days of Spanish rule...
...School attendance is compulsory...
...No breezes were ever so gentle...
...Many a time she has ridden from Madison to her girlhood's home at Baraboo, a distance of thirty i miles, with lieiJ children along, and made nothing of the journey...
...And how much more is this true when one's ship is steered southward for the Spanish main...
...For a while the train followed the shore,—the pale green waters breaking in long lines of foam on the white sands...
...Then came banana, groves in clearings of the jungle...
...All the country-side was strewn with rocks and stones of every size, belched forth from the volcano in what must have been an appalling eruption in 1723...
...To me, every ocean voyage is an adventure,— even crossing the well travelled lines of traffic between Boston or New York and Northern Europe...
...This I argued should reduce the difficulty of popular rule to manageable proportions...
...Costa Rica threAv off the yoke of Spain in 1821...
...Later we had occasion ourselves to appreciate our blessings: or rather Mrs...
...It was something so altogether unique that to breathe Avas a conscious joy...
...When it was too late Ave Avere told that Periat Powders, liberally sprinkled on the sheets, Avould have protected her one vulnerable spot...
...While in the graveyard, "every dead was thrown out, every dead...
...La Follette it was different, She had been more prudent in her selection of clothing...
...nothing happens...
...More than half of the public revenue is spent on education...
...Also our drinking water had been left behind...
...Probably it Avas fatigue and the high altitude combined that chilled me inside as if my very life were ebbing...
...And somewhat the same condition is said to prevail as to coffee, the second largest product of the country...
...The villages were of rudest, shacks, inhabited by scantily clad negroes...
...Its' small dimensions I argued might be one cause of its success...
...And here again we found the unexpected...
...OGWEVER my oavu hardships and those inflicted on these humble servants of man, go noAV but to heighten the romance of our adventure...
...Thenceforth Mt...
...and so law abiding is the spirit of the people that there is said to be practically no truancy...
...while far aAvay to the West, across a fleecy ocean of cloud, Avas a line of dark blue mountain peaks, and the pale glassy Avaters of the Pacific...
...some to obtain throughout Central America, Ave were told of a well ordered community and of a government resting on manhood suffrage Avhich compares favorably Avith our own...
...The air in the early morning was hot and humid, just as we thought fitting in the tropics...
...But not so his wife...
...We saw evidence of this in the Viva Duran, Viva Fernandez or Viva Yglcsias, in green, purple or yellow lettering which were pasted up on even the rudest homes in tiny villages, apparently proclaiming the following of one or another of the three candidates of the recent presidential election...
...Far below rushed the Raventazon, a mountain torWent whose gorge Ave crossed and recrossed on high trestled bridges...
...The tropic vegetation of the lowlands gave place to coffee plantations and to crops of the temperate zone, and to pastures with horses and cattle at graze...
...Many riders had big milk cans strung on either side of the saddle, or baskets laden with garden products...
...We rode single file, the guide leading the AA-ay...
...And we were told on good authority...
...What AA'e did see Avas enough...
...And always as it were just beyond the horizon we saw phantom ships of the earlier voyagers, of Columbus on his great adventure, of the Spanish galleons laden with gold, of the wild Buccaneers,—Spain and England in their long contest for dominion of the seas...
...Several attempts to bring the union to life proving abortive, in 1847 Costa Rica adopted a republican constitution, which was remodelled but not materially changed in 1871...
...Forty-five years of the lease have now expired...
...But it leaves the controlling cause of success still to seek...
...of one occasion when there was complaint that a competing fruit exporter could not get his products hauled to the seaboard, when the President of the Republic gave notice that, should the abuse continue, he would assume control of the road and operate it by troops...
...Even in the noonday heat of the hottest dayT, the thermometer is said rarely to rise above 84 degrees...
...In the face of the many warnings we met I do not see how we dared make the venture up the mountain...
...Even the poorest people had the air of self-respect and of physical well-being...
Vol. 6 • May 1914 • No. 21
