Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1911 — INVASION OF NICARAGUA BY AMERICAN CAPITALISTS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

INVASION OF NICARAGUA BY AMERICAN CAPITALISTS

W in the light of recent dehß pB veiopments, is playing the same game as did Nicaragua, and it is HBI expected here that the firm hand ■ \fl| of the United States will be felt In TM north Central American republic. Too many American interests are at stake to let the threats of Spanish {wKrUwPk rulers go unheeded, say Managua officials. One by one as these vDJrr V troubles arise throughout Central jb America it is the intention of NjPresident Taft and his subordinates to force a lasting peace. It hasn’t been long since United States Minister Merry was chased through the streets of Managua by the soldiers of President Zelaya, but conditions in these three *years have wonderfully changed. Perhaps no man saw farther into the future of these Latin-Ameri-can Republics than did Minister Merry. A sea captain on a Pacific Mail liner, he became a student of the native and his' country. He probably

knew better than any other diplomatic official that, left alone, they would never cease fighting. As the result of his work in the service, the United States has virtually established a protectorate over Nicaragua. At all times an American -warship is within four hours’ call by the wireless. An American postage stamp is as good in Nicaragua as It is in Louisiana. Mail for the United States goes through the American consulates and is carried in sealed sacks to New Orleans and Mobile, or to a port on the Pacific coast in another. It is not handled by natives. There is no opening of mail addressed to the subjects of the United States these days, as was common in the past. That is one result of Minister Merry’s work lend today he is in the diplomatic service in Costa Rica, watching his labor bear fruit. President Estrada is a good fellow as Nicaraguans go—but he couldn’t last twenty minutes as the head of a people who love to fight, if the United States department at Washington wasn’t holding his hand over the rough places. They are ; going to Bend a commission down there in a ( short time to straighten out affairs and con- j duct the first honest election the country ever j had. Then J. P. Morgan & Co. will handle the , refunding of the $20,000,000 bonded debt. By that time the United States will be well in i charge, probably with Consul Moffat as minis- i ter and real head of the government. Just as rapidly as possible Nicaragua is being made a good place in which to live. American capitalists and investors are crowding into the country with rapldßy. Now that the days of the revolution are ended —the mar i chete made an implement of agriculture in- i stead of war—the future of the little republic looms bright. Mines are being developed, for- < ests cleared, lagoons drained and homes built Men from the north and middle western Btateß 1 are causing the hustle. There are business ]

men from St. Louis, Kansas City and Chicago and men from numerous smaller cities who are interested financially in agriculture and mining work In Nicaragua* Many are already realizing on their investments. Along the Rio Grande rrver there is a wide stretch of territory covered with bamboo, some of which is planted in bananas. Shipments of bananas were taken out of that section for the first time a few *yeeks ago by the Pan-American company, a Kansas City and St. Louis concern. There are half a dozen small companies beginning operations and within six months fully 200,000 or 300,000 acres of bananas will have been planted along that river, which is said to be / the best for the culture of this particular fruit of any in the republic. The bananas —about 3,000 bunches —shipped lately were the finest taken into the port of New Orleans.

Milling throughout th« country, while be(pg pushed, is not bringing the money returns of fruit. Many men. however, have struck it rich in the mining region. A Canadian by the name of McGinnis, located

in the northern part of the Republic and founded the Lone Star mine. Today he is several times over a millionaire. Joe La Pere, a French Canadian, discovered the Bonanza mine from which millions in gold have been taken. The Topaz Mining company is another paying venture. The chief difficulty with the mining is the matter of transportation.

While the earnings of the various mines have proven satisfactory, yet it is in the banana business that the figures presented by American experts prove amazing; they show payment for land, cost of clearing, planting and harvesting at the end of the second year with an additional profit of 50 per cent, on the Investment. They are indeed startling, but the men who make them point to the United Fruit company, having started business on a

shoestring, so to speak ,a few years ago, and being worth a few dozen millions today. They have tried rubber ;and made a failure, cocoanut plantations bring forth fruit slowly, pineapples grow large, as do grape fruit and oranges, but they ripen so quickly and the import duty is so heavy that exportation under present conditions is hardly to be considered. Rice does fairly well, while coffee on the west coast reaches a high grade of perfection. The cofffee, diplomatic and other officials assert, is the finest in the world. The chief trbuble on the east coast Is finding a hillside level enough to stand on and cultivate the product. The labor question in Nicaragua has the sdrvant girl issue in the United States beaten a nautical mile. One man will tell you he has no trouble in getting labor. If he means real work there is plenty to be done, but from the standpoint of the employer, the task is no easy one. Money means nothing to the average native! One plantation manager told a correspondent he had 60 men working for him and that he transacted business on 500 sols — monkey money, they call it—a year. This plantation conducts a store, as do the majority. The men are paid in the national currency, which just as steadily comes back into

the store. Paying off' labor in Nicaragua is much like taking a dollar from one pocket and putting it into another. That’s all right, so far as It goes, but when the laborer —generally an Indian or a Jamaican—thinks he has too much to do he quits. He can live without work, and works merely to please his foreman. The foreman who can get the good will of the Indian is the valuable man. The superintendent of a coffee plantation has been trying to get 300 men to work for the last two years. At one time he had 130 —and he 1b a man the natives like, too.

The manager of a big banana plantation is having the same trouble. A month or two is frequently spent getting half a hundred men together. -Indians stay close to their villages and the hope of the planter is the building of these conglomerations of huts. Give the workers a bamboo covered shed in which to live, build them a church of the same material and secure for them a preacher, even though their morals seem lax, and the natives will probably spend their lives on the planta-tion-working when they feel so Inclined. Now and then they want to wander away and get all the bad whisky they can buy, but they return in time to again take up the machete. Good treatment appears to be the only secret if there be any secret of getting labor in Nicaragua.