Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1911 — Page 3

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 ]

COUNTRY OF CONTINUAL UNREST

"The beginnings of the troubles that wreck Nicaragua at frequent intervals lie back bo its discovery by Columbus. A small remnant of Indians has recently been found living on an island near Blueflelds, speaking the language of the Aztecs gnd having traditions of ruling in Bplendid cities over the subject tribes of the coast. These cities, of which great ruins remain, at once attracted the Spaniards to the interior. so that from Panama to Yucatan not an Important Spanish settlement was formed 9n the Caribbean coast, and’ thus the coast tribes, freed from Aztec domination, remained almost unknown to the Spaniards, having no property worth looting. Loot was plenty among the buccaneers, but fresh food and women they lacked. These the Indians supplied. Commercial relations soon grew up. which speedily developed into an alliance against the Spaniards, by means of which the Indians maintained their independence. until their chief was carried, in 1688, with great pomp, to Jamaica, where he surrendered hi> authority .to the duke of Albemarle, and was then crowned and received back his insignia aa a vassal king, under a British protectorate, of all the coast from Chiviqul lagoon to Yucatan, along what Is known as the Mosquito coast. Bubject to occasional clashes with the Spaniards. matters went on thus for a century, each successive Mpsqnito king going to Jamaica for investure and to do homage. Finally. in 1783, by the peace of Paris, England specifically abandoned its protectorate over •11 of the Mosquito coast, except for the part

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.

now known as Belize, or British Honduras, which then became and still remains a British colony. However, it was only 14- years before the French revolutionary turmoil again brought war between Spain and England. In the course of this, the protectorate was revived, so that, in spite of Spain’s becoming later the ally of England against Napoleon, the three succeeding Mosquito kings of the first half of the nineteenth century were crowned as of old in Jamaica or Belize, and did homage for their kingdom, the last In 1847. In 1821, after a long struggle, all Central American broke away from Spain, and offered to Join the United States as five states, an offer which was at once refused, as the population was not considered sufficient in'number to Justify ten seats in our senate, nor sufficiently advanced otherwise to be a de- * sirable element. The refusal stirred up bad blood against the English-speaking peoples and a dispute with England over the protectorate.

By the Clayton-Bulwbr treaty of 1860, both England and the United States bound themselves not to seek exclusive rights in any part of Central America. Again the protectorate made trouble, and London and Washington agreed on a treaty by which the Mosquito coast was to he protected by treaty with the Central American states Interested, but these refused the suggested terms, and./finally. In 1860, Great Britain concluded separate treaties with Honduras and Nicaragua, by'which to the first she surrendered absolutely all authority over the almost uninhabitable portion

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

of the coast claimed by Honduras, while to Nicaragua she agreed to surrender her protectorate and recognize the sovereignty of Nicaragua. Nicaragua in turn, agreed to grant complete local self-government to the Mosquito tribes, then of blood largely diluted with strains of white and Jamaica negro, and using English as their official language. Nicaragua also bound itself to make a free port of Greytown, at the mouth of the navigable river by which the great central lake of Nicaragua discharges Into the Caribbean sea. and for ten years to pay annually to the Mosquito Indians a subsidy of f 5,000. After 19 years less than half of the subsidy had been paid, while in violation of the treaty Nicaragua had imposed duties at Greytown under the pretext that they were to pay the subsidy, and had Introduced a governor and a garrison at Blueflelds, the Mosquito king's capital, and was otherwise vexing the inhabitants so as to force them to abandon the English language and their local self-government. Finally, after most insolent treatment of the British consul at Greytown, who had been appointed the Mosquito king’s agent to receive the arrears, England sent a warship to Greytown. Nicaragua protested that, as the British protectorate had been withdrawn and Nicaragua's sovereignty recognized over the coast. It was none of England’s business whether Nicaragua fulfilled the treaty stipulations In favor of .the Indians. But the captain of the warship was not moved by this, and after much parley the entire matter waa submitted to the arbitration of the Emperor of Austria. On two points the Nicaraguan contentions were upheld, flr-t, that 'the subsidy was of

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

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.

the nature of a gift, and therefore that interest should not be added to the arrears; and, second, that the vessels belonging to thp Mosquito coast should hoist the Nicaraguan flag, though against Nicaragua’s contention they were allowed to hoist their own alongside of it; but on every important point the decision was in favor of England Under this decision settlers began to come in, especially from Canada and Jamaica, and business became quite brisk. Nicaragua failed In another attempt to induce the coast to vote in favor of full citizenship. and matters went on merrily til! a few months after Zelaya’s rise to the presldenecy, when, in January. 1894. a Nicaraguan army suddenly appeared at Blueflelds, kidnaped and sent to the interior the chief justice and all the leading men of the coast, and In their absence ordered an election, with soldiers at every polling place, to determine finally the status of the coast. , In this election there could be only one result, and Nicaragua announced that the coapt had accepted full citizenship in Nicaragua. and, therefore, British interference was at an end. For ten years, in spite of occasional at* tempts at revolution, one nearly successful matters went on fairly at olucflelds and business grew, but in 1904 there began systematic attempts to oppress this coast As a further vexation of foreigners, the Moravian missionaries and the Church of England rector at Blueflelds. who, since the Catholic churches have been harried out of existence, are the only representatives of religion of any kind In all this region, have had their schools closed because tuition was In English.

STORIES OF CAMP AND WAR

COMRADE HICKOK STILL HERE, I .<t - One of Two Burvlvor» of Mexicai* ) War Regiment Lives at Norman, Okla-—Tells Story, c When a roll call waa made lately; of the men that had seen service with the Eleventh United States Volunteer, infantry in the war with . Mexico, newspapers recorded this answer: "Comrade Gaspe, Pulton County. Missouri, Eleventh United States Volunteer Infantry—the last survivor/’ This brought a reply from an energetic old man, A. D. K. Hickok of Norman, Okla., who wrote: "I wish, to say to Comrade Gaspe that T vis

A. D. K. Hickok of the Thin Line of Mexican War Veteran.

a member of Company O of the same regiment and .that he is the only man in the Eleventh that I have heard of since we were discharged at Fort Hamilton, on Long Island, in 1848/” Mr. Hickok is one of the thin line of survivors of the Mexican war. He volunteered for the service in the winter of 1846-7, in Ohio. "When I returned home in 1848,” he said, “I waa so emaciated with disease that my mother did not know me.” Mr. Hickok had Settled down to the life of a merchant in Wisconsin, without further thought of war. One day? be read a current newspaper account: of the first battle of Bull Run. “E could not stay at home,” he said, “soI shut up my business, paid off my' men, went to La Crosse, Wit., and raised a volunteer company of 102: men. Only eight of them' are llvfng,. I was a captain in the Eighth Wisconsin infantry, the regiment that carried the live eagle, ‘Old Abe.’”

UNION OF THE BLUE AND GRAY

National Encampment of All Surviving Veterans of Civil Btrife Is Suggested by Leslie's. The veterans of the Civil strife arerapidly decreasing in numbers, but a national encampment of all-survivor* of both sides of the conflict would be imposing for its very size. Such an event has already been prefigured by smaller gatherings of Grand Army veterans and confederates in celebration* of lesser importances and on frequent occasions when the same impartial' hands have placed flowers on the graves of the heroes of both north and south, says Leslie's Magazine. A great national encampment calling together from every state in the Union the veterans of blue and gray would furnish a most dramatic illustration of a country united in sentiment as well as by the constitution. In the mind of the new generation which ha* grown up since the war there exist* no feeling of sectional hatred or distrust, and if the men who fought one another can now meet together a* brothers about one campfire, Mason and Dixon’s line will once for all be wiped off the map. The discussion itself of such an encampment will do good, but we can see no insuperable barrier to the full realization of the proposal of Commander-in-Chlef Van Sant at the recent encampment at Atlantic City of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Veteran Initiated.

Members of W. M. Hart poaL 0.-A-R.. No. 168, met the other dlght at California. Pa., at the home of T.rJ„ Underwood and initiated Jacoby Quality ninety-seven years old, into the post. Harold Qualk. sixty-nine ?eara old, his son, also was initiated- Both father and son served in Company I. Second West Virginia infantry, r

Germany Buys Aeroplanea.

The Geritoaii war office haa acquired aeroplanes of flve i < different -J types. These comprise Wright, Sommer. Furman and Avatfte biplanes Mad the Ettrlck monoplane. Various tbsts of a far reaching character will bh made with these machines and the government will then make extensive purchases for the army.