Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 216, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1916 — MAJOR HEALEY THINKS CARRANZAS BUM LOT [ARTICLE]

MAJOR HEALEY THINKS CARRANZAS BUM LOT

Takes 38 Mile Ride Along the Rio Grande and Sees Mexico With Glasses—Takes on Weight. Mercedes, Tex., Sept. 7.—lndiana troops who have met Carranza soldiers do not think much of the Mexicans. Especially is this belief with Colonel Aubrey L. Kuhlman, commander of the Third Indiana; Major George H. Healey, of the Third battalion, and Lieutenant Rodifer, of the machine gun company of the Third. These three, accompanied by Private Benson, official interpreter at headquarters, took a 38-mile ride along the Rio Grande and saw much of Mexico with field glasses. Near the Donna pump, about five miles from Llano Grande, the Indiana officers found a number .f Mexican Soldiers in a house across the river. Three of these soldiers and a boy, perhaps 1 5 years old, came to the river bank and hailed the Americans. Private Benson talked to them and they said they had no money, and would like to sell the Americans something. Asked what they had to sell, the soldiers replied by taking the bands off their hats and holding them in the air—these hatbands are made from the skins of rattlesnakes and are popular among tourists.

Benson said to send the hatbands across. The soldiers hung the bands about the boy’s neck and he plunged into the river, swimming against the swift current Until he had landed on the American side. He received 50 cents each for the bands, arid placing the money in his mouth, he swam back to the Mexican side. After that the Mexican soldiers opened up for business. They had several- bottles of mescal, which they offered to the American officers at $2 a bottle. But that was too much like smuggling and the officers refused to buy. The soldiers were a dirty, ragged lot and were part of the river guards the Carranza government has established at the boundary line to prevent smuggling and bandit raids. And yet they are in the smuggling business themselves, and it is believed that some of them have been in raids on Jthis side of the river. Several Indiana women who came here to join their husbands have had enough of this country and are arranging to go back home, Nearly all of them have been sick. Thirty-five newspaper coirespondents and a number of telegraphers left last night for the north. seem to think all the stories have been exhausted. “I heard a good deal about'this country before I came down here,” said Major Healey, “and the one thing I heard most of all was that it was a great place to reduce flesh. I weighe I 200 when I came here and now 1 weigh 212 pounds.”