Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 103, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1916 — WHAT WILL THE HARVEST BE IN MEXICO? [ARTICLE]

WHAT WILL THE HARVEST BE IN MEXICO?

While in hopes thaft it will turn out all right,' in the humble opinion of The Democrat Uncle Sam has made a great mistake in going down into Mexico to capture or kill Villa and his bandits. We have no confidence whatever in the ability of the more intelligent Mexican leaders to control the ignorant “greasers” who make up a large part of the population of that faction-ridden country, and but very little confidence in the prostestations of co-oper-ation of Carranza and his immediate followers. We shall not be surprised in the least to hear of another “Custer massacre” at any moment and that the lives of all the U. S. soldiers sent down there have been snuffed out through the treachery of supposed friendly factions. It seems highly improbable, when one stops to calmly consider the matter, that it is the proper thing to go out 6n a “squirrel hunt” with a brass band. The very nature of the country down in Mexico and the friendliness the ignorant natives have toward Villa, whom many of them look upon as a sort of deity, makes it possible for him to scatter his followers, carry on a guerrila warfare and hide for an unlimited time from his pursuers. Had a reward of $25,000 to $50,000 been offered by this country for the bandit chief dead or alive, and the fact that such reward was offered been thoroughly circulated throughout Mexico, it is more than likely that some of his followers would have soon ended the career of this cut-throat villian, brought his body to the border and turned it over for the huge sum of money—to them at least— offered. Besides affording, iu our opinion, the better plan of capturing Villa, this would have saved the United States a few millions of dollars even though the expedition should end today, while the prospects are that it is not likely to end anyways soon; that we will become involved in real war with Mexico and that thousands of lives will be .sacrificed and that hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent in subjugating that country,