Into Mexico and out! .. . troops might cross the border to pur-sue a bandit. Had we known all this (and it should have been reportedto our consuls all together), my friend wouldnt have been quite so gladnor quite so scared. But he would have been scared some and some glad,and he undoubtedly still has some hope and some fear. Id like to spreadhis fear. The careless correspondents with Pershings careless troops describewhat they see on Villas trail: the burning alkali desert and the blazing,bareboned mountains; the abandoned villages and the staring old menand women and little children along the
Into Mexico and out! .. . troops might cross the border to pur-sue a bandit. Had we known all this (and it should have been reportedto our consuls all together), my friend wouldnt have been quite so gladnor quite so scared. But he would have been scared some and some glad,and he undoubtedly still has some hope and some fear. Id like to spreadhis fear. The careless correspondents with Pershings careless troops describewhat they see on Villas trail: the burning alkali desert and the blazing,bareboned mountains; the abandoned villages and the staring old menand women and little children along the vacant way. Ive been in thatcountry, and that isnt what I see there. I see the suspicious, hateful eyes of all the able-bodied Mexicans, men and women, watching from behind distant rocks and brush the passing of our soldiers, watching and waiting for the word to come from their chiefs to attack, and not as an army; not yet; but one by one, as 5^2 >, sa. snipers, till, having found out how well they can shoot and hide. - ySill and run—both the men and the women—and having gathered from all theclimates of all their great, wild country, they can pour down upon our fewthousands a deluge of people, mad to kill or die. For the Mexicans are not afraid to die. During the last five months whenI was in Mexico scores of them, of all classes and kinds, were stood upagainst a wall and shot. I never went to see the sight, but I who did, and no witness said he ever saw a Mexican quail oreven flinch before the rifles leveled at his breast; not one. A Vv-ar with Mexico is very likely to be a war of extermination. Thepeople, the common people, all go to war there, the women and childrenalong with the men. The women and children forage and do the campwork, but when their men drop, the women frequently pick up the riflesand continue the fire. So the Mexican people will be at our battles withthem. We can get at them. And well defeat them. Every intelligentMexican I
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