BarbarousMexico JOHN KENNETH TURNER

336 nAR1IWus MEXICO
or write because he was probably born in a country
district ten miles from the nearest school, or if he was
born in the shadow of a public school he literally had
to scratch the earth from the time he could crawl in
order to get something to eat. He has no education and
no special training of any kind because he has had no
opportunity to secure either. Having had no special
training all he is able to do is to carry heavy loads.
Probably at twenty-five he is a physical wreck from
under-feeding, exposure and overwork. But suppose
lie is one of the few who has kept his strength. What
can he do? Carry more heavy loads; that is all. He
can get perhaps fifty cents a day carrying heavy loads
and all the effort of a Hercules cannot better the price,
for all he has is brawn, and brawn is cheap as dirt in
Mexico. I have seen men "making an effort." I have
seen them work until I could see the glazing of their eyes,
I have seen them put forth such efforts that their chests
rose and fell with explosive gasps, I have seen them
carry such heavy weights that they tottered and fell in
the street, in which wa y they are crushed to death, sometimes.
1w the thing above them. They were putting
forth their best efforts in the only thing they knew because
they had never had an opportunity to learn anything
else, and they were dying just as fast as those
Others who did as little as possible to live. The point
is that they never enjoyed the opportunities at the start
that we accept as a birthright. Imagine, if you can,
the majority of our American schools being suddenly
swept away, imagine a change from your condition of
partial work partial leisure to one of all work and no
leisure. imagine your earning power as insufficient to
feed any mouth but your own, imagine each mouth in
the family needing a separate pair of hands to feed it