If the Mexican people possessed intelligence and courage enough to demand and enforce the cessation of murderous activities by their bandit leaders, that country might now enjoy great material prosperity, for it is rich in things which the world is paying high prices for. It has copper, rubber, and petroleum, as well as gold and silver, and a soil that could be made to produce abundant food crops.
The recently issued Summer Social Register of 1915 shows a reduction of 75 per cent. in foreign residences or banking addresses abroad of Americans. This indicates the effect of the war on society in restricting foreign travel from this country. A Wall Street note also indicates that many notable financiers and captains of industry are taking their summer vacations in visits to the Pacific Coast and other portions of their own country instead of the usual European visit. The tourist agencies have also changed their activities to promoting “seeing America first.”
Some time ago Prof. Kuno Meyer predicted that the present war, instead of being quickly ended, would develop into a world-wide war, in which America would try to remain neutral, but would ultimately have to fight to protect her own interests. Let us hope that Prof. Meyer is too pessimistic. Already there are some significant signs that peace may not be so far off as some people suppose.
Miss Angela Morgan, one of the American delegates to the International Women’s Conference at The Hague, says that German college professors whose names are well known in the United States told her that they were opposed to the annexation of Belgium or any other foreign territory.
The old Latin motto to learn from the enemy might be applied with advantage (to themselves) by the British nation whose eminent leaders are complaining of slack work in the manufacture of munitions of war. A neutral correspondent of a London paper, returning from Germany says the workmen in German ammunition factories put in fifteen to twenty hours’ continuous work at a shift; that they never strike and never go on a vacation. Every worker works with the utmost diligence and energy of which he is capable, because he knows that if he slacks he will be sent to the front and placed on the firing line. This is war.