224
MEXICO UNDER CARRANZA
It is true, but what the accusers conceal is that the bureaucrats, political and non-political, have ever accorded the same treatment to the Indian. It is only the demagogues who love, venerate, exalt, and protect them in their harangues, when they think it will help to secure their votes or obtain universal applause, bringing them favourably before the public and making them feared by the government. Even the most ragged, unwashed, vicious loafer of the cities assumes an air of superiority and the tone of a potentate toward the unfortunate Indian. The best proof that all Mexico looks upon the Indian as an inferior, is that every one addresses him in the familiar form of 'tu' (which expresses confidence and affection when addressed to an equal, but condescension when directed toward an inferior), and that every one orders him about as though he were a slave. This attitude of imaginary superiority is not found exclusively among the Mexican Creoles and mestizos, but in every part of Latin America where there are domesticated Indians. We do not have to go further back than forty years to find the time when the population was divided into 'gente de razón' (rational beings) and Indians; and at the present time the population of mestizos is designated 'gente de razón', in contradistinction to the Indians."[1]
Most interesting and enlightening evidence of the way in which the so-called democratic government of Mexico, as controlled by the Latin element representing the employing interests, has exploited
- ↑ "The Whole Truth About Mexico"; Bulnes, page 74.
