Page:Mexico under Carranza.djvu/51

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MEXICO UNDER CARRANZA
35

road employees for protesting against a government order that their wages should be paid 75 per cent, in cash and the remainder in government promises to pay to be redeemed in actual cash 'when there is an improvement in the economic circumstances that prevail at present' The editor says:

"'The argument [of the employees] is based on a falsehood, namely, that the weight of this policy of economy will fall solely on the working men of the Mexican Railway. The truth is that the weight of this policy of economy has been felt for some time past by social classes just as important as the Mexican Railway workmen. The facts are much too recent to call for repetition. Who is ignorant of the fact that many government bureaus have been closed because of the policy of economy? Thousands of school teachers have been dismissed; thousands of government employees have been discharged, even in the railways, the reduction of the personnel cannot be called slight.

"'Did not the newspapers of yesterday or the day before state that nine hundred railway men, who had been dismissed from their jobs, were going to the United States?'

"There is great suffering among the lower classes from lack of food and the pangs of hunger are not unknown among the middle classes. Beggars, always numerous in Mexico, have multiplied tenfold. In Mexico City, beggars are constantly at the entrances of all the restaurants of any size and persons going in and out are importuned for charity. Waiters have to keep constantly on the alert to prevent beggars in their filthy rags from entering