wage-worker so little that it is an extravagance, indeed, for the latter to take a day off. "They're so improvident that I have to keep them at the starvation point or they won't work at all." You'll hear Americans saying that almost any day in Mexico. In illustration of which numerous stories are virtuously recounted.
Improvident! Yes, the starving Mexican is improvident. He spends his money to keep from starving! Yes, there are cases where he is paid such munificent wages that he is able to save a centavo now and then if he tries. And, trying, he finds that providence boots him nothing. He finds that the moment he gets a few dollars ahead he at once becomes a mark for every grafting petty official within whose ken he falls. If the masters of Mexico wished their slaves to be provident they should give them an opportunity to get something ahead and then guarantee not to steal it back again.
The poor Mexican is accused of being an inveterate thief. The way a Mexican laborer will accept money and then try to run away, instead of working for the rest of his life to pay off the debt, is, indeed, enough to bring tears to the eyes of the American grinder of enganchados. The American promoter steals the very life blood of the laborer and then expects the latter to be so steeped in virtue as to refrain from stealing any part of it back again. When a Mexican peon sees a trinket or a pretty thing that takes his fancy he is quite likely to steal it, for it is the only way he can get it. He risks jail for an article worth a few centavos. How often would he do it if the payment of those few centavos would not mean a hungry day for him? American planters steal laborers, carry them away by force to their plantations, steal their families away from them,
