Indian blood and declared themselves proud of their inheritance. Nevertheless, in domestic politics, the Indian has been a subject of general neglect. Mexico has recognized that her greatest problem is at bottom a race problem, but she has made only the feeblest of efforts for its solution.
The criticisms of the Indian laborer by his employers are those frequently alleged against the colored races, especially those living under tropical or semitropical conditions. The Indian laborer is alleged to be lazy, of few wants, preferring a low standard of life with little exertion, physical or mental, to hard work and the satisfaction of new desires. He is stolid, taciturn, melancholy, fatalistic, deceitful, and unambitious. He is declared childlike, quick to anger, devoted, and revengeful. With other peoples at a similar stage of development he shares a fondness for strong drink. "He never becomes an initiator, that is to say, an agent of civilization. . . the native people is a static people."[1] Unlike some of the native population of the United States he is said to be usually docile, easy to handle if his prejudices are not offended, and, as a rule, not a lover of fighting for its own sake. Custom plays a large part in his life and he yields to new influences but slowly. Though there are those whose experience seems to prove the contrary, it is the general testimony that the native lacks powers of sustained attention and industry. He is easily diverted from the task in hand. He shows, in short, in
- ↑ Justus Sierra quoted in Luis Pombo, México, 1876-1892, Mexico, 1893, p. 7.
