SkaU We Try to Americanize 
 
 tke Mexicans? 
 REV. DR. ROBERT McLEAN 
 
 Dr. McLean is superintendent of the Mexican 
 Department of the Board of Home Missions of the 
 Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. His head- 
 quarters are in Los Angeles. The Mexican home 
 mission field extends throughout Southern Califor- 
 nia, Arizona, New Mexico, Southern Colorado and 
 a large area of Texas. Dr. McLean has spent most 
 of his working life among Spanish-speaking people, 
 uses their language fluently and has been giving con- 
 ditions on the A merican-Mexican border close study. 
 
 To this question I would answer at 
 once Yes and No. One fact is not read- 
 ily recognized by the majority of those 
 interested in our Mexican problem, viz., 
 that there are two distinct classes of 
 Mexicans, and that we have two distinct 
 problems, each requiring a different 
 treatment in its solution. 
 
 In California and New Mexico par- 
 ticularly there is a large population of 
 so-called Mexicans who are as much 
 Americans by birth and right as any son 
 of the soil. It has been the policy of 
 the Roman Catholic priesthood to hold 
 these Spanish-Americans apart in edu- 
 cation, religion and customs from the 
 movement of American life and civil- 
 ization, and as a consequence we have 
 in this great element a stationary nation 
 within the most progressive nation of the 
 world. In saying this I would qualify 
 
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the assertion by adding that among the 
 Spanish- Americans, born under the stars 
 and stripes, there is an up-to-date, pro- 
 gressive class, in close touch and sym- 
 pathy with the spirit of the age ; but they 
 are a small minority. The mass of the 
 plaza Mexicans have made but little 
 progress toward realizing American 
 ideals since they came under the flag. 
 They are now a part of the body politic 
 in all their rights, privileges and possi- 
 bilities of power for good or evil. That 
 this class should be Americanized there 
 can be no question. Until they are 
 brought into close touch and sympathy 
 with our institutions through a broad, 
 liberal education and through the appli- 
 cation of the Gospel they constitute quite 
 as much of a menace to popular govern- 
 ment as any immigrant class coming to 
 us by the way of Ellis Island. 
 
 But there is another class, increasing 
 with alarming rapidity, that has nothing 
 in common with the Spanish-American 
 but the common need, and between the 
 two there seems to be an irreconcilable 
 antagonism that cannot be understood or 
 appreciated by any one who is not in 
 close touch ajid sympathy with both. 
 
 This was illustrated in the Interde- 
 nominational Council on Mexican work, 
 held in Albuquerque April 1-2, when 
 one of the speakers, one who has been 
 for years in New Mexico, but has never 
 learned the language, depreciated the or- 
 ganization of separate churches for the 
 
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Mexicans, advocating rather the Ameri- 
 canizing of the youth and bringing them 
 into the American churches. The com- 
 ment of one of the Mexicans was, 
 "Little does he know about the Mexi- 
 cans." 
 
 Had he known them by personal con- 
 tact and conversation he would have 
 learned that the average Spanish-Amer- 
 ican and the Mexican from old Mexico 
 are intensely loyal, the first to his blood, 
 and the second to his country, and that 
 neither has any use for the other. 
 
 "The worst element we have here is 
 the Mexican from old Mexico," said a 
 native of New Mexico to me. 
 
 "The worst enemies we have here," 
 said one of our strongest native preach- 
 ers in Los Angeles recently, "are the 
 native Californians of Spanish blood." 
 
 This was said to me at the beginning 
 of a Sunday evening meeting in Los An- 
 geles. I looked over the congregation 
 and I do not believe that in the one hun- 
 dred and ten that were present there was 
 one who did not hail from old Mexico. 
 When the pastor asked for requests for 
 prayer they came from all over the room. 
 
 "That the Lord may give the pastor 
 power that he may give to us the Bread 
 of Life"; 
 
 "That those without work may find a 
 means to earn their bread" ; 
 
 "That the sick of our number may be 
 healed by the Great Physician" ; 
 
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And then a little boy in the front seat 
 said, "Pray that God may bless Mexico." 
 
 The pastor applauded the little fellow 
 for his patriotism, and so did I when it 
 came my turn to speak. I said to them, 
 "If in your stay in this land you learn 
 what it is that Mexico needs, if you learn 
 what it is that causes us to abide in peace 
 and safety while your land, so highly 
 favored by nature, is torn with strife 
 and dissension, and then will return to 
 tell the story and point your countrymen 
 and countrywomen the way to peace and 
 life, then we will feel that our labors 
 have been richly blessed." 
 
 We are putting forth great efforts to 
 raise up and maintain a missionary force 
 in Mexico to evangelize that land. God 
 has sent them to us by the tens of thou- 
 sands, giving us a splendid opportunity 
 to do the greatest kind of foreign mis- 
 sion work at the same time that we are 
 doing a home mission work for our 
 safety. 
 
 Yes, let us Americanize our American 
 born Mexicans, but let us evangelize for 
 mission work our guests from old 
 Mexico. 
 
 The old Plaza, near our mission, 
 swarms every night with thousands of 
 men from Mexico. There the socialists 
 and anarchists are busy distributing their 
 literature, and making fiery speeches to 
 inflame these untrained, desperate men 
 against existing institutions and condi- 
 tions. 
 
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A young Mexican came to me with a 
 periodical. "What does it represent?" 
 I asked him. 
 
 "The I. W. W.," was his reply. 
 
 "What is your complaint?" 
 
 "We want work." 
 
 "Can you not get it?" 
 
 "No, there are 40,000 in Southern 
 California without work," was his reply. 
 
 "What is the reason ?" 
 
 "Machinery has replaced them." 
 
 "You know," I said, "that this is an 
 age of specialists, and the man for the 
 age must be educated to be master of the 
 machine." 
 
 To this he could make no answer, but 
 I asked myself, "Who is to educate 
 him?" There is but one answer to that: 
 The great Christian church, with its im- 
 mense wealth, must establish industrial 
 schools to train these children of mis- 
 fortune, victims of ignorance and intol- 
 erance, to work intelligently, and in the 
 spirit of the Carpenter of Nazareth. 
 
 One well-equipped industrial school to- 
 day will be worth more than a hundred 
 Carnegie libraries for the intellectually 
 well-fed to-morrow. This is God's 
 trumpet-call to His missionary force in 
 the church. Who will answer? 
 
 Copies of this leaflet may be had at $.50 per hundred ; 
 $4.00 per thousand, upon appUcation to the Board of Home 
 Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., 156 
 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 
 
 No. 441. Please use number in ordering further copies. 
 
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