hought
that the Mexican ought to be 'Americanized.' That's a fatal mistake in
any mission field outside the States. All in all, you can see that it
isn't entirely inevitable that the Mexican should understand our
motives, or appreciate them when he does understand. But that's all the
more reason for bearing down hard on every form of genuine missionary
work. It's the only thing that we Americans can do in Mexico with any
hope of avoiding suspicion or of our presence being acceptable to the
Mexicans in the long run. We've got to fight the backfire of our
American commercialism, and the prejudice which is as real on the Texas
side of the river as it is on the other; for if the Mexican thinks in
terms of 'gringo,' the American of the Southwest is just as likely to
think in terms of 'greaser.'"

When J.W. and Mr. Tanner parted for the night it was with the mutual
promise that they would have another talk some time the next day, but
the promise could not be kept. The retired business man heard from some
of his business in the early morning, and had just time to say a hurried
farewell. As he put it, "I thought I had retired, but unless I get back
to look after this particular affair I may have to get into the harness
again, and that is not a cheerful prospect at my age. So I go to
business to avert the danger of going back to business."

A little later the two hardware salesmen were in El Paso again, after a
couple of side trips. J.W. took advantage of a long train wait to hunt
up the city library. He wanted to know whether Mr. Tanner was right in
saying that the Latin-American question was much the same everywhere.

He wrote a letter to Mr. Drury that night, having thus far used picture
postcards until he was ashamed. In the letter he took occasion to
mention his talk with the "missionary father-in-law," and his own bit of
reading up on the subject.

Said he: "I guess that man Tanner was right. He did not speak much of
the difference between the people of one country and those of another,
which rather surprised me. He said nothing of the two great classes, the
rulers with much European blood, and the peons, largely or altogether
Indian. There must be all sorts of Latin Americans, rich and poor, mixed
blood of many strains, Castilian and Aztec and Inca, and whatever other
people were here when Columbus set the fashion for American voyages. But
this is where this 'missionary father-in-law' hit the heart of the
trouble: Lat