Mexico (1914)

There is, without doubt, a deep hesitancy throughout this nation in the matter of war with Mexico. This was not true when we gaily Cuba and benevolently assimilated the Philippines. What did we care for race problems then? We had our problems settled easily and fluently. All “niggers,” “dagoes,” “chinks,” “Japs” and “mongrels” were inferiors and consequently easy to whip and keep whipped. We therefore envisaged millions of additional working slaves to add to the black peons of our own South and swell the comfortable stream of dividends flowing into white pockets.

Our plan worked. We have Cuba by the industrial throat and the Philippines on its knees, albeit squirming. Why not Mexico with its millions of brown peons? Because the fact is that we, with all our success, are not only uncomfortable,,but we scent danger. Are there inferior human beings or only inferior food and opportunity? Can the white world always hold the black world by the throat and keep it to work? What are these darker, desperate things thinking of and, thinking, what will they do when thought comes to action?

And, finally, how much civilization can we teach the world anyway? Are we civilized? We may blunder into murder and shame and call it a Mexican war. But it will not be war. It will be crime.

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Citation: Du Bois, W.E.B. 1914. “Mexico.” The Crisis. 8(2):79.