He might discover, as not all his fellow-countrymen
have as yet, that the little surgical operation on Mother Earth we
are engaged in is no mule job.
The week-end gave me time to get back in touch with affairs in the
States among the newspaper files at the Y. M. C. A. building.
Uncle Sam surely makes life comfortable for his children wherever
he takes hold. It is not enough that he shall clean up and set in
order these tropical pest-holes; he will have the employee fancy
himself completely at home. Here I sat in one of the dozen big
airy recreation halls, well stocked with man's playthings, which
the government has erected on the Zone; I, who two weeks before
had been thankful for lodging on the earth floor of a Honduranean
hut. The Y. M. C. A. is the chief social center on the Isthmus,
the rendezvous and leisure-hour headquarters of the thousands that
inhabit bachelor quarters--except the few of the purely barroom
type. "Everybody's Association" it might perhaps more properly be
called, for ladies find welcome and the laughter of children over
the parlor games is rarely lacking. It is not the circumspect
place that are many of its type in the States, but a real man's
place where he can buy his cigarettes and smoke his pipe in peace,
a place for men as men are, not as the fashion plates that mama's
fond imagination pictures them.
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