Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/129

Rh makes sustained effort difficult and the atmosphere of the lowlands is so hot and humid that the laborer cannot endure the continuous physical labor of which men of northern lands are capable. Some of these are disadvantages that can be overcome. Some are inherent in the conditions under which the Mexican laborer lives.

Making all due allowances for the disadvantages under which it works, it is clear that the laboring population of Indian blood is one that reacts but slowly to new surroundings and one the abilities of which are still to be determined. The mestizo class, which is gaining in numbers as compared to the pure Indian, will sooner or later be forced to take a larger part in the labor of the community. The Mexican Indian as an Indian seems destined to disappear by absorption. Even though under the stimulus of foreign example and economic compulsion he should take on European habits of life, rapidly develop new wants, and become a greater factor in the national life, there is little chance of his surviving as an Indian. The chance would be less perhaps than if he continued his present mode of life, for his blending with the rest of the population would probably be hastened by unity of economic interest.

Mexico is now predominantly a mixed blood state and it seems probable will become more so. The Mexican laborer of the future, it appears, will be a mestizo and not an Indian, a condition that will be hastened by the absence of the social cleavage on racial lines,