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By Their Fruits

1. Decadence

THE INAUGURATION OF Alvaro Obregon as president of the Republic of Mexico December 1, 1920 made peaceful operation of businesses and industry once more possible. This long looked-for day should have marked the beginning of a normal resumption of peace time activities and given new life to every industry from which prosperity of the Colonia Juarez community had stemmed. The tragic fact was that none of the former enterprises had any life left in them. The Colonial Mercantile was a mere building with empty shelves and bins, empty warehouse, rifled safety vaults and vacant money tills. John W. Wilson, manager and part owner, after repeated robbings and manhandlings had moved his family to El Paso. President Bentley and boys after struggling against repeated robbings to keep flour and beans and a minimum of absolute essentials on hand were cautious to a point of defeatism.

The grist mill, an industry with which Daniel Skousen had become an independent and moderately successful miller, was now but a slim reminder of prosperous days. Persistent robbing of every sack of flour as fast as hoppers could fill them, of belts and movable parts stolen faster than he could replace them, with little grain to grind as his farm and others lay idle for want of teams to work them, with water rights questioned and continued litigation occupying too much of his time he had decided to cease operations, put his efforts into farm lands. The building that through the years had been a symbol of thrifty home industry, a monument to the dynamic energy and keen foresight of its builder, W. R. R. Stowell, stood unused and forlorn.

The Tanning and Manufacturing Company was all but wiped out. The old frame shoe and harness shop had burned. The brick tannery building at the rear had been so consistently robbed of every manufactured article, that its vats, its rubbing tables and its disabled machinery now stood idle or completely incapacitated, a prey to vandalism. The Taylor brothers, rightful owners, had left the country.

The Harper Hotel now made for Fannie C. Harper but a bare subsistence. Among the first to return, Fannie C. had with great difficulty regained possession of her property from rebel parties who utilized it as a barracks. Only her absolute fearlessness, her diplomacy and persistence had wrenched it from their control.

The herds of cattle that had once pastured on the Taylor and Brown ranch lands had long since fallen into hands of foraging revolutionists, cutting off revenue from the colony.

The Pearson lumber mills were at a standstill. Pearson was now but a station for the Mexico North Western railroad and a terminus for the mail. Trains limping around burned bridges on "shoo-flys" found it difficult to carry on. The huge planers, drying sheds and floating log service were idle. A million-dollar industry was deteriorating from disuse.

The cannery had completely disappeared, its equipment stolen piece by piece.