YEARS OF EXPERIENCE
IN CONSULAR SERVICE.
LEON GOMEZ NOW COMES TO
KANSAS CITY.
In 24 Years He Has Found no City
That Suits Him Better and
He Would Like to Stay.
LEON GOMEZ.
Leon Gomez, until recently stationed at Cagilari, Island of Sardinia, is the acting Mexican consul to this city, filling the office of M. E. Diebold, now at St. Louis. Mr. Gomez is commissioned as consul to St. Louis, but he said yesterday that in his twenty-four years of consular service he had found no city that suited him quite so well as Kansas City and that he hopes to be recommissioned here.
"A city of beautiful boulevards and avenues," he said. "What drives in the summer time! Not in Old Mexico or France or Italy is better to be found. If I can so arrange I will spend a few years here so as to give my family a rest. It will be good for them and me. We of the consular service are nomads, senor."
Personally, Mr. Gomez is of striking appearance. He is about 55 years old, short and well built. His iron gray hair is roached straight back from his forehead. The nose is Roman, the chin and cheekbones equally prominent.
In full dress uniform with his left breast covered with badges of high orders, his pictures (face views) might pass for that of General Diaz. This effect is considerable heightened by the heavy, drooping gray mustache and the absence of the chin whiskers which adorned his features up until a few weeks ago.
WOULD FILL A BOOK.
In keeping with his distinguished appearance is the new consul's experience in government affairs. Unlike the great president, who speaks none but his own tongue, Mr. Gomez is fluent in English, French and Italian, as well as Spanish.
A complete record of this Mexican's travels and experiences would fill a book. He was first appointed as consul to San Diego, Cal., from Guadalajara. After seven y ears there he was changed to Tuscon, A. T., for seven months, then to Panama for three years, back to California for three years, to Texas for a short time, to Belize or British Honduras for fourteen years, to Italy for a year and now to this point awaiting a post in St. Louis.
Mr. Gomez's diplomacy and education has made him a favorite wherever he has been stationed and his knowledge of languages, customs and laws of foreign countries seems to have kept him in good standing with the Diaz government. In 1894 he won a place in the international history as secretary of the international commission which established forever and beyond possible dispute of the boundary line between Mexico and the United States by planting a line of stone monuments from El Paso to the California coast.
On the subject of travel the new consul is an interesting talker, his knowledge of the countries where he has beeen stationed by his government being minute, even in statistics.
CONSIDERS IT UNWISE.
"Every people has its virtues," he says. "By the same token ever people has its faults that are peculiar and found nowhere else under the sun. If a man is to judge a country let him go to it and live five years, speak its language, follow its customs, obey its laws, eat, sleep and think with its inhabitants.
"The United States bids fair to be the greatest nation in the world because it is cosmopolitan. The most enterprising and energetic of all nations naturally migrate here because it is new and promising. Mexico -----"
But Mr. Gomez does not talk much about Mexico; it is more diplomatic not to draw comparisons. There are views which Mr. Gomez undoubtedly could express about his own country beside all others on the sphere, but he does not consider it wise apparently, saying instead:
"Mexico is a great country, too. Growing just like everything and destined sometime to be a power with the rest. It is great in territory, population and in national heart. It is rich in natural resources and its capitol has walks and drives rivaling those of Kansas City itself!"
It is commonly asserted that the fashionable parades of the City of Mexico are equal to those of Paris and the most beautiful on the continent, but Mr. Gomez would rather be excused from saying so in the United States.
"Always, everywhere, I say to the young man: 'Go to Mexico to live.' The people are warm in their hospitality toward strangers and there is money to be made. It is a big country. The laws are congenial and friendly to foreigners. The girls are -- ah, beautiful, senor. It is a most agreeable place in which to live and bring up a family. I say all this to them because it is true and because Mexico can stand a population as cosmopolitan as that of the United States."
With Mr. Gomez when he came here to Kansas City were his wife and three children, who have followed him about the map into all sorts of climates and among widely different kinds of people. They say they have enjoyed themselves everywhere they have been but like California the best.
