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Show Big Promoter Tunis! Down . Tight' Chance In Paraguay Paraguay OfferedJ'Tex" an Army in 1913 When Bolivian Row Was Brewing; Brew-ing; Didn't Want It. ByXEA Service NEW YORK, Dec. 26. The scrap over the boundary lines between Paraguay and Bolivia reminds Te.: Rickard that if he had not, decided to promote "battles of the century" at Madisn Square Garden, he might be a fighter himself, on a big scale, down in the troubled southern territory. terri-tory. For Rickard knows this Chaco "Bolivia i? not a farming country its chief industry is in metals. There are valuable tin mines there." Rickard lived on his South American Amer-ican ranch for eight years after he purchased it, but ho does not intend to go back to live there. He is holding hold-ing it as an investment. Employed Wild Indhms "The' country is beautiful, and the Paraguayans are a fine race of people," peo-ple," he says. "I employed Indians to build fences and doing the work on the ranch. They were wild fellows, fel-lows, who we'ar feathers on their heads and have 3-day war dances, and lived much as the American Indians In-dians did when Columbus came over. But we had no difficulties with them. I left in 1918 and have ne'ver been back since. "Yep, it's a great country, but I've never regretted passing up my gen eralship. The little old U. S. A.' suits me pretty well particularly right now." country, the scene of all the trouble, well. In 1912 he went down to Paraguay Par-aguay and bought up some 5,000,000 acres of grazing land running from the Pilcomayo rive'r to the Paraguay Para-guay river, for a French, English and Belgian syndicate. Boufrl-ifc Big Ranch , At that time be bought 325.000 acres for himself, which he still holds and regards as one of his most promising investments, i "And we might just as well have ! starte'd a war then a.s now," Rick-. Rick-. ard recalled. "In fact, I was asked to lead an army, but I declined. " "In 1913, I went down there, with my wife, to live on the land we had just purchased. Coming to the Pilcomayo Pil-comayo river I ran into four new-Bolivian new-Bolivian forts. The' Bolivians would not let me bring my outfits in. But I finally found a place to cross, between be-tween the forts, and 'Went on to Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, and took over the deeds of the land. "I mentioned the forts to the" government gov-ernment officials there, and they became greatly excited; they knew nothing of them. "Right off the bat .they wanted to give me an army, and have me go drive out the Bolivians. That's not my kind of fighting, however, and I declined the general's uniform uni-form and the soldiers. I told them a 'few forts were nothing in my life The forts ere still there." Rickard thinks it would be greatly great-ly to the disadvantage of both countries coun-tries to go to war'oVcr the boundaries, bound-aries, since this is e.n old dispute and would doubtless be' a long-drawn-out, bitter struggle. "The Paraguay cattle country is as fine a region as there is in the world today," he says. "The land is cheap, you can buy property 'for a dollar or two an acre, and the taxes are' not high. Tho value of I the land went down a little during-the during-the world war or rather, the war retarded the develpment, but there is no doubt that property there' will he very valuable some day. Wealth In Oil "There is oil in Paraguay, no one knows how much, but there is no question but. that oil is really at the bottom of the boimniy disputes. Standard Oil has large' interest s there. Armour and Company has fa large meat plant in San Salvador, I on the edge of the disputed land, and The Central Products enmpnnv, j another American concern, has sev-1 sev-1 cral million acre's of land and T5.00C head of cattle in the disputed area |