MEXICO: Shorty

Other Mexicans hope for loans, treaties and boundary changes from the President of the U.S. on his visit this week. Shy, plump Genaro Corona Morales, the legless bootblack of the presidential palace, just wants to shine Harry Truman's shoes.

Genaro was a Morelia carpenter just come to the capital when, on Oct. 3, 1920, he bumped his head getting off a streetcar and fell beneath the wheels. He lay in the street while Mexico's Red Cross and White Cross (then hot rivals for every body found in the streets) argued about who should get him. A woman stepped from the...

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