The Days of a Man 1:1916 



Violence In 1919, after the attempt of the Carranza govern- 

 ''^'''" ment to tax or otherwise control the oil interests in 

 Tamaulipas and Vera Cruz, armed intervention on 

 the part of the United States was again strongly 

 urged. I then sent to The Public the following satirical 

 discussion of the situation: ^ 



Mexico Next! 



According to the press, the next number of our international 

 program must be the pacification of Mexico. It is, indeed, 

 regarded as our plain duty to bring order to that distracted 

 country, and it is obvious that the best way to do this is to 

 extirpate the distractors, meanwhile taking charge of the 

 national property. Fortunately this will offer little embarrass- 

 ment, as 47 per cent of it ($1,057,000,000 out of $2,434,000,000) 

 is already in American hands, and more than half the rest in the 

 control of our British allies. 



It is, moreover, urged that we must act at once. The reasons 

 for this policy I may set down as the "Ten Points": 



1. It may be that the Covenant of Nations will come into 

 operation. This would give the world at large the right to pry 

 into our methods and purposes. That would be intolerable. 



2. President Carranza goes out of office in 1920. His suc- 

 cessor may be of a different type,' which might prove very 

 embarrassing. As it is. President Carranza can always be 

 counted on to return an irritating answer in a crisis; by his 

 friends he is described as a Spanish replica of the Senior Senator 

 from Massachusetts. Nevertheless, the Mexican President may 

 as well learn from our experience that public property once 

 deeded to a corporation is gone forever, and that all effort to 

 regain it is energy altogether wa'sted. 



3. At El Paso in 1916, when we proposed to police Mexico, 

 "the Old Man put his foot down." But a change of adminis- 

 tration is due in 1921, and we must be ready for the emergency. 



4. Now is the time to act. We may never again find a Con- 

 gressional Investigation Committee so steadfast as today. We 

 may trust the Senator from New Mexico and his colleagues 



* Issue of September 20, 1919. 



n 702 3 



