Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III GOVERNMENT BY BANDITRY There are two groups of major questions which Americans are beginning to ask themselves consciously or subconsciously about Mexico. One is, Are things going to continue to be as bad as they are painted by some of the experts or as lily-white as the advocates of self-determination make out? If we really have to come to a conclusion whom are we to believe? By what talisman or touchstone are we to determine what is andVhat isn’t the truth? iM The other group is represented by the impatient man of affairs who says, You fellows shout about our national responsibility for the wreck of Mexico. Here I’ve been tending strictly to my own affairs and you say that while I wasn’t looking somebody has slipped a grindstone over on me and that its name is Mexico. Now, how did I get that necklace? I don’t want it; I have no use for it, but you say I asked for it. Show me. In reply to the first class of these enquiring minds I would say that the touchstone for the truth in regard to Mexico is a diamond with about a hundred facets. Every one of these facets presents a different view to the superficial crystal- gazer and it is no wonder that the general public is confused when half a dozen seers peering in at half a dozen facets shout to the world the contradictory sights they see. Why these many angles? In other words, why is the issue so confused and how is the man-in-a-hurry to seize it long enough to determine in his own mind and for himself what is really what? Will he have to tabulate a hundred different view-points taken by proxy? If so, Heaven help himl He will never come to that cry of despair if he will read on and then draw on his private stock of common sense. The Mexican issue is confused because it is so near us, because so many p…