Again, Carranza decreed that customs duties be paid in gold. The Administration protested, demanding that they be made payable in paper. Carranza replied: "Kindly look at the back of one of your own United States notes." Here is what our State Department found: This Note is Legal Tender at its Face Value for all Debts, Public and Private, except Duties on Imports and Interest in the Public Debt."
Our State Department even attempted to browbeat Carranza into accepting Villa paper as legal tender.
During all this time a violent drive for intervention on behalf of Villa was being carried on in the American press.
When General Obregon laid a special tax upon the rich of Mexico City—to feed the poor—the protest that came from Washington on behalf of rich Americans and other foreigners was so threatening that Carranza thought it best to yield. At the same time, Wilson, through Bryan, was apologizing publicly for a similar tax imposed by Villa in Monterrey, which was allowed to stand against foreigners as well as Mexicans.
Having denied to the poor of the Mexican capital the emergency relief—the only relief available—we sent a note to Carranza, threatening to hold him and General Obregon personally responsible should any Americans suffer by reason of rioting on the part of the poor!
More than that, we capitalized the sufferings of the poor for the manufacture of interventionist sentiment. The American press was filled with inflammatory stories comparing Mexico City to the concentration camps of Cuba, and to Pekin during the Boxer troubles, and suggesting intervention "for the sake of humanity," to "protect American lives and property," or "to assist Villa to set up a stable government."
As all private reports from Mexico City during that period were censored, telegrams and even letters, the only source of information, for the Government or for the press, was the diplomatic communications of Senor Cardoso. As practically all reports of this sort emanated from Washington, and as nearly all of them showed on their face that they were inspired by the State Department, the primary responsibility for the interventionist storm of February and March, 1915, lies upon the Wilson Administration.
March 5, the State Department formally notified Americans to leave Mexico.
49
