Page:Mexico under Carranza.djvu/113

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MEXICO UNDER CARRANZA
97

of Diaz to power in 1876. He owed them everything, for they made him master of Mexico. They enjoyed thirty-four years of almost uninterrupted freedom until the flight of Diaz to Paris in 1910. . . . He paid his first debts by concessions for the building of two railroad lines from the Texas border to Mexico City. Land was given for the right of way, together with a subsidy of $14,000 per mile on level country and $35,000 per mile in rough country.

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"During all these years, the United States was unhappily the bulwark of the exploiting interests. The Mexican people feared American intervention more than anything else and this fear kept them from revolution. And the colossal grants and subsidies for railroads, mines, oil, gold, silver, copper and land, judiciously distributed, identified the United States' State Department, the Senate, tie press, and the people of the United States with Diaz no matter what his outrages might be.

"The Mexicans want to get back their lands which have been taken from them by bribery or machine guns. And they are doing it. They want to get back their oil wells, gold and silver mines, and the tremendously rich copper deposits of the north, and they are doing it."

The name of the author of the pamphlet is not given, and there is no means of ascertaining the race to which he belongs. It is certain, however, that the paragraphs quoted indicate two of the worst characteristics of the element which has given Mexico bad government for four hundred