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268 capital. American intervention will destroy the last hope of Mexico for an independent national existence. Mexican patriots cannot forget this, for it is daily paraded before them by the Diaz press itself. Thus the threat of an American army in Mexico is another of the American influences which keep Mexico from revolution against the autocracy of Diaz.

American capital is not at present in favor of political annexation of Mexico. This is because the slavery by which it profits can be maintained with greater safety under the Mexican flag than under the American flag. As long as Mexico can be controlled—in other words, as long as she can be held as a slave colony—she will not be annexed, for once she is annexed the protest of the American people will become so great that the slavery must of necessity be abolished or veiled under less brutal and downright forms. The annexation of Mexico will come only when she cannot be controlled by other means. Nevertheless, the threat of annexation is today held as a club over the Mexican people to prevent them from forcibly removing Diaz.

Do I guess when I prophesy that the United States will intervene in case of a revolution against Diaz? Hardly, for the United States has already intervened in that very cause. The United States has not waited for the revolution to assume a serious aspect, but has lent its powers most strenuously to stamping out its first evidences. President Taft and Attorney General Wickersham, at the behest of American capital, have already placed the United States government in the service of Diaz to aid in stamping out an incipient revolution with which, for justifiable grounds, our revolution of 1776 cannot for an instant be thought of in comparison. Attorney General Wickersham is credited