Page:Hands off Mexico.djvu/17

  object was to convince the Filipino youth of the advantages of American rule, one generation has passed and gone, another has come, and the Filipino people are still pleading for self-determination. The Mexican people sacrificed thousands of lives to free themselves from Spain, and again thousands to save themselves from subjection to a dynasty sought to be imposed by France. Whether the Mexicans love us or whether they hate us, there is no reason to believe that any important fraction of the Mexican nation would approve of any form of American meddling in Mexican affairs.

The above, of course, does not cover the entire range of the interventionist propaganda. Nor does it cover the easily provable lies. These are merely sample lies that happen to be lies on their face. If the falsity of essential propositions like these is so easily discernible, the public may well suspect all reports emanating from the same quarter, whether immediately capable of disproof or not—tales of atrocities, disorders, dissensions, immoralities, or confiscations; statements as to the real causes of such disorders as exist, of the issues between the oil men and the Mexican Government, and of the obligations of the American people in the premises.

A further examination will show that the interventionist propaganda as a whole is composed largely of misstatements, and that it is the misstatements alone that seem to support the justice of the policy proposed.

 

4.

AMERICAN LIVES NOT THE ISSUE

Every report of disorder, maladministration, destitution, confiscation, murder, or other outrage, and especially every one in which Americans figure as sufferers, is nowadays used to impress upon the conscience of the people the proposition that we are in some way obligated to send armed forces into Mexico to "straighten out" affairs there.

Although any form of misgovernment or suffering anywhere is to be deplored, it does not follow that the remedy proposed in this instance would be just, effective, or in any way defensible. 