Page:Hands off Mexico.djvu/79

 Intervention is not defensible on any ground. It is bad democracy. For all of us except a handful, it is bad business. It is impossible to exaggerate the probable disaster to both countries. Not only would the Mexican people pay, but the American people would pay—in blood, taxes, higher living costs, in the friendship of our neighbors, in the Constitutional liberties of which peoples are invariably robbed in war-time, in our own character, in all the elements that make for a higher civilization and for world peace.

In the cause of the Mexican "problem" is found its solution. As our meddling has been a decisive factor in creating and prolonging the disorder, and in subjecting Americans to danger, so an opposite policy would tend to produce the opposite result. We must stop threatening Mexico, stop invading Mexico, stop embargoing Mexico, enter into a fair agreement for policing the border, keep a few of our fine promises, make a fair trial of treating our neighbor as an equal.

The question would remain as to what the Mexican Government would do to the great property interests which we are told are in jeopardy. The Mexican Government has asserted that it does not intend to confiscate them. But supposing it should confiscate them. Then let it confiscate them. The interests of the American people are not the interests of the oil corporations in this matter. They are, rather, the interests of the Mexican people. The progress of reform anywhere is marked by the surrender of the privileges of a few in deference to the necessities of the many. Perhaps some American would really suffer. But the Americans who are interested in the exploitation of Mexican oil are, for the most part, millionaires with great holdings elsewhere. Were they dispossessed in Mexico, without a dollar of compensation, they would not forego any luxury; nor would their families starve. There may be foreign "rights" in Mexico. But how about the rights of Mexicans? Great public works, serviceable to the Mexican nation, education, improvement, material and moral rehabilitation, await only the necessary funds. Mexico has both the legal and moral right to tax such funds from the rich holdings in her natural resources. The vested interests of a minority, whether native or foreign, cannot stand against the needs of the great majority. It is more to the