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 efforts to enforce his own decree of 1915 for distribution of land. He sent troops to destroy the Zapatistas organization and to drive the people back into the hills where their inability to raise crops caused a famine. During his years of bitter campaign against them, more than half of the population of their district perished and Zapata was finally killed.

Meanwhile, in Yucatan, absentee landlords found their profits decreasing. The high price of henequen annoyed the United States Government, which needed it for war purposes. The Yucatan Henequen Commission was bitterly opposed by the United States Food Commission as well as by the McCormick Company. Denouncement of the Yucatan Commission as a monopoly was unsuccessfully sought in the United States Supreme Court. Much pressure was brought to bear upon Carranza and towards the end of his administration he attempted to break the power of the Yucatan Commission by getting control of the state railroads. Later, when Obregon was endorsed by the Liga de Resistencia for a presidential candidate, Carranza sent a military governor to control the elections. This his troops prepared to do by pillaging co-operative stores ,driving farmers from their land, flogging naked Indians in the streets and demolishing villages with machine guns.

In many other states Carranza pursued a similar policy of driving peons from the land and imposing miiltary governors. Other factors contributing to his downfall were the opposition of the oil interests, financial and industrial exhaustion of a