Page:Mexico's dilemma.djvu/71

Rh property. In Mexico bandits destroy foreign property. The most popular cry of the revolutionists has been "Down with the foreigners who exploited us." Thus our neighbour south of the Rio Grande faces some of our problems of the late Sixties with the added difficulty that whenever the highwaymen operate there it causes an international as well as an internal crisis.

The operations of Villa in the North have agitated not only foreign business interests, but the American people. What Zapata has done disturbs the Mexicans the most, although he, too, is opposed to foreigners.

The Carranza Government has sent several military expeditions into Morelos in an attempt to crush Zapata. As the soldiers marched through the state in search of Zapata's army they met only the most peaceful citizens. No one knew where Zapata was! No one had seen his army! Zapata was clever enough not to fight. He ordered all his soldiers to bury their arms and plough their fields. When the Carranza forces left, the army appeared, and it was, and still is, unsafe for any one to go through the state. The government has attempted to stop shipments of ammunition to Zapata, but this has not been successful, as officers and soldiers in the government's army have sold munitions to Zapata. Now the government, suspicious of certain officers and men, is laying a trap for them, and if they are caught they, too, will be "disciplined."