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270 have been confined to the earlier period of the revolution and were a result only of the first flush of passion which the conflict aroused. On the contrary, the list of American citizens killed in Mexico between 1911 and the middle of 1919, published by the Department of State in response to an inquiry by the United States Senate, shows a series of rising totals. Henry Fletcher, American Ambassador to Mexico, testified in August, 1919, that during 1918 and 1919, 51 Americans had been killed in Mexico. During that time he had not been informed of one prosecution by the Mexican government for these crimes.

No fair-minded person believes that such acts are attributable to the better class of Mexican citizens or that they condone such abuses. They deplore them as much as do any civilized people. But no government can escape the responsibility for allowing conditions to continue indefinitely under which such crimes can occur, and upon the best citizens of Mexico falls the duty to join hands to bring their fatherland again into the control of those who can maintain public order within its territory. Upon their rising to that high opportunity may depend the future of independent Mexico.