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Rh Mexico and the United States for the elimination of the border problem. Possibility of friction still existed for reasons of a nature that it will be difficult to remove, but the old suspicion and animosity shared by large numbers of both peoples, which made the border a source of constant irritation for both, was rapidly passing. The border problem was less a problem than it had ever been. American economic interests had spread southward far beyond the boundary, and Mexico realized and admitted her duty, under international law and the rules of comity, to give them full protection. Mexican interests had grown in the United States, not in the development of the economic resources of that country, for Mexico was still a non-industrial debtor nation and had no large amounts of capital seeking investment abroad, but through the realization that the two countries, which had such close geographical relations, had, in their foreign trade, an economic common interest that closely bound the fortunes of the one to the fortunes of the other.

The good feeling that existed between the two republics was illustrated by the expressions of appreciation that passed between them just before the close of the Diaz régime.

The American Ambassador, speaking at a luncheon of the American Colony in 1907, contrasted the Mexico of that day with the one he had first known, He declared: