Page:Mexico under Carranza.djvu/188

172 which made such a letter possible. In his letter the Secretary says (Italics are the author's):

 "For three years the Mexican Republic has been torn with civil strife; the lives of Americans and other aliens have been sacrificed; vast properties developed by American capital and enterprise have been destroyed or rendered unproductive; bandits have been permitted to roam at will through the territory contiguous to the United States and to seize, without punishment or without effective attempt at punishment, the property of Americans, while the lives of citizens of the United States, who ventured to remain in Mexican territory, or to return to protect their interests, have been taken, in some cases barbarously taken, and the murderers have neither been apprehended nor brought to justice.

"It would be difficult to find in the annals of the history of Mexico conditions more deplorable than those that have existed there during these recent years of civil war.

"It would be tedious to recount instance after instance, outrage after outrage, atrocity after atrocity, to illustrate the true nature and extent of the widespread conditions of lawlessness and violence which have prevailed. During the past nine months in particular, the frontier of the United States along lower Rio Grande has been thrown into a state of constant apprehension and turmoil because of frequent and sudden incursions into American territory and depredations and murders on American soil by Mexican bandits, who have