Page:Mexico under Carranza.djvu/232

216  destroy all personal virtue, because it goes without saying that a home which is a den of thieves cannot be the nursery of virtue and morality."

And again, in describing the spirit of public plunder which has actuated what the author refers to as the bureaucratic element, composed of those who serve their country in official positions, he says:

 "In all the homes of bureaucrats, mothers, aunts, wives, sons and daughters, servants and friends advised the head of the house to 'do business' with the government; if they were employed, even more so. 'Doing business' with the government meant, of course, stealing. They were advised to take everything on contract, from laying fifty thousand kilometers of railroad to removing the trash from public office, all to be manipulated so as to redound to the personal benefit of the contractor. If it was not possible to obtain contracts, the judges ought to steal sentences; the court secretaries the papers bearing on the case; the clerks, the public trust; the chiefs of departments, the office furniture, the hospital supplies, the prison food, the arms and ammunition of arsenals; they should rob the troops of their pay; impose fines upon all; steal justice under any form; steal wholesale and retail; steal even the ink stands, pencils, paper, typewriters, and typewriter ribbons, in a word, everything that could be taken ought to be taken, however low and The Whole Truth about Mexico;" Bulnes, page 27.