Page:The Mexican Problem (1917).djvu/49

Rh be denied our part in conquering the earth, in the acquisition of new territory, in colonial empire?"

The idea was so barbaric to my freeborn American blood that I could only laugh at Dr. Dernberg and refer him to the dark ages. Yet the only army in Europe that has ninety-nine per cent of its soldiers able to read and write supports the right of conquest and territorial expansion. Have not Paris and London within three years been promised as compensation to a fighting people, that they might possess them or hold for ransom? What is the difference when Villa promises loot as compensation to those who will attack under his leadership? Sound government is by character and not by intellect. The redemption of Mexico can never be accomplished by conquest or loot.

India is taxing herself and fighting for European justice because this alone has given her security where before in a hundred years a hundred different dynasties rose up and attempted rule by might. That country was redeemed only when government by justice came in.

It is said that between 1821 and 1868 more than fifty rulers attempted the government of