The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-11-14
MEXICO IS FRIENDLY
 ID UNITED STATES
Recent Riots Not Sanctioned
 By Government
WAS WORK OF ENEMIES
Riots Were By Men Unfriendly to Gov ernment and Should Not He Taken Seriously By the United
 States
BY JAMES cREELMAN

New York, November 3.-(Special)- Only crooked little minds which scathe and boil over easily can suppose that the insults offered to Americans by rowdy students in the city of Mexico and Guad- alajara represent possible Mexicans. or that the government of Dlaz would di- rectly or indirectly countenance acts of hostility to the United States. One has but to remember that Mexico with a pop | ulation of 16,0o0 900 inhabitants and thou sands of miles of coast, does not main tain navy, to realize how greatly the Mexican republic has trusted and still trusts in the friendly and good neigh borly intentions of the nation which thun- dered out the Monroe doctrine against the holy alliance when monarchial Eu- rope threatened to overthrow the new born independence of the Mexicans.
 Yet 1t was a shell fired by an illiterate Austrian gunner that wrecked the match less Parthenon, and it was the snarling Of two thick-skulled monks over the head of nail in Bethlehem that brought on the Crimean war, in which four nations steeped themselves in blood for years; and
 
 shall recognize and understand the burn- ing malice that prompts what would be Mexican revolutionists and blackmailers and then scribbling accomplices to seize on, twist and distort everything that can stir up trouble between Mexico and the United States. or misrepresent the great policy of peace, industry and prosperity through which President Diaz has led his people out of a pest of incessant war fare, bankruptcy and lawless degradation into the life of a tranquil, progressive and prosperous nation.
 It Is hard to read in the United States or an American flag being torn to pieces and trampled on in the streets of the Mexican capital when one does not real ize that it was done by a crowd of un- thinking boys whipped up to the act by the very men who only a little while ago were trying to stir up an insurrec- tion against the Mexican government. It is hard, too. for Mexican to read that a Mexican was publicly burned alive in Texas without a trial and that spectators calmly watched his dying face as he writhed in the flames without taking into account the fact that the victim was thus savagely put to death because he was the self-confessed murderer of a woman anu AOl pCNduSc iit WAS d MeXlcan. that the scene of the barbarity was 50 miles from the nearest railroad and that. to our shame be it said, 1t is not uncommon for Americans to lynch their own fellow citizens.
 There is no firmer friend of the United States than President Diaz yet he would be the first to resent an intentional af- front to Mexicans
 It is the enemies of Diaz and his ad- ministration who seek to foment antI- American demonstrations.
 Perhaps there may be diplomatic dif- faculties about reparation for the lynch ing of Rodriguez in Texas, for 1t is dif- ncult for another nation to understand that the United States is helpless to coerce a sovereign state, but Secretary Blaine found a way to satisfy the pride of Italy in similar circumstances when a band of Sicilian murderers were lynched in New Orleans, and it may be possible that If we set up national plea of non-responsibility Mexico may set up the same plea with respect to the rioting in Guadalajara-her theory of state sov- ereignty being the same as ours, yet all Americans may be certain that Presi- dent Diaz will see the honor of the United States equally with the honor of his own country fully vindicated.
 Meanwhile we should not pay too much attention to the agitators; they are but the lice on the lions hide.