The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1911-03-31
WHY AMERICAN TROOPS
PATROL MEXICAN BORDER
Months Ago Prof. E. Alex
ander Powell in An Art
icle Entitled "BarbarOuS
Mexico" accurately fore
cast Mexican Events that
Are Now Transpiring

the 18th inst. In many ways we con-
slider it the most remarkable article We
have seen on the Mexican situation and
believe our readers will be intensely
interested in the unfolding of the Wall
st. drama as portrayed by the Canadian
paper Editors note.)
Behold the bag is open and the cat is
out.
And yet, Professor Powell wrote those
words considerable time before there
was any idea of a revolution breaking
out in Mexico. He wrote them at a
time when every magazine in the United
States was printing laudatory articles
about President Diaz and about the
country he governed.
Professor Powell was in Mexico just
before the last elections, which con
| firmed Diaz in the presidency, and he
went to that country not as a writer
but as traveller. He was very favor
ably received by the powers that be
and Diaz himself showed him many
courtesies, but Mr.. Powell saw beyond
the courtesies and pretence and found
out some very interesting facts which
in view of the developments that have
since taken place are of the most pro-
found significance.
First of all, then, behold the ghost
of Hartman, the railway king of the
United States, whose tentacles stretched
into Mexico, by the Southern Pacific
extensions.
| Perhaps the most audacious, as it was
the most ambitious, of the many deals
put through by the Centificos under the
guidance of Limantour was the great
railway merger of 1908, this shrewd
scheme protesting to place the extern
sive railway systems of the republic
under government control, the Mexican
Central and the Mexican National lines
being consolidated under the title of
Los Ferrocarrilas Nationales de MeXi
co.
Limautour, in his speech before the
congress, presenting this plan, exulted
over the fact that it cost the govern
fent nothing The fact is that Liman-
tour paid for the stock in bonds guar
anteed by the government The trans
action meant that stock which paid lit
tie or nothing was secured in exchange
for bonds bearing a fixed and inexor-
able interest.
For an undeveloped and tax-burdened
country this is an astounding transac-
tion 1t added yearly burden of over
81 100000 upon Mexico, more than
she spends upon schools or courts, or
any department except the army.
You must know that Mexico is al
ready loaded with debt. In twenty
years her bond issues have increased
from forty to four hundred millions.
And this in spite of an alleged yearly
surplus for many years. Even at this
writing midsummer 1910) Limantour
| is in Europe, ostensibly for his health
but really to arrange for the conversion
and renewal of part of the national
debt.
| And it was this man Limantour, the
great financial genius of Mexico, who
arranged with Hartman the combination
of Mexico railways. Their purchase by
the government, through their knowl-
edge of what was going on and control
of blocks of stocks the Cientificos and
their American associates are said to
have made between ten and twenty
millions by this transaction.
At the time of the conception of this
plan Hartman already owned a con-
siderable amount of Mexican Central
stock, but he wanted more, for the
Mexican lines figured largely in his
dream of a system reaching not only
| from ocean to ocean, but from the Great
Lakes to the Isthmus. If you viii
glance at the map of Mexico you will
see that the Hartman interests have
already pushed their West Coast route
nine hundred miles into the heart of
Mexico, this line, which is a branch of
Harriman's Southern Pacific system, be.
ing, when linked up with the Mexican
Central at Guadalajara, the shortest
route between California and the Mexi-
can southlands. With this line and the
two merged roads in their hands, the
Hartman interests viii have absolute
control of all railway transportation in
the republic.
Harriman's opportunity to secure con-
troll of the Mexican Central came with
the panic of 1907, when II. Clay Pierce,
of Standard Oil notoriety, being hard
hit financially, was forced into trans.