The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1913-11-18
Judging Present by Past, Fears Oh
Southern Country Not Wholly
UnfOunded
History Shows How Americans Carry
Off Soil "On Their
Boots"


No Intervention, if you please, Mr..
President" says Gen. Venustiano Car
rama, the Mexican Constitutionalist
chief, to President Wilson, "just free
importation of arms"
Gen. Carranza, like most other Mex
leans, whether Huertists or Constitu-
tionalists, reads in just one way the
history of the United States increase
and Mexico's decrease in area, and he
fears to see American troops on Mexi-
can soil, they carry so much away on
their boots. To put the thing sue
cinctly in the Mexican fashion, Mexico
before Texas became an independent
republic in 1856 had an area about
equal to the continental area of the
United States as it then was, and
population more than half of ours at
that time. To-day, on an area one
fourth of ours, with Alaska and the
island possessions left out, Mexico has
a population of less than one-sixth of
ours, and if you would see what has
become of the area lost to Mexico you
have only to consult the map of the
United States.
Back For Other Half
Every foot of territory added to the
United States between 1886 and 1853
except the Oregon country came from
Mexico, and the handsome chunk thus
acquired was about equal to the pres
ent area of that country. When Mex
leans hear of Intervention this natural
ly think the United States is coming
back for the other half.
American historians for fifty years
pretty steadily upheld the Mexican
view as to the land hunger of the
United States. AS a matter of fact
while Mexico was still Spanish pos
session we acquired from France what
we had long hankered after, her recent
acquisition from Spain, the vast area
then called Louisiana, and with it a
claim to Texas. When we bought
Florida from Spain in 1919 we gave
up our claim to Texas, and when soon
afterward Mexico broke loose from
Spain there were two Federal demo-
cratic republics" side by side, and of
about the same area.
Despoiling The Greaser
Then and thereafter, however, the
people of the southwestern slave
States looked upon Texas as future
possession of the United States and
the abolition of slavery by Mexico
made them all the more eager for the
conquest. Twenty years before this
time feeble attempts at such conquest
had been made, and then there was
that curious Burr expedition of 1907.
Long before that, too, Alexander
Hamilton had dallied with the notion
of Spanish American conquest. 1t
was always pictureque adventure
in the eyes of lively American youth
on the frontier, that of despoiling the
despised "greaser."
Almost as soon as Mexico was free
of Spain American colonization was
renewed, this time with the consent of
Mexico. Stephen Austin inherited his
fathers concession of 1921, and five
years later an American named Ben
jamin Edwards headed a band of
Americans who proclaimed eastern
Texas a free and independent repub-
lis with its capital at Nacogdoches,
about sixty miles west of the Louis
lana line. The new republic was so
weak an affair that it ended in battle
with casualties of one man killed
and one wounded.
Fight For Texas
By this time the United States was
trying to buy Texas, but the more we
wanted the region the more Mexico
was determined that it should remain
hers, until at length she forbade fur
Their colonization in her territory.
Southwestern Americans, however,
kept on slipping across the border and
Texas demanded free trade at her