The Irish standard., 1915-11-06
What Car,a1za' Recognition
K eally Means

In the city of Washington the rep.
resentatives of several South Ameri-
can republics and of the United States
have met and decided, for the time at
least, the fate of Mexico. ''Watchful
waiting" had been found to be disas.
trous, and so it was proposed, after
the unhappy country south of the Rio
Grande had been looted and despoiled,
that an attempt be made to save its
charred and barren ruins. Venustiano
Carranza, the darling of the present
administration, by a strange but not
unexplainable irony, is the man to
whom the conferees have donated the
office of President in the southern re.
public.
The real significance and conse.
quences of such an act are apparent
enough when it is understood, as Mr..
Thomas Woodlock points out in let
ter to the New York Evening Post of
October 18th, that the second of the
assurances" that the conferees have
received from Carranza, declares that
Mexico will be permitted to return to
Mexico and will be secure in life and
property if they have not and will not
participate in politics" Which. Of
course, simply means that priests and
prominent Catholics will be denied po-
litical privileges in that country under
the benign rule of Senior Carranza. A
very happy and enlightened solution
indeed of our laundering in Mexico!
A better understanding of the pres
ent chapter in our Mexican relations
can be obtained from the first of a
short series of articles appearing in
the current issues of the outlook,
written by Edward Bell, author Of
1.-THE Political Shame of Mexico" This
first article is entitled "Carranza, a
Criminal Solution" and reveals quite
clearly the story of that man and of
his policies. (The Outlook, Oct. 6, '15.)
1t shows the miserably weak and va
cillating character of Carranza; that,
for example, he had been originally Of
the "cientifico" group, deserving 1.-The
sinking Diaz ship few months be-
fore it foundered," and waking deal
with Madero which gave him the Gov
ernorship of his province, where he
displayed childish inefficiency and
love of foolish pomp and show.
1t also shows what the ascendancy
of this man has already meant to his
war.ravaged country. The wholesale
looting of rich Mexican's houses In
Mexico City and elsewhere, thorough
ly as it has been attended to, has not
been the feature of this business
which definitely established its heart
less vandalism. That which does this
is the destruction of the homes and
the means of sustenance Of the poor"
The followers of Carranza are even to
this regard much worse than the SOL
diery of the brutal Villa; for the Car
ranzistas destroy absolutely every
thing they cannot carry away or store
up for their future use. mot much
has been printed of this wanton WHIP
ing out by Carranzistas of the indus
tries in which the poems are employed
or the confiscation of the crops and
foodstuffs they have raised. In many
places in the north, In the center, in
the south, utter desolation marks the
spot where industrial establishments
supplied employment for the peon, and
the men Carranza claims as his gen.
erals are the ones who have been re-
sponsible for It," And the whole pur-
pose of this appalling wastefulness is
"a vicious hope of driving the poor to
desperation and to enlistment in the
army of destruction"
I'm other respects, in the outrages
upon the Church and the Church peo-
pie, and in the universal dissertation