The Manchester journal. [volume] (Manchester, Vt.) 1861-current, 1915-10-21

/ FtAAkNAS . RARe'aeNN AAhh l'ANNNA W pAt
pare their goods for shipment. Thi
was what Carranza expected the,
would do.
We received prompt advices Of tht
henequen deadlock, and our wheat
growers saw ruin staring them in the
face; without binding twine the CROP
could not be harvested. This was a
natter Of nationwide Importance, and
We acted at once. We sent two war
ships to Progreso to see to it that the
henequen was shipped.
Carranzas position thus strength
ened, he opened negotiations with the
two cooperative associations of Meri-
da, Yucatan, that regulate the sale
and handling of the henequen crop,
which is the life of that Mexican
State. The henequen planters saw the
light. They understood that we must
have their goods, and they believed
that our warships would land forces
to get them They met Carranza's
term, accepted his currency in payment
for their crop, and the deadlock was
broken. Nineteen millions OF our
money had been paid for Yucatan hem
equen up to June 30, this year. Prob
ably s15,000,000 of it went into the
Carranza Golfers.
Space permits only glance at the
traffic in fiat currency from which
Villa and Carranza realized great
sums of money. Carranza and Villa
agents placed the fiat notes with
American bankers and merchants
along the border, who were allowed
liberal commission for exchanging
them for United States currency. The
fiat notes were bought from the
American bankers and merchants by
Mexican producers and employers who
could use the local fiat currency for
their payrolls and all local disburse-
ments. The bankers in our border
towns found the handling of this cur
ency source of great profit.
The most modest estimates indicate
that between twenty and thirty mil
lions Of dollars have been realized by
the faction leaders in exchanging their
robbery issues for our honest one. 1t
has been the easiest money bandits
ever made. And yet they were not
satisfied. They worked out another
ingenious scheme for increasing their
profits on fiat money.
The method was simple. Charges
of counterfeiting would be brought
against persons, who invariably would
be found guilty and shot. After dem
onstrating in this way the seriousness
of the affair, it was logical to decree
that all bills of certain issue must be
presented for verifcation. Anyone
found with invalidated bills in his pos
session or offering them in payment
for goods after certain date would
be Shot When you presented your
bills for verifcation, they were pro-
nounced counterfeit. If you protested,
one of two things happened; if you
were a Mexican or Spaniard, you
nearly always were shot as an acom-
plice of counterfeiters; if of other ma
tionality, you were laughed at or apol-
ogized to as seemed most appropriate
to your station in life or your standing
just then with the power that was.
In any case you lost your bills.
1t is possible that some counterfeit
ing was done, as the notes were cruce |
affairs, easily duplicated; but the
greed of Villas rapid-fre financial
men caused them to drop all finesse.
One American concern put the sys-
tenn to test. On certain day its man
ager sent to the Villa Office in Torreon |
and bought 800 pesos in new paper
The next day he sent five hundred of
these pesos back for verification.
They were announced counterfeit and
confscated. The following day the re-
naming three hundred pesos were
submitted, and met the same fate.