The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-10-14

the gaming table but on the stock ex- change as well. They maintained their power by force of arms and nc biithering sentimentaHty was permit ted to get in the way of standing trou- ble makers up. against the wall or o1 shooting up a whole village when the peons tried to assert their ancestral right to the common lands which hao come down to them for generations but which Diaz gave away to his fi- nancial favorites who needed cheaI labor for their mines and who could secure it only, by depriving the peas ants of their own land so that they would have to accept the wages offer ed them or starve.
 The Mexicans want to get back their land which has been taken from them by bribery. or machine guns. And they are getting it. They want tc get back their oil wells, gold and sill yer mines and the tremendously rich copper deposits of the north and they are doing it. The Mexicans want to work for themselves rather than for an impersonal foreign corporation. They want to be home owners rather than tenants. They want to own a lit-
  it on to their children. They want economic independence and all that economic independence implies!
 And they are doing this by ending the concessions and grants which they as well as all the world knows were for the most part obtained by graft. They are taxing the great plantations, the mines and the oil wells. They are requiring the two and a half billion of foreign owned property to contri- bute to the support of the state. They are taking back the common lands. They are giving the. people homes. They are ending franchises, grants and privileges and they. are doing it with out that diplomatic finesse that finan- icial imperialism, backed by it's dip1o- matic corps anad navy, is accustomed to. M
 The Mexican can see that. even if they are politically free, even if they have the ballot and a perfectly con- stitutiona1 government like that of the United States, it is of little real value to thefn if their lives are lives of pow erty, ignorance and drudgery. not only for themselves but for their children and their chiidren's children as well. The Mexican revolution is an econo- mic revolution. It is not political. It Is revolution to own their own coun- try and a little piece of it for every man that wants it.
 Mexico has been the happy hunting ground of the adventurer since the days of Spanish conquests Egypt. Morocco, Tunis, South Africa do not compare with 1t as a treasure box. Government has always meant merely an organized system of robbery and exploitation. It gave the people noth- ing; it took everything the people had. It taxed them iin the most ruthless ways; 1t spent the taxes for private purposes and profit. The courts were
 merely another Instrument for en- forcing serfdom along with the army. When the peons were unruly the gov ernment was alHays. at the command of the big interests to enforce order with hireling army armed with ma- chine guns
 :, Diaz reduced the process to scien- tific system. He termed 1t develop ing the country The development meant s1averyit to the people and the giving away of everything of value in the country. There were friends, relatives and favorites to be seen" They had to, bes'seen" or nothing came through. In the end the Mexicans were dispossessed of one of the rich est. spots ons the earth's surface and English, French and Ger man concession <. hunters possessed grants and privileges conservatively estimated to be worth many billions of dollars.
 The concession seekers Hooked to Mexico with the coming of Diaz. to power in 1S76g Hesowed them every thing for they made him. master of Mexico. They enjoyed thirty-four years of almost uninterrupted freedom until the flight, of .Diaz to. Paris in 1910. Diaz maintained himself in power by satisfying the foreign con cession hunters who in turn, protect ed him from revolution at home and from any kind of intervent from with out through their influence at Wash irgton, London, Paris and Berlin and the control of the press and agencies of public opinion in these countries. During all those years the United Etates was unhappily the buIwark of the exploiting interests. The Mexi- can people feared American interven. ton more than anything else and this fear kept them from revolution. And
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