Saturday news. (Watertown, S.D.) 19??-19??, 1916-03-23
Oregon Showing Up
As the Strong Man rs
In Mexico, Thought
Hatred for Americans Believed Liable
to Result in Further
Trouble.

4 70 @.EeEaA GbfEr- 1Hhg4tEE
Washington, d. C.-While Venus
ltiano Carranze is the def acto presi
dent of Mexico and recognized as frst
Ichief in most states, he is not a mill,
ltary figure. And it is military force
that counts in d~isorderly, brigan-rid.
lden Mexico. The strongest man in
Mexico today is the one-armed gen.
leral. Alvaro Oregon, and if the Unit.
ed States now meets opposition in
Furnishing Villa it will have Oregon
Ito fear and not Carranza.
1t was Francisco Villa. fighting for
ICarranza, who knocked out Huerta;
and it was Oregon, fighting for Car
iranza, who later defeated Villa and
scattered his forces.
Obregon Likes Villa.
Obregon has all along protested his
affection and loyalty to the first chief
But the temptation to him to seize
the power in name he already has in
fact must be great. Rumors that he
is about to supplant Carranza arr
plausible to those who have followed
Mexican affairs closely.
Obregon is an intense patriot and
with this characteristic he combines
"a typically Mexican antipathy to for
eigners, especially Spaniards and Am
orleans.
He protested many times against
the American occupation of Vera Cruz
and was in favor of an attack upon
the American expedition there, He
refused to receive the mediating Of
fees Of the Brazilian minister in No
,vember, 1914, when he had quarreled
with Villa, if the envow were in any
way the representative of the United
States. He spoke of the unjust ac-
|tion of Washington in occupying Vera
Cruz and affronting the honor of the
Mexican nation"
Hatred of Americans.
His hatred for Americans and for
|eigners was shown very plainly when
he entered Mexico City January 20,
1915, and established his headquarters
there. The day after he entered the
water supply was cut of. The price
of foodstuffs rose to exorbitant fig
|ures because Gbregon endeavored in
every way to prevent the Introduction
of food into the city. Not only did
he refuse the city council railway
cars for transportating such food
stocks as available, but he or
dered his outposts to confiscate such
as were brought in.
There is abundant evidence that
this inhuman conduct was part OF a
deliberate campaign to starve the
population into enlisting in Obregon's
Then he decreed an extraor-
binary tax of 10000, 900 pesos against
the foreign merchants "to relieve the
desperate situation of the poor and
declared that if thereSwere riots and
|looting he would make no effort to
stop them.
When the powers asked the United
States to S its influence with OBJ
RECON to force him to rescind his
special tax decree, he said:
His Soldiers Devoted.
One man during so years of la
mentable rule attempted to convert
Mexico into being the mother of for
.eigners and the stepmother of Mex
leans. Foreigners and Mexicans
should be kept on the same plane
and they should be measured by stan
.dards of morality, not by standards
of wealth or nationality. Mexico, the
true revolution has just begun!'
General 0hreseRSs soldiers are de-
voted to him. He has always been
the first to run into danger and has
led his men many times in fierce
battles. In that way he lost his right
arm at the battle Of Leon, at which
he defeated Villa early last June.