The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1919-08-14
INTERVENTION CERTAIN
UNLESS PROMPT ACTION
is TAKEN, SAYS EXPERT

BY RICHARD SIPLLANE
Americas foremost writer on finance,
commerce and Economics, who is a
special contributor to the Daily
Tribune.
Either Senior Carranza must back
down or there will be intervention in
Mexico by this country. That prac-
tcially is certain. In some respects
the situation is similar to that which
confronted us in Hayti. The govern
ment there was unstable, the rights of
foreigners were not safeguarded and
some European nations advised the
United States that if we did not act
they would be compelled to do so. We
acted. We practically police Santa
Domingo and Hayti today. For the
first time in decades there is peace. .
Holland, France and Great Britain
have very large holdings in Mexico
principally in the Tampico oil regions
although France has considerable in
terests in the wonderful hydr o-electric
plant at Nexaca which supplies light
and power to Mexico City. .
The bonds of the Mexican National
Railways are held principally in this
country but to some extent abroad.
The Mexican government owns the
common stock. The value Of this stock
today is negligible and it probably will
be generation before it is worth
anything. Mexico's railroads aggre-
gate $4,000 miles.
Practically every development Of
consequence in the republic has been
the work of outside engineers, capital
lists and promoters, Mexico not having
brought forth any man Of distinction
in these departments for SO or 100
years.
William Jennings Bryan, while Sec
retary of state, once asked some
Americans who had properties in
Mexico and who suffered from raids
by revolutionists:
"Why don't you get out of
Mexico? You have no business
there. You only went there to
make money, and now you expect
the government to collect your
bills. 1t will do no such thing.
Good day."
Mr.. Bryan was wrong. A nation is
like family. The government stands
as the head of the household. The
protection of the family at home and
abroad is duty.
AMERICAN INVESTMENTS
THERE BY INVITATION.
American and foreign enterprise
and money were invited into Mexico.
The concessions granted in the ad-
ministration of Porfirio Diaz were for
the national benefit. They added
greatly to the national wealth. They
opened the nation up, through mines,
railroads, hydro-e electric plants, harbor
developments, great plantations and
oil fields. Today Carranza would
write a new constitution which would
make foreign ownership of any Of the
resources of Mexico illegal and, at the
same time, confiscate to the state all
properties now held by other than
Mexican citizens.
How much the foreign investments
in Mexico aggregate is difficult to fig
ure for the value OF some OF Cne prop
critics has increased so tremendously
in recent years that former statistics
no longer fit the case. 1t can be ac-
cepted that no other oil basin Of the
world is so valuable as that of the
Tampico district. Oil from the wells
is carried by pipe lines the compara-
lively short distance from the wells or
storage tanks to Tampico city or to
vessels some miles off shore, the ves-
sells anchoring in the Gulf alongside a
pipe station and getting cargo of oil
about as rapidly as ship gets grain
when under the many spouts of a
grain elevator.
1t can be accepted as a fact that
there would be little or no oil develop
ment in Mexico today but for E l..
Continued on Page Two.)