The menace. [volume] (Aurora, Mo.) 1911-1920, 1919-09-13

IHffi Mexican constitution was adopted under
EssSl the great presidency of BenitO Juares of
that country. This constitution, divested
the Roman church of the fabulous wealth and
monOpOlies 1t had extorted from the helpless
poems whom it had kept in dense ignorance for
three hundred and fifty years.
The death of President Juares was followed
by few years Of strife between the papal EN-
pire and the government for supremacy in that
long g-suffering country. Out Of that strife arose
PorfriO Diaz who held the people for thirty
years under the cruel yoke of his dictatorship.
During the blood and iron sway of Diaz ina
mense oil fields were discovered in eastern Mex
leo. This brought bitter struggle between the
mighty predatory oil kings of America and
those Of England for possession of the new dis
cOvery. Partially of Diaz enabled the British
firm headed by Lord Cowdry to obtain posses
sion.
simultaneously, the ruinous foreign conces-
sions for which the dictator was renowned drew
into the country many hundreds of millions of
American and European capital to exploit the in
exhaustible wealth, and the railroads necessary
to carry that wealth to market.
Thus did the vast prepOnderance Of Mexican
resources pass into alien hands with no patriotic
interest in the country or its people. Diaz was
not himself papist, but his beautiful and ac-
complshed wife, who was devout Roman Cath
olic, ruled him at the bidding of enthroned
bishops.
No serious effort was made to repeal the con-
sttutiOn or laws enacted to restrain papal rob-
berry and ruin, but those wholesome enactments
were simply ignored while the papal hierarchy
resumed its career Of monopoly and plunder.
DiaZ and the papal bishops made short work of
public education in Mexico, and illiteracy of the
adult population rose to seventy per cent.
By cOllusiOn with the hierarchy and the die
tatOr, wealthy land barons acquired possession of
the soil of the country. Six millionaires now
own virtually the entire state of Yucatan.
Throughout the country are immense planta-
ItiOns, some of which embrace more than mil
lion acres each, owned by Roman Catholic barons
and other benefciaries Of clerical intrigue.
The policy of the late Francis |. Madero to
divest the papal hierarchy of its lawless monOp-
olies and aeliOrate the abject destitution of the
masses cost his life at the hands of Roman Cath
olic traitors and assassins. The papal murderer
who then seized the government was finally de-
posed by forces under supreme command of that
sturdy, scholarly statesman and patriot, Venus.
tianO CarranZa.
| Election Of this well.pOised and publicSpir-
tied statesman and soldier to the presidency in
furiated the papal hierarchy from the vatican to
the remOteSt thrones in semi-civilized islands Of
the sea, while his active interest in the sixteen
million submerged poems has called down upon
his head the wrath Of monopolists who exploit
Mexico and control the press of the world.
More than three years ago the Free Press
Defense League handed to President Wilson and
every senator and representative in congress a
statement in writing of secret intrigues of Car
dinal Gibbons of Baltimore, Archbishop Mora Of
Mexico, and other prelates of Rome for the over.
throw of the Carranza government by violence.
That statement gave names and dates and much
of the particulars Of the intrigue mentioned
! 1t was stated therein that emissaries from
the plotters had visited and cOlluded for that
purpose with the bandit Villa and had probably
planned or encouraged his destructive border
raids against the lives and property of American
citizens for the purpose Of forcing the country
into war with Mexico. 1t was also stated that
1--we had the names of fifty-one criminal Roman
Catholics who had signed at New Orleans petit
ton to General Felix Diaz, then in New York, to
proceed to Mexico and there head revolution
against the Carranza government, all of which
was in violation Of the penal code Of the United
States.