The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-12-17
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

A(@~AA the wits out of continental Europe in 1s4s.
 Along came the French commune, which lit up Paris like flaming red torch but it was quenched after the streets ran red with blood, and then al the end of the nineteenth and the open- ing of the twentieth century there was restlessness in the air which fore boded stormy revolutions.
 
 I'll not attempt to name them all, but will merely mention few as sympto- matic of the times. make no effort to give them chronologically, but go at It hit or miss Even China's thousands of years of slumber was awakened as she moved into the column of the re- publics. Persia had a fling at demoo. racy and the Young Turks went on a spree as the old Sultan fled into exile
 
 But the debacle came with the over- throw of the Czars government, and we are only beginning to read through the confessions the treachery of Renne- kahmpf. and how German intrigue up dermined the throne of neighbor and debauched the character of much har- rassed people, and out of which was born the foul thing which goes by the name of bolshevism, and today keeps the world in suspense watching for the next place it will raise its dreaded head.
 I haven't space to go into the 57 va rieties which can be classed under the category of South or Central American uprisings. for if I did I would not have space in which to simply call attention to the fact that our neighbor just to the south has been in a constant state of eruption so far as the Mexicans are concerned, and in state of irritation so far as America is concerned, since Diaz had to flee the country.
 Now, I have never been fond of Car ranza, in fact, his attitude toward his "big brother" has been quite hard to witness without indulging in the very natural desire to wish that he might be laid across the knee of Uncle Sam and soundly spanked. I have wondered at the patience of President Wilson, both as to Carranza's provocations and the criticism of those who seek to force him to intervene.
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 Some one has asked, can anything good come out of Mexico? Having. seen
 
 and heard, and knowing what he had done in France, I am inclined to think that the United States at least found the man it wanted because of the need to send aspunitive expedition across the Rio Grande, for 1t brought into the white light of publicity the worth of Gen. John J. Pershf1ig, who had stood the acid test of service under the most trying diplomatic and physical eondi- tions.
 In the light of the news from Mexico know full we'll that there are many who are itching now that he is back home full of honor to send him hot haste to cross the border to finish the job he was once set to do in a man ner that will for years to come make American life and property safe in Mexico and save a great people from the modification of having it's citizens captured and held for ransom and prop erty sequestered or taxed to death at the whim of corrupt and greedy off, cials.
 
 The truth of the matter is that Amer ican life and property have never been respected in the manner we should de- mand since the fall of Diaz. I hold no brief for him, yet one thing he did was to pacify his country and invite foreign capital into his country to de- velop its untold but unworked wealth. The pacificiation of the country at present is a reflection upon the power of the Carranzist government to give Mexico a stable country. T fully real- ize the difficulties. but am merely stat ing fact
 The Mexican bandits are a menace to foreigners and foreign property. It is quite a different thing from the stunts the James brothers used to pull off in spite of the. fact that some apologists for the Mexicans try and put them in a parity with the acts of Generals Villa and Zapata. Villa, from the number of times he has been re- 1 ported to be caged and killed must have more lives than a cat. The most pop ular cry of the revolutionists has been. I Down with the foreigners, who ex- i plotted us.' With this watchword, l Villa kept the north in commotion, while 'zapata in Morelos had the people l in state of frenzy against the grin gros.'
 | think it was Grover Cleveland who made the famous remark anent hard financial situation in America "That 1 the way to hesume was to resume and it seems to me that the route for Carranza to take if he earnestly wants 1 peace with the United States is to pacify Mexico, but so far his pacifier i has not been able to function properly and there is the case in a nutshell why the wires between Washington and Mexico City are being kept hot with demands and unsatisfactory explana- tions.
 l There is no countroverting the fact that the unpleasant situation was ] largely aggravated by the under handed methods of German intriguants | who made it a business in every pos { sble way using both commercial po- i litical and publicity means to foment i'll will against Americans. Now, this