WHO OWNS MEXICO?
Who Owns Mexico ? THE PLAIN CITIZEN has no determining voice on the issue of war or peace. For more than fifty years MONEY has been powerful enough to force war upon any country at any time. The...
...OIL—Mexican money invested, $650,000...
...American money invested, $223,000,000...
...Early in life he was thrown into the maelstrom of the Grain Exchange...
...Receipts will be sent each contributor...
...Investments," in these plutocratic times, are vastly more important than "citizens...
...So Privilege buys a foreign "concession...
...ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE...
...That slogan has been completely reversed...
...There had not been time for the farmers to substantially express their appreciation of his great services...
...It was abhorrent to the essential ideals of American liberty...
...The only way to possess labor is to possess men...
...This American money is found in railroad stocks and bonds, mines, national bonds, ranches, smelters, timber lands, factories, oil, rubber, insurance, and other enterprises...
...He passed beyond just as his life work was to be crowned with success...
...And that is a large risk...
...They prate about "patriotism...
...That means slavery...
...All of these he sacrificed to the cause, which he was born to lead...
...Whatever may be urged upon you in these trying times by way of justifying "intervention," keep in mind this big, outstanding fact: AMERICAN FINANCIERS HAVE MORE MONEY IN-INVESTED IN MEXICO THAN THE MEXICANS THEMSELVES HAVE—$264,582,758 MORE...
...Machine guns become the order of the day...
...Massachusetts is not the only state concerned...
...What is it, then, that menaces the peace of these neighboring countries...
...He knew these wrongs were rooted in the control of the great Elevator, Milling and Railroad interests...
...They are a very powerful lot...
...The System looks to THAT bargain...
...Prior to his entering the fight, he had a thorough understanding all the sacrifices that would be demanded of him...
...That put the commercial interests behind the Navy...
...The gentlemen who want war with Mexico are the gentlemen who "have Mexican Properties...
...That outrage upon the residents of one of our border towns was the logical outcome of conditions for which THE MEXICAN PEOPLE WERE IN NO WISE RESPONSIBLE...
...But—"new needs, new deeds...
...He willingly nade these sacrifices...
...Shall these powerful interests be permitted to succeed in their plct...
...Worse than that...
...It dates far back of the Columbus raid...
...our Masters of Finance...
...The struggle of the Christian world has been to make men free and to keep them free...
...TIMBER LANDS—Mexican money invested, $5,600,000...
...They are our Captains of Industry...
...That is our bounden duty, if we are to uphold the standing and dignity of our Government among the other Nations of the world— strong or weak...
...The cry NOW is: "The Flag follows the Investment...
...And Privilege makes so much money out of us that it creates a huge surplus...
...It must not become a precedent...
...Weak, and undeveloped (and unexploited...
...American money invested, $15,000,000...
...But the masters of finance consider little else besides their own profits...
...American money invested, $4,000,000...
...This excess capital which has been ground out of an exploited country and its people—if retained at home—would reduce interest...
...American money invested, $9,600,000...
...But whenever the financial interests have acquired such a control of the national resources of their own country and such mastery over the industrial and commercial affairs of their own people that they can exact profits at will, such interests seek new fields for their surplus capital...
...work from chattels, merchandise and commodities...
...But, to maintain the great profits, it is ordinarily necessary to resort to "strong arm" methods...
...A wave of protest swept the country...
...And they tell the story...
...Other cases will be speedily brought, to test similar statutes enacted in other states as well as Section Six of the Clayton act...
...No nan had keener appreciation of what opposition to these interests leant to the man who made it...
...REALLY OWNS IT...
...Privilege is to-day trying to shape public sentiment, so that "our boys" shall be made to march down into Mexico and offer up their lives—for the purpose of placing the guarantee of the United States government behind those gold mines and other concessions, and to make the profits of Privilege secure...
...They have the irons on the American people...
...American money invested, $235,464,000...
...War means blood, and killing, and bereaved families, and unmentionable horrors...
...It was a long struggle...
...Cheap...
...The state that led in the movement to write the principle of equality into the fundamental law of the land, now makes denial of the intrinsic doctrine of the Declaration of Independence...
...But substantial appreciation of that work should not await that time...
...There is just one risk...
...The American people will not submit to the yoke...
...There would be no occasion for the clouds that darken so many American homes to-day...
...NATIONAL BONDS—Mexican money invested, $21,000,000...
...But, if the protection of "CITIZENS" were our only concern, there would be no "border raids," no "mobilization," no "war talk...
...It is a worthy cause which should appeal to every farmer...
...ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE * * * George S. Loftus IT IS NOT alone because of the deep sense of personal loss in the passing of a devoted friend, but more especially because the people of the Northwest have lost an able, resourceful, dependable and indefatigable champion of their interests that I mourn the death of George S. Loftus...
...SMELTERS—Mexican money invested, $7,200,000...
...He gradually brought the people to his standard...
...He had the peculiar gifts which would have won him great personal fortune...
...The war he had waged had not only exhausted his physical but also his financial resources...
...What follows shows the Wealth of Mexico, according to nationality of ownership...
...INSURANCE—Mexican money invested, $2,000,000...
...Single-handed he gave battle to these great interests...
...In the OWNERSHIP of Mexico we find the REAL MENACE to the peace between Mexico and the United States...
...They control the cost of every necessary of life...
...The student of world politics will find that PRACTICALLY ALL MODERN WARS HAVE BEEN DICTATED BY GREAT FINANCIAL INTERESTS...
...There was a time when the slogan of munition makers was: " Trade follows the Flag...
...the labor is cheap as slave labor...
...They have tried to plunge the country into a hysteria of fear that we are going to be thrown into war with Germany or England or Japan...
...Profits...
...The timber, oil, coal and mineral wealth of Mexico and of the Central and South American countries are most inviting in every way...
...But a scheme has been worked out by the Masters of Finance to make foreign investments as good as a government bond, JUST PUT THE STARS AND STRIPES BACK OF THEM...
...It was the days and nights of sleepless, unrelenting devotion to the interests of the farmers of North and South Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin, that undermined his health and brought him to an untimely end...
...And it is not to protect "citizens" but to protect "investments" that our boys in khaki have been forced into action...
...THEY HAVE OTHER PLANS FOR THE PRESENT...
...They clamor for "preparedness...
...This principle was made a part of the statutory law of many states, including Massachusetts...
...Intervention means war...
...That is the Truth of it...
...Assuredly...
...Thus the highest court of one of the thirteen original states holds that labor is property...
...An Intolerable Decision THE Supreme Court of Massachusetts recently decided in the case of John Bogni et al, vs...
...American money invested, $8,100,000...
...As long as Capital finds its best field for profit in its own country, the peace of that country is reasonably secure...
...American money invested, $52, 000,000...
...There arose an insistent demand for the enactment of statutes that should distinguish human power from property...
...The Mexican people were really innocent victims of TRAITORS IN OUR MIDST...
...So the Congress of the United States in enacting the Clayton law specifically declared that labor is not a commodity or article of commerce, that to labor or employ labor, shall not be held to be a property right, but a personal right, and so on...
...property rights are insecure...
...It is taken from the United States Consular Report No...
...Privilege Profits...
...THE MEXICAN PEOPLE DO NOT WANT WAR WITH US...
...RUBBER—Mexican money invested, $4,500,000...
...Let us glance at a few figures...
...AMERICAN investments are BIGGEST OF ALL in that unhappy, System-ridden country...
...He was a born leader...
...Do you get the full meaning of that statement...
...These privileged interests are not taxing the people of the United States for their great Army and Navy scheme to fight Germany, England or Japan...
...Labor can not be property unless men are property...
...If the Massachusetts decision that labor is property is followed by the other states and by the Supreme Court of the United States it means virtual slavery for the wage earners...
...Some day in the not distant future, the farmers of the great Northwest, will rear a splendid monument to commemorate the work and character and service of George S. Loftus...
...Who owns Mexico...
...A man of great vision, endowed by Providence with a love of justice and fair dealing toward his fellow men, he refused to permit lis conscience to be blinded merely that his pocket might be filled...
...and farmers, merchants and small business enterprises could borrow upon reasonable rates...
...Checks, drafts, postal or express money order contributions should be made payable to, and sent to S. E. Hall, Treasurer of the Equity Rural Credit Association, Fargo, North Dakota...
...There you have it...
...It is the exercise of power...
...Benedict Arnold was not more guilty of treason...
...And all for what...
...ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE SINCE the above was written LA FOLLETTE'S MAGAZINE has been advised of a movement of Northwestern farmers to join in a testimonial to George S. Loftus...
...American capitalists are desperately attempting to have THE FLAG FOLLOW THEIR INVESTMENTS...
...He threw away the opportunity to gain personal fortune that he might benefit the men on the farms throughout the whole Northwest...
...It should be made now in a popular fund to care for his family and properly educate his children, who shared with him in making the sacrifices that have won so much and brought such great reward to the people of all the Nortwestern states...
...Privilege exploits us folks here in our own United States...
...We will protect our citizens abroad...
...Giovanni Perotti et al that the right to work "IS PROPERTY.*** It is as much property as the more obvious forms of goods and merchandise, stocks and bonds...
...They own or control our great newspapers...
...Let us glance at a few more figures from the same authority: RAILWAY STOCKS—Mexican money invested, $125,440,-000...
...The net may yet be drawn on the "higher-up...
...He freed their markets...
...He saw the iniquities and wrongs imposed by the System upon the "farmers of the Northwest...
...Their profits are so enormous that they must lower interest rates or else—INVEST IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES...
...The doctrine that labor is property was asserted as a dictum by the Supreme Court of the United States in the Hatters case...
...They have Congress "on the run...
...Does any one fail to understand the effect of this decision—the supreme power lodged in big business...
...They own the coal, the oil, the timber, the water powers...
...The governments are poor...
...And both President Wilson and Carranza have manifestly done everything in their power to avert war...
...The secret service of this government has a long arm and a strong arm...
...They who own Mexico are the ones who want War...
...American money invested, $26,500,000...
...He fought and won their battle...
...For it is charged upon the highest authority that THE RAID WAS INSPIRED AND ARRANGED FOR IN OUR OWN COUNTRY...
...God gave him a great soul, a splendid intellect, a magnificent physique...
...Sometimes people (like the workers in the mining districts of Colorado, Michigan, and West Virginia) resist oppression and exploitation...
...American money invested, $408,926,000...
...All he would have had to do, was to float with the tide...
...and that should define and forever establish the status of labor on the foundation rock of human freedom...
...Privilege, never satiated, wants this surplus to be at work bringing in still more profits...
...168 issued July 18, 1912, by Consul Marion Letcher of Chihuahua...
...THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES DO NOT WANT WAR WITH MEXICO...
...Dollars, they are—millions and millions of them...
...American money invested, $15,000,000...
...They own most of the United States and a good big slice of Mexico...
...Revolutions in many of them are frequent...
...MINES—Mexican money invested, $7,500,000...
...These American "investors" in Mexico—millionaires—are using every instrument they can control,—their money, their newspapers, their magazines, their political influence, all their "dark and devious ways,"—to bring about "intervention...
...But the recent decision of that court nullifies the principle and holds the statute unconstitutional...
...RAILWAY BONDS—Mexican money invested, $12,275,000...
...They control the prices of labor and the products of labor...
...countries offer the biggest returns...
...The great people's market movement had proved its worth...
...The governments are most of them weak...
...FACTORIES (Miscellaneous)—Mexican money invested, $3,270,200...
...George S. Loftus towered above his fellow men...
...It is fair to assume that President Wilson did not disclose all of the facts in his possession when he declared officially a few days after the raid that— "There were persons along the border actively engaged in creating friction between the governments of the United States and the de facto government of Mexico for the purpose of bringing about intervention IN THE INTEREST OF CERTAIN OWNERS OF MEXICAN PROPERTIES...
...the crushing blow dealt labor...
...And, after all, our present "Mexican Situation" is only a "Ludlow" on a bigger scale...
...This table was prepared by William H. Seamon, late of Chihuahua who, according to the statement of this Consular Report, "has had long experience in Mexico as a mining engineer :" Nationality Amount of Investment American $1,057,770,000 English 321,302,800 French 143,446,000 Mexican 793,187,242 Other Nations 118,535,380 Hold fast to these figures...
...They are for a "strong Mexican policy," a " strong foreign policy," a big Army, a big Navy...
...The thought is intolerable...
...In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread...
...The decision will not stand...
...The right to work is the right to live...
Vol. 8 • July 1916 • No. 7
