Page:Mexico of the Mexicans.djvu/255

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The Revolution
219

before. These men are not to be regarded as mere pacificist cranks, for they have shown, when occasion offered, that, if they believe their enemy to be in the wrong, they can be the most stubborn of foes as well as the most steadfast of friends. They saw clearly that peace was already at hand in Mexico, and that the special and immediate need of the Republic was the confidence of its neighbour as well as of the world at large. By the good offices of these true humanitarians, we may believe, rather than by the more regular methods of trans-Atlantic diplomacy, the situation was saved.

Proof that such men are at work is found in the existence of an organisation formed at San Francisco for the purpose of arresting the intervention of the United States in Mexican affairs, and in taking steps that will assure the people of Mexico that neither the Government nor the people of the United States covet the territory of their Southern neighbour, or wish to dominate its affairs in any way. It is known as the Mexican Property Owners' Non-intervention League.

It is the plan of the organisers of the league to form branch clubs throughout the country for the purpose of carrying forward their programme of non-intervention, and of removing the causes of interracial and international friction, and replacing them with that measure of understanding which, they believe, is alone necessary to prevent any trouble between the two countries and to restore relations of abiding friendship.

In fact, the purpose of the organisation, according to its promoters, might be described as a campaign of education to show the American people that any hostility that Mexicans may feel to Americans has been caused by sinister or ignorant influences that have misrepresented the feeling of the great body of the American people towards Mexico. Certain classes of Americans, it is pointed out, have taken a kind of delight in expressing to the Mexicans a contempt for Mexican characteristics; and other classes of Americans with large