PREFACE
The thunders of the titanic struggle which at present convulses Europe have drowned the echoes of strife which come from far-away Mexico, and in the eyes of many the warring of the factions in the American Republic will seem very like the battle of the mice and the frogs. Yet we who are sacrificing everything for an ideal should feel a lively sympathy with the Mexican people, for when all is said they, too, are fighting for idealistic-reasons for the possession and free exercise of that liberty towards which the spirit of man in all climes and ages has so painfully yet so persistently aspired.
In these islands the agonies through which Mexico is passing are too frequently regarded as a mere collision of brigands—the scufflings of disputatious robber-factions, who are equally desirous of rule because of the possibilities it holds for exaction and looting. By holding such a view we do the people of Mexico a great wrong, and its expression is unquestionably due to ignorance of the true condition of things in the Republic.
The Author sincerely hopes that this volume will clear away some of the mists which surround Mexico at the present time. But he has experienced the utmost difficulty in obtaining news of recent events from the Republic because of the prohibition placed upon correspondence. He feels, however, that he has in a measure overcome this by the piecing together of matter from sundry reliable sources, and hopes that he has been enabled to present his readers with a truthful account of things as they are at the present day, in a land the mighty destinies of which he devoutly and hopefully believes in.
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