of the condition of the unfortunate masses can be achieved.
But this need not, and should not, interfere with some effort to better the condition of those victims of Mexican misrule who are citizens of other countries, most largely of our own. It is not necessary to establish by argument the correctness of the definition of our country's duty to its citizens living or having interests in other countries as that duty has been expressed in a hundred declarations from our Department of State, and never more fully, or correctly, than by the plank of the Democratic National Platform of 1912, already quoted. That our Government, since the revolutionary conditions in Mexico began nearly eight years ago,has not discharged that duty to our citizens having interests in Mexico nothing but the letter of our Secretary of State, quoted in Chapter IV, preceding, is needed to show. As a reason for this failure we have been told that it was our duty to show patience and forbearance in our dealings with Mexico with the hope that such an attitude would be rewarded by such changes as would give to the unfortunate majority of her people a government such as they had not had for four hundred years. There can be no doubt that officials in Washington who have dictated our policy with reference to Mexico believed this and were actuated by motives of what they conceived to be the highest humanitar-
