as the result of the difficulty with General Huerta over the Tampico flag incident. As stated in our last editorial on this subject, President Wilson had announced on September 15 that the American troops were to be withdrawn, but this did not actually take place until November 23, 1914.

According to a résumé of the Mexican constitutionalist revolution and its progress, submitted to the Secretary of State on October 7, 1915, by Mr. E. Arredondo, Confidential Agent of the Constitutionalist Government of Mexico at Washington, General Carranza, after taking his seat in the national palace in the city of Mexico, "called all the governors and leaders in command of troops to a meeting, which was to take place on the first day of October, 1914, for the purpose of discussing and adopting the program or platform which the Constitutionalist Government should follow prior to elections; the reforms which should be carried into effect; the date on which elections should be held, and all other matters of general interest which the circumstances might require." General Francisco Villa, the commander of the northern division of the Constitutionalist Army, declined to attend the meeting, repudiated the leadership of Carranza and called a convention of his own supporters at Aguascalientes. The two conventions met in October, 1914. The former retained General Carranza as Provisional President, after he had offered to resign, and the latter selected General Eulalio Gutierrez, who was shortly afterwards deposed and was followed in office in rapid succession by several other members of the Villa faction. An effort to reconcile the differences between the two parties by a committee of Carranza generals, who appeared before the Aguascalientes convention, failed, and was followed by open hostilities between them.

In a decree issued at Vera Cruz on December 12, 1914, which reviewed briefly the events in the constitutionalist revolution from the usurpation of Huerta to the break with Villa, General Carranza states the apparent reason for the break between the two factions as follows:

The express declarations made on several occasions by the commander of the northern division advocating the establishment of constitutional order before the social and political reforms demanded by the country take place, clearly demonstrate that the insubordination of General Villa is of a strictly reactionary character, and contrary to constitutionalist activities, and has for a purpose to frustrate the complete success of the revolution, preventing the establishment of a pre-constitutional government intrusted with the enactment and enforcement of the reforms which have been the subject of the struggle which has been raging for the last four years.

To explain the military ends for which the fight against Villa was undertaken and to authorize during the continuance of the new struggle the laws covering the political and economic reforms which were the objects of the revolution, General Carranza decreed the following articles:

Article 1. The plan of Guadalupe of March 26, 1913,2 shall subsist until the complete triumph of the revolution, and, therefore, Citizen Venustiano Carranza shall continue in his post as first chief of the constitutionalist revolution and as depository of the executive power of the nation, until the enemy is overpowered and peace is restored.

Article 2. The first chief of the revolution and depository of the executive power of the Republic, shall enact and enforce during the struggle, all the laws, provisions, and measures tending to meet the economic, social, and political needs of the country, carrying into effect the reforms which public opinion demands as indispensable for the establishment of a régime which will guarantee the equality of Mexicans among themselves, agrarian laws favoring the creation of small landowners, the suppression of latifundia or large landholders, and the restoration to townships of the lands illegally taken from them; fiscal laws tending to establish an equitable system of taxation on real estate; laws tending to improve the condition of the rural laborer, the working man, the miner, and, in general, of the working classes; the establishment of municipal freedom as a constitutional institution; bases for a new system of organization of the army; amendments of the election laws in order to insure the effectiveness of suffrage; organization of an independent judicial power, in the feder

2 The plan of Guadalupe, signed by sixty-four officers of the troops of the State of Coahuila on the 26th of March, 1913, contains the following articles: "1. Gen. Victoriano Huerta is hereby repudiated as President of the Republic. "2. The legislative and judicial powers of the federation are also hereby disowned. "3. The governors of the States who still recognize the federal powers of the present administration, shall be repudiated thirty days after the publication of this plan.

"4. For the purpose of organizing the army, which is to see that our aims are carried out, we name Venustiano Carranza, now governor of the State of Coahuila, as first chief of the army, which is to be called constitutionalist army.

"5. Upon the occupation of the city of Mexico by the constitutionalist army, the executive power shall be vested in Venustiano Carranza, its first chief, or in the person who may substitute him in command.

"6. The provisional trustee of the executive power of the Republic shall convene general elections as soon as peace may have been restored and will surrender power to the citizen who may have been elected.

"The citizen who may act as first chief of the constitutionalist army in the States, whose government might have recognized that of Huerta, shall take charge of the provisional government and shall convene local elections, after the citizens elected to discharge the high powers of the federation may have entered into the performance of their duties as provided in the foregoing bases."

ation as well as in the States; revision of the laws relative to marriage and the civil status of persons; provisions guaranteeing the strict observance of the laws of reform; revision of the civil, penal, and commercial codes; amendment of judicial procedure, for the purpose of expediting and causing the effectiveness of the administration of justice; revision of laws relative to the exploitation of mines, petroleum, water rights, forests, and other natural resources of the country, in order to destroy the monopolies created by the old régime and to prevent the formation of new ones; political reforms which will insure the absolute observance of the constitution of Mexico, and, in general, all the other laws which may be deemed necessary to insure for all the inhabitants of the country the effectiveness and full enjoyment of their rights, and their equality before the laws.

Article 3. In order to continue the struggle and to carry into effect the reforms referred to in the preceding article, the chief of the revolution is hereby expressly authorized to convene and organize the constitutionalist army and direct the operations of the campaign; to appoint the governors and military commanders of the States and to remove them freely; to effect the expropriations on account of public utility which may be necessary for the distribution of lands, founding of townships, and other public services; to negotiate loans and issue obligations against the national treasury indicating the property which shall guarantee them; to appoint and remove freely federal employees of the civil administration and of the States and to fix the powers of each of them; to make, either directly or through the chiefs he may appoint, requisitions for lands, buildings, arms, horses, vehicles, provisions, and other elements of war; and to create decorations and decree recompenses for services rendered to the revolution.

Article 4. Upon the success of the revolution, when the supreme chieftainship may be established in the city of Mexico and after the elections for municipal councils in the majority of the States of the Republic, the first chief of the revolution, as depository of the executive power, shall issue the call for election of congressmen, fixing in the calls the dates and terms in which the elections shall be held.

Article 5. Once the federal congress has been installed, the chief of the revolution shall render an account before it of the use he may have made of the powers with which he is vested hereby, and he shall especially submit the reforms made and put into effect during the struggle, in order that congress may ratify them, amend them, or supplement them, and to the end that those which it may see fit may be raised to the rank of constitutional precepts, before the reëstablishment of constitutional order. Article 6. The federal congress shall convene the people for the election of president of the Republic, and as soon as this takes place the first chief of the revolution shall deliver to the president elect the executive power of the nation.

Article 7. In case of absolute default of the present chief of the revolution and in the meantime the generals and governors proceed to the election of the person who is to take his place, the chief office shall be temporarily filled by the commander of the army corps at the place where the revolutionary government may be at the time the default of the first chief occurs.

The contest for supremacy between the forces of Carranza and Villa continued unabated and with varying success, neither side apparently

being able to obtain any decisive advantage over the other. Mexico City changed hands several times between the forces of Carranza, Villa and Zapata. The military operations in the meantime added to the distress of the Mexican people and to the dissipation of their substance. The conditions below the southern border of the United States became so chaotic that President Wilson felt constrained on June 2, 1915, to issue a public warning to the Mexican factions to get together and act for the relief of their prostrate country. This document, which was an official statement of the conditions then existing in Mexico and the attitude of the United States, read as follows:

For more than two years revolutionary conditions have existed in Mexico. The purpose of the revolution was to rid Mexico of men who ignored the constitution of the Republic and used their power in contempt of the rights of its people; and with these purposes the people of the United States instinctively and generously sympathized. But the leaders of the revolution, in the very hour of their success, have disagreed and turned their arms against one another. All professing the same objects, they are, nevertheless, unable or unwilling to coöperate. A central authority at Mexico City is no sooner set up than it is undermined and its authority denied by those who were expected to support it. Mexico is apparently no nearer a solution of her tragical troubles than she was when the revolution was first kindled. And she has been swept by civil war as if by fire. Her crops are destroyed, her fields lie unseeded, her work cattle are confiscated for the use of the armed factions, her people flee to the mountains to escape being drawn into unavailing bloodshed, and no man seems to see or lead the way to peace and settled order. There is no proper protection either for her own citizens or for the citizens of other nations resident and at work within her territory. Mexico is starving and without a government. In these circumstances the people and Government of the United States cannot stand indifferently by and do nothing to serve their neighbor. They want nothing for themselves in Mexico. Least of all do they desire to settle her affairs for her, or claim any right to do so. But neither do they wish to see utter ruin come upon her, and they deem it their duty as friends and neighbors to lend any aid they properly can to any instrumentality which promises to be effective in bringing about a settlement which will embody the real objects of the revolution-constitutional government and the rights of the people. Patriotic Mexicans are sick at heart and cry out for peace and for every self-sacrifice that may be necessary to procure it. Their people cry out for food and will presently hate as much as they fear every man in their country or out of it, who stands between them and their daily bread.

It is time, therefore, that the Government of the United States should frankly state the policy which in these extraordinary circumstances it becomes its duty to adopt. It must presently do what it has not hitherto done or felt at liberty to do, lend its active moral support to some man or group of men, if such may be found, who can rally the suffering people of Mexico to their support in an effort to ignore, if they cannot unite, the warring factions of the country, return to the constitution of the Republic so long in abeyance, and set up a government at Mexico City which

the great Powers of the world can recognize and deal with, a government with whom the program of the revolution will be a business and not merely a platform. I therefore publicly and very solemnly call upon the leaders of faction in Mexico to act, to act together, and to act promptly for the relief and redemption of their prostrate country. I feel it to be my duty to tell them that, if they cannot accommodate their differences and unite for this great purpose within a very short time, this Government will be constrained to decide what means should be employed by the United States in order to help Mexico save herself and serve her people.

Closely following the issuance of the above warning, General Carranza issued a declaration to the Mexican nation under date of June 11, 1915, in which he stated that "the Constitutionalist Government has control of over seven-eighths of the national territory; that it is organizing public administration in 20 out of 27 States of the Republic and in more than half of the other 7 States; that it controls all the maritime ports on the Gulf and on the Pacific Ocean with the exception of Guaymas, and all the ports of entry on the northern and southern frontiers, with the exception of Piedras Negras, Ciudad Juarez, and Nogales; that more than thirteen million of the fifteen which represent the population of the country-that is to say, nine-tenths of the total population of the Republic-are governed by the administration [over which] I preside; that day after day the factions are being routed and dispersed, their offensive action being limited at present to acts of brigandage, and that within a short time the occupation of the City of Mexico will contribute to make the action of the Constitutionalist Government more harmonious and efficient in all the territory of the Republic. Therefore, our country is nearing the end of its revolution and the consolidation of a definite peace, based on conditions of welfare and justice." In view of the alleged definite possession of the sovereignty of the country by the Constitutionalist Government, General Carranza thought the time had arrived when that government should be recognized by the other nations, especially the United States, and he appealed to the warring factions still engaged in armed opposition against the Constitutionalist Government, to submit to that government in order to expedite the reëstablishment of peace and to consummate the work of the revolution. With a view to realizing these purposes, General Carranza gave the following pledges of conduct to be observed by his government:

First. The constitutionalist government shall afford to foreigners residing in Mexico all the guarantees to which they are entitled according to our laws, and shall amply