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Show I -- - -.WAS -DECEIVED I V ' ;: i 3 BALTIMORE MAN TELLS HOUSE j! RULES COMiTTu OF CON. i DITIO...S IN MCXiCO. j5 15 American Ranchman Pays Ransom to Bandit Kidnappers of Son. Car. ranza's Rule of Mexico Not I a Government. f . . " g Washington. Carrunza's rule of i Mexico Is "not a' government, but a band of outlaws, both technically and 5 practically," and "today it Is utterly i 1 Impossible, an enemy of Its own, people ? first and America second," William Gates of Baltimore, an archaeologist, told the house rules committee Mon- day In its liearing on the Gould reso- t lution proposing a congressional In- I quiry Into Mexican affairs. j I AlihougU asserting that President ! Wilson was misled. in making his do- I ; cision to recognize Carranza, believing ! the Mexican to be a "people's cham- I j plon," Mr, Gates declared in favor of j j leaving the solution of the Mexican ! problem with the president. The pres- j ident, he said, had not been fully In- I ! formed of conditions in the southern republic. ; Mr. Gates said his opinions were based on a first-hand study of Mexican Mex-ican conditions for about a year, beginning be-ginning in July, 1917, during which time he visited parts of the country not usually seen by a traveler, including includ-ing the states of Yucatan, Vera Cruz, Puebla, Morales and Oaxaca. For twenty years, he explained, he had been building up a library of Mexican antiquities and literature, and his trip was to obtain more material and to "find out what was going on behind the veil of our censorship and the Carranza Car-ranza censorship." Carranza's control includes the main ports and the railroads, with adjoining adjoin-ing territory for a mile on either side the transportation lines, Mr. Gates asserted as-serted This control, he said, was that "of a body of soldiers who are ready to shoot at a moment's notice in a country where nobody else has any guns." Maintaining that a general political revolution Is on In Mexico, Mr. Gates declared the so-called bandits are the "country people, who, when the Car-ranzlstas Car-ranzlstas come In to make a raid, take np their guns and become bandits in the eyes of the government." Acting upon the advice of the Mexican Mex-ican government, John West Thompson, Thomp-son, an American ranchman living near Mexico City, has paid the 1500 pesos ransom 'demanded by bandits for the release of bis 14-year-old son, the state department was advised. |
