The revolutionary hordes, when Mexico City was taken in 1915 by General (now President) Obregon, sacked the city almost as thoroughly as Attila sacked Rome, the public being invited by proclamation to join in the looting. Beautiful houses were made barracks for the soldiers; automobiles and horses, including those of foreign diplomats, were taken; stores and homes were broken open and robbed, and trainloads of rich furniture, including carloads of pianos, were shipped out, much of the loot coming to the United States to be sold. While the population, rich and poor, starved, no food was allowed to enter the city, and trainloads of beans and corn, the staples of Mexican food, were shipped out. The revolution virtually suspended the political rights of the Mexican people. Under Carranza’s decrees, which to this day form the chief basis of government in Mexico, no one may hold office who ever served under Diaz or Huerta, or who was not known to be a Carranzista before the Huerta uprising--save by special permission, granted only on personal appeal to the president himself. The revolutionists continuously refused to allow any Mexicans but those of known sympathies with themselves to participate in elections, so that only a fraction of the eligible voters have ever taken part in any election. The revolution exiled from Mexico, on one pretext or another, virtually all the higher type of Mexicans, the men who throughout all Mexican history have been the stable and stabilizing element in the government, leaving Mexico in the hands of demagogues of the worst type, from the highest offices to the lowest. There has been talk of political amnesty, but none has yet been forthcoming, and the few Mexican exiles who return do so under personal assurance of their personal safety. Mexico is to-day taxing her people, both natives and foreign corporations, to an extent and with a recklessness unknown even in war-ridden Europe. Taxes on imports and exports have been doubled and sextupled. The stamp tax has been quadrupled and broadened to cover almost every possible human activity; direct taxation on every form of industry and export taxes on the country’s products have become the normal, where, before, these forms of taxation were distinctly avoided in order to encourage enterprise. Mexico is still spending more on her army, mostly in graft, than Diaz spent on his whole government, including interest on foreign indebtedness (which the revolution has never paid). The present taxation system has been coupled with favoritism and graft to an extent that punishes with ruin any enterprise (save those fed from the natural resources of the soil, such as oil) which is engaged in a business where profiteering is not possible.