I have sought, rather, to set down those phases of Mexican life to-day which are the background of Mexican business. I have dared--what no man with less faith in the American business man would dare to do--to set forth honestly the truth about Mexicans of to-day, the secrets of Mexican government, the facts of Mexican “bolshevism,” the horrors of Mexico’s degeneration under the rule of her predatory _caciques_. These to me are the fundamentals of Mexican trade, just as they are the fundamentals of Mexican politics and of the life of the Mexican people to-day. I have sought to set them forth in their relation to the grave issues of world trade, to set them in their relationship with the ways of men in business and with the ways of business in its relationship to human life. I am a friend of Mexico. Few who have written of her life have been more deeply interested in her welfare. I should like to lay here the foundations for a solution of the Mexican business problem by setting forth the unhappy picture, ignoring no detail, seeking no self-deceit, as is too often the practice of those who write on Mexico. I believe that more will be gained, more business of a solid sort won, by those who realize and recognize the truth of conditions in Mexico, than by those who deliberately close their eyes to those conditions. Let us have the truth, then! Let us face the Mexican trade problem as it is, with its vast potentialities balanced, as they actually are, by the sinister elements of ignorance, bitter poverty and racial conservatism. Let us see the problem while we see the golden goal. For this problem is no mere issue of beating the British or the Germans to a thriving market. It is an issue of bringing into being the purchasing power of a populous nation, which is bowed down to-day by the horrors of revolution, of unthinking radicalism, of national degeneracy. He who shall solve that problem will win the trade of Mexico when she has trade. That is all which is to be known, and the only issue to be faced. This book is not a radical document. It does not seek to explain the problems of to-day in terms of to-morrow. The author finds in the radical movements of the present the leaven of the future--little else. He sees in the upheavals of our day a searching for some essential truth which will be a clarifying factor in this time of chaos and distrust. He does not see in them the final solution of any of the difficulties which hatched them out into a too ready world.