Nor is this book reactionary. The author believes that the day of Diaz is long past in Mexico, that the day of the dreamer of utopian visions--Madero--is past in Mexico. He seeks in the present and in the future the sane, firm grasp of actualities which to the watcher on the tower is the only hope of true progress. He sees in the orgies of Carranza and his immediate successors not the upsurgence of mighty ideals, but of personal ambitions and crass disregard of the bases of all human progress. He seeks, in the whirling chaos of the present, a firm footing. He seeks to give the direction of such understanding as he may have to those who think with him. He believes that if he gives such a direction to them, it will enable them to go forward to the winning of some of the vast profits which await them in the Mexican market. One word more I would add. There rules to-day in Washington a government one of whose mighty maxims is the protection and encouragement of those Americans who to-day go forth, as their fathers went forth before them, to carve their way in the wilderness. The Washington government knows, as we all know, that the only wilderness left to us is the open field of the vast undeveloped lands to the South. I believe that Washington plans definitely to support the American pioneer to the fullest in his new conquest of the New World. That his weapons of conquest are dollars and brains and energy matter not, and that he battles in lands over which the flag shall never fly matters less. The fact that he is an American, that he is honest, that he is patriotic and sincere--these matter much in Washington. This book, then, goes upon its way, its record clear and envisioned in deep frankness and in deep faith in the American business man and in the American government of to-day. I offer it to those who must go forth, to those who must perforce place the funds at the disposal of those who go, and to those who, in the councils of our government, are quietly, without ostentation or political apology, placing firm hands to the backs of those who dare and who give. WALLACE THOMPSON. NEW YORK, August 5, 1921. FOOTNOTES: [1] _The People of Mexico._ Harper & Bros., New York, 1921. The companion book, _The Mexican Mind_, is in preparation for publication as this present volume goes to press. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I TRADING WITH MEXICO 1 II NATURE AND THE MEXICAN MARKET 16 III THE PEOPLE WHO BUY 48 IV THE CREDIT OF MEXICO AND OF THE MEXICANS 69 V OUR BILL AGAINST REVOLUTIONARY MEXICO 96