The final issues of Carranza revolutionary paper money came from Vera Cruz in 1915. This money alone was recognized as a part of the Carranza government obligation, and $8,000,000 was set aside in the Carranza financial plans for its redemption. This last paper money, issued after Carranza was recognized by the United States, consisted of engraved notes, known as “infalsificables” or “uncounterfeitables.” These were issued at 10 centavos on the peso, and the government was pledged to “redeem” them. This is being done, but not by anything so simple as paying honest money for them (which would put them, perhaps, into general circulation). Instead, all who pay direct taxes are required to return a surtax of the face value of their taxes in these “infalsificables.” A friend of Carranza wrote that “this was a beautifully simple and ingenious scheme.” It is that still, for those favored ones who control the remaining supply of the notes and sell them at advanced prices to the taxpayers who have to have them--mostly the big foreign mining and oil companies. The story of the paper money days in Mexico, and the fact that of the billions issued but $8,000,000 is recognized as a just debt, may stir the indignation, and it certainly clarifies our understanding of Mexico’s lost faith in her rulers. But in point of actual fact, the destruction of the banking and credit system of the country, which was a corollary of the paper money orgy, was far more terrible and cast an even more lasting blight on the standing of the government. Early in his revolutionary career Carranza was at odds with the banks. He considered it an unfriendly act, one “taking advantage of the unlettered,” for the banks to use their knowledge of financial conditions to profit from the fluctuations of his paper currency. He also found the banks “reactionary” in their refusal to use their standing to assist him in making his money popular, and he charged openly that the banks had “combined to discredit the government.” On his entry into Mexico City he endeavored to coerce banking officials personally, and jail was sometimes the boarding place of bank managers and bank presidents, when they refused to unlock the vaults to government “inspection.” The wrecking of the banking system extended over more than a year. Huerta, who preceded Carranza in the presidency, took the first forced loans of $5,000,000 from the banks, allowing them to issue new paper currency to cover this coin taken out. Carranza, on gaining control of Mexico City, found the forced loan idea convenient, for he was in sore financial straits. As one chronicler has it, “Money had to be found.... The money in the banks was the only money available, and it was taken as the only way out of a very difficult situation.”[5] In its statement of debts, however, the Carranza government recognized these forced loans to a total of $20,000,000, none of which has been paid in six years.