Lastly, and in a group by itself, are the damage claims arising from the killing of nearly 600 American citizens in Mexico since the Madero revolution began in 1910. The claims for these outrages and for the maiming and raping of many hundreds more occupy a class by themselves, and will, we may confidently believe, be the first which will be paid when Mexico returns to the ways of civilization. Just here we can imagine the official Mexican “press department” preparing to state that “Mexico has always paid her bills, including all damage claims.” This, however, is not quite literally true. She has paid foreign damage claims at the muzzles of foreign cannon, to be sure, and President Diaz, in that long rule which many call “the anomaly of Mexican history” paid all the bills presented to him. But the only “convention” which ever sat to adjudicate American damage claims was hardly the success that would justify any such sweeping assertion of Mexico’s probity. In 1840, after years of turmoil, and after a show of force, President Jackson called a convention of Americans and Mexicans together to consider American damage claims. They sat from 1840 to 1842, allowed $2,000,000 in damage claims, rejected $1,000,000 and when they adjourned left $3,000,000 still to be considered. Under an arrangement of twenty installments, Mexico paid three and defaulted the rest. The cash was paid by the United States, and the slate was wiped clean after the Mexican war of 1847-48. Finally, this war, which as schoolboys we were taught to regard as a sort of “blot on the national escutcheon” was the result of continued outrages to Americans and continued diplomatic jockeyings with an Uncle Sam who even then was much the same model of patience which he is to-day. In the public discussion of the damage which has been done to American properties in Mexico, there has been much emphasis on the potential harm from the so-called “socialistic” or “bolsheviki” tenets of the new Mexican constitution. There have been vast, crippling losses, yet it seems as if most of what we have heard has been the things which will happen if Mexico is allowed to proceed along her present road. There is reason enough for this fear and for this emphasis, and one of the great battles being fought in the world to-day is that which these Americans are putting up not alone for themselves but for the very principles of property rights. But so far Mexico and particularly the wily gentlemen who have occupied the Mexican presidential chair have always tried to get all they could and have often carried the mis-named “American” bluff to astonishing lengths--but have almost as often retired when the game turned against them. They have used the potential damage as a means of extracting an increasing toll of taxes and of loot, and for little else, as yet.