delivered his famous Magdalena Bay speech in the Senate. There were rumors that the Japanese had acquired or were about to acquire a holding in the Mexican Territory of Lower California on the shores of this bay in which the United States possessed treaty rights. Senator Lodge sounded a note of warning, very inopportunely, for there was no danger.

Madero had not entertained and his Government had no intention of entertaining proposals from Japan of any leading character whatever. This was not because Madero was held back by friendship for the United States, but because he saw peril in any deal with Japan which would place Mexico between two fires. If foundation existed for the Senator's fears, it lay in the projected operations of an American syndicate which had acquired property on that desolate coast and was said to be negotiating with the Japanese for its sale.

The effect in Mexico of Mr. Lodge's remarks was to excite bitter ridicule as at a letting off of "American steam," but published everywhere in the United States the speech was harmful and excited feeling against Mexico as a potential ally of the little yellow men in their unproved but widely credited design to secure a foothold on the American continent.

On the third of the month two Russian Jews, the Ratner brothers, Americanized but not naturalized, were deported from Mexico as "pernicious foreigners" under the famous article thirty-three of the Mexican Constitution. These men managed a mail-order business under the name of the Tampico News Company in which at least two members of the American Ambassador's privy council were directors. The offense of which the deported men were guilty was extremely grave; they were caught in the act of delivering arms and ammunition to the bandit chief, Zapata.

The accusation was not made public and no trial was held. This afforded opportunity for criticism of the summary treatment they received. If it had turned out that the men were naturalized Americans, interesting developments might have resulted placing prominent members of the American Colony in a delicate position. Under a Government less forbearing than Madero's the Ratners might very probably have been executed and their American partners imprisoned for indefinite terms.

One of the Americans associated with the Ratners in the Tampico News Company was Emin L. Beck, President of the strictly American Mexico City Banking Company, and chief backer of a daily newspaper printed in the American language; the other was Burton W. Wilson, an American attorney. Though there was no reason to believe that they knew anything of this sale of arms, they were to some extent involved in the unpleasant atmosphere of the transaction by the mere fact of their business connection; and because they stood so close to the Ambassador, it was inevitable that he should suffer, though unjustly, a further loss of favor with the Madero Government.

The whole affair is an excellent illustration of the way in which business, and banditry, and international complications are related to one another in a disturbed country. The Ratners had moved their business from Tampico in the year 1909, and branched out on a larger scale in Mexico City, occupying one whole building on Calle Palma and a salesroom on Avenida 16 de Septiembre. While the industries of Mexico were going at normal speed the mail order business thrived. Fifty young women were employed as typists to attend to the correspondence, and dozens of clerks and employees were required for the details of the business.

Toward the close of 1910 the beginning of the Madero

revolution curtailed the volume of sales. In the spring of 1911 the business was still further depressed, and the Tampico News Company found itself deeply in debt to Mr. Beck's bank. But the Ratners were sharp men. With Mr. Beck's liberal backing they had secured an enormous stock of American firearms- rifles, carbines, revolvers, automatics, with abundance of ammunition - picked up at bargain prices in the States. Shortly after it was received in Mexico City the de la Barra Government issued an edict under which consignments of arms to dealers were held in the custom houses. Dealers were permitted to sell the stock on hand but could not replenish it. The Ratners had already brought in their great supply and now they had a clear field with monopoly prices. They advertised widely and their profits were large.

With the increase of reported and actual disturbances throughout Mexico, in the months following Madero's inauguration, the firearms sales of the Tampico News Company grew steadily. In February, 1912, the Madero Government became suspicious, and caused two secret service men to solicit and secure positions in the Ratners' employ. Using their best vigilance the detectives were unable, for several weeks, to find positive evidence of traffic with the enemies of the Government. But on the night of May 2 their efforts were rewarded; one of them was chosen as an aid to the Ratners in a delivery of arms. After midnight an automobile was brought into an alley alongside the Tampico News Company building on Calle Palma, the arms were placed on board and were conveyed out of the city beyond Tacubaya where the car was met by Zapata and a body of his followers who received the goods.

The detective made his report immediately upon his return. At daybreak the Ratners were taken into custody, and their remaining stock was confiscated. That day they