ration was one of the chief points of
attack during the campaign of 1916, but the re-election of President
Wilson and the progress of events in Europe presently threw the issue
into the background. In February and March, 1917, when war with Germany
seemed inevitable, the expeditionary force under Pershing was recalled.

Carranza's pro-Germanism, or rather anti-Americanism, was hardly
disguised during the war, and the confiscatory policy of his
Administration in dealing with foreign oil and mineral properties
threatened to do much damage to American interests. When the war in
Europe had ended, the question of Mexico once more came back to the
foreground of attention. Carranza's Administration had not been stained
by so much guilt as Huerta's, and the opposition to it was on the scale
of banditry rather than revolution; but Mexico was far worse off after
years of the war than it had been in 1913, and disregard of American
rights was still the cardinal policy of the Government. Carranza's
security, however, was illusory. In the Spring of 1920 Presidential
elections were announced at last, and Carranza's attempt to force
Ygnacio Bonillas, his Ambassador in Washington, into the Presidential
chair led to a revolt which eventually attracted the leadership of
Obregon. Carranza fled from Mexico City and was murdered on May 22,
1920, and, after the interim Presidency of Adolfo de la Huerta, Obregon
came into office in the Fall.

_The European War, 1914-1916_

When in the last week of July, 1914, a war of unparalleled intensity
and magnitude suddenly fell upon a world which for forty years had been
enjoying unprecedented well-being and security, the practically
unanimous sentiment of Americans was gratitude that we were not
involved. The President's first steps, a formal proclamation of
neutrality and equally formal tender of mediation to the belligerents,
"either now or at any other time that might be thought more suitable,"
had general approval.

[Illustration: _Federal Reserve_
We must have a currency, not rigid as now, but readily,
elastically responsive to sound credit, the expanding
and contracting credits of everyday transactions, the
normal ebb and flow of personal and corporate dealings.
Our banking laws must mobilize reserves; must not permit
the concentration anywhere in a few hands of the
monetary resources