WITH COMPARISONS AND CONCLUSIONS. BY A. A. GRAHAM, Attorney at Law, Topeka, Kansas. FIRST EDITION. CRANE & COMPANY, A. D. 1907. PREFACE. THE preface of a book, like the plan of a battle or a building, should be carefully prepared by the author and examined by the reader before entering into the work; but only generals and architects do this; and the soldier and the laborer do not know to what end their efforts are bent, until the battle is over or the building completed, when they are both in a position to criticise most severely. I have not written a Guidebook, an Itinerary, nor yet a Memoir; and my object is, necessarily, but vaguely stated in the title, Mexico with Comparisons and Conclusions. What features respecting Mexico, what Comparisons, what Conclusions? Mexico, physically, least; industrially, less; commercially, little; religiously, much; politically, more; socially, most, is the scale of importance on which I have placed the various phases of the country and the nation, thus giving the chief place to that which is most unstable in the life of men, but is the startingpoint of all. The Comparisons are drawn mainly from the United States; but, also, include the world at large, having special reference to the condition under consideration in Mexico. |