Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 218, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1915 — Counterfeit Mexican Money Printed in 'Frisco [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Counterfeit Mexican Money Printed in 'Frisco

SAN FRANCISCO. —Vast quantities of counterfeit Mexican money, representing millions of currency in that strife-ridden republic, have within the year been printed and much of it circulated in San Francisco. It is used for

bunko purposes here and for general commercial circulation along the border line among those who cannot distinguish the counterfeit. The Washington authorities profess their inability to stop the printing of this paper or punish either the lithographers or the circulators of the counterfeit, because it does not represent a medium of exchange of a government that is recognized by the United States. Millions of dollars in authorized

Mexican currency have been printed in San Francisco. The lithographing was authorized through consuls, who acted for the belligerent power that needed it. Then other printing establishments lonsented to run off facsimiles of the authorized paper. The federal authorities here and at Washington were made acquainted with what was being done, but professed inability to interfere. Much of this counterfeit has been sold at a fraction of its supposed face value in San Francisco for good American dollars on the pretext that the purchaser could negotiate it at its face value on the border or just across the line. When the facts reached the ears of Villa he issued a proclamation that any of his followers or others caught with this bogus money on their persons, or detected in an effort to use it, would be executed. It is said that several such executions have taken place recently.