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CHAPTER 8
 the sound of laughter and of playing
CHILDREN HAS BEEN STILLED IN MEXICO
IN astonishing proof of the readiness of many persons to j)ay heed exclusively to words and not at all to deeds is supplied by the statement of the defenders of this Administration that President Wilson has "kept us out of war with Mexico" and has "avoided interference in Mexico." These are the words. The deeds have been: first, an unbroken course of more or less furtive meddling in the internal affairs of Mexico carried to a pitch which imposes on this nation a grave responsibility for the wrong-doing of the victorious factions; and, second, the plunging of this country into what was really a futile and inglorious little war with Mexico, a war entered into with no adequate object, and abandoned without the achievement of any object whatever, adequate or inadequate.

To say that we did not go to war with Mexico is a mere play upon words. A quarter of the wars of history have been entered into and carried through without any preliminary declaration of war and often without any declaration of war at all. The seizure of the leading seaport city of another country, the engagement and defeat of the troops of that country, and the retention of the territory thus occupied for a number of months, constitute war; and denial that it is war can only serve to amuse the type of intellect which would assert that Germany has not been at war with Belgium because Germany did not originally declare war on Belgium. President Wilson's war only resulted in the sacrifice of a score of American lives and a hundred or two of the lives of Mexicans; it was entirely purposeless, has served no good object, has achieved nothing and has been abandoned by Mr. Wilson without obtaining the object because of which it was nominally entered into; it can therefore rightly be stigmatized as a peculiarly unwise, ignoble and inefficient war; but it was war nevertheless.

This has been bad enough. But the general course of the Administration toward Mexico has been worse and even more productive of wide and far-reaching harm. Here again, word-splitters may, if they desire, endeavor to show that the President did not "intervene" in Mexico; but if so they would be obliged to make a fine discrimination between intervention and officious and mischievous intermeddling. Whether it is said that President Wilson "intervened" in Mexican affairs, or that he merely intermeddled, so as to produce much evil and no good and to make us responsible for the actions of a peculiarly lawless, ignorant and blood-thirsty faction, is of small importance. The distinction is one merely of words. The simple fact is that thanks to President Wilson's action—and at times his inaction has been the most effective and vicious form of action—this country has become partially (and guiltily) responsible for some of the worst acts ever committed even in the civil wars of Mexico.

When Mr. Wilson became President of the United States, Huerta was President of Mexico On any theory of non-interference with the affairs of our neighbors, on any theory of avoiding war and of refusing to take sides with or become responsible for the deeds of blood-stained contending factions, it was the clear duty of Mr Wilson to accept Mr. Huerta as being President of Mexico. Unless Mr. Wilson was prepared actively to interfere in Mexico and to establish some sort of protectorate over it, he had no more business to pass judgment upon the methods of Mr. Huerta's selection (which had occurred prior to Mr. Wilson's advent to power) than Mexico would have had to refuse to recognize Mr. Hayes as President on the ground that it was not satisfied with his economic policy and moreover sympathized with Mr. Tilden's side of the controversy. And if Mr. Wilson made up his mind to interfere in Mexico—for of course the most trenchant type of interference was refusal to recognize the Mexican President—he should have notified Foreign Powers of his proposed action in order to prevent so far as possible Huerta's recognition by them. President Wilson interfered in such feeble fashion as to accomplish the maximum of evil to us and to other foreigners and the Mexicans, and the minimum of good to anybody. He hit; but he hit softly. Now, no one should ever hit if it can be avoided; but never should any one "hit soft."

When Mr. Wilson refused to recognize Huerta, he committed a definite act of interference of the most pronounced type. At the same time he and Mr. Bryan looked on with folded arms and without a protest of any kind while American citizens were murdered or robbed or shamefully maltreated in all parts of Mexico by the different sets of banditti who masqueraded as soldiers of the different factions. He maintained for a long time a friendly intercourse with one chief of political adventurers through irregularly appointed diplomatic agents, and he adopted an openly offensive attitude toward the chief of another set, although he was then the de facto head of whatever government Mexico had. Then he turned against this once-favored bandit in the interest of a third bandit. By his action in permitting the transmission of arms over the border President Wilson not only actively aided the insurrection but undoubtedly furnished it with the means essential to its triumph, while at the same time his active interference prevented Huerta from organizing an effective resistance. His defenders allege that he could not properly have forbidden the transmission of arms to the revolutionaries across the border. The answer is that he did forbid it at intervals. He thereby showed that he was taking an active interest in the arming of the revolutionaries, that he permitted it when he chose to do so and stopped it intermittently whenever he thought it best to stop it, and was therefore entirely responsible for it. The nominal rights which the contending factions championed, and the actual and hideous wrongs done by all of them, were not our affair save in so far as Americans and other foreigners were maltreated. We may individually sympathize, as, for instance, I personally do, with the general purpose of the program for division of the lands among the Mexican cultivators, announced by Carranza, Villa and other revolutionary leaders; but this no more justified interference on our part than belief in the wisdom of the single tax for the United States by some foreign ruler would warrant his interference in the internal affairs of the United States. Moreover nothing in the career of Carranza and Villa or in the conduct of the Mexican people at present justifies us in any belief that this program will in any real sense be put into effect.

However, the interference took place. By the course President Wilson pursued toward Huerta and by the course he pursued toward Villa and Carranza, he actively interfered in the internal affairs of Mexico. He actively sided with the faction which ultimately triumphed—and which immediately split into other factions which are now no less actively engaged in fighting one another. Personally, I do not think that the Administration should have interfered in this manner. But one thing is certain. When the Administration did interfere, it was bound to accept the responsibility for its acts. It could not give any aid to the revolutionaries without accepting a corresponding share of responsibility for their deeds and misdeeds. It could not aid them because of their attitude on the land question without also assuming a corresponding share of responsibility for their attitude toward religion and toward the professors of religion. The United States would have had no responsibility whatever for what was done to the Church by any faction which did not owe its triumph to action by the United States. But when the United States takes part in civil war in Mexico, as Messrs. Wilson and Bryan forced our Government to take part, this country has thereby made itself responsible for the frightful wrong-doing, for the terrible outrages committed by the victorious revolutionists on hundreds of the religious people of both sexes.

To avoid the chance of anything but willful misrepresentation, let me emphasize my position. I hold that it was not our affair to interfere one way or the other in the purely internal affairs of Mexico, so far as they affected only Mexican citizens; because if the time came when such interference was absolutely required it could only be justified if it were thorough-going and effective. Moreover, I hold that it was our clear duty to have interfered promptly and effectively on behalf of American citizens who were wronged, instead of behaving as President Wilson and Secretary Bryan actually did behave. To our disgrace as a nation, they forced American citizens to claim and accept from British and German officials and officers the protection which our own government failed to give. When we did interfere in Mexican internal affairs to aid one faction, we thereby made ourselves responsible for the deeds of that faction, and we have no right to try to shirk that responsibility. Messrs. Wilson and Bryan declined to interfere to protect the rights of Americans or of other foreigners in Mexico. But they interfered as between the Mexicans themselves in the interest of one faction and with the result of placing that faction in power. They therefore bound themselves to accept responsibility for the deeds and misdeeds of that faction, and of the further factions into which it then split, in so far as Mr. Wilson sided with one of these as against the other.

Not long ago President Wilson, in a speech at Swarthmore, declared that "Nowhere in this hemisphere can any government endure which is stained by blood," and at Mobile that "we will never condone iniquity because it is most convenient to do so." At the very time he uttered those lofty words, the leaders and lieutenants of the faction which he was actively supporting were shooting their prisoners in cold blood by scores after each engagement, were torturing men reputed to be rich, were driving hundreds of peaceful people from their homes, were looting and defiling churches and treating ecclesiastics and religious women with every species of abominable infamy, from murder and rape down. In other words, at the very time that the President was stating that "nowhere on this hemisphere can any government endure which is stained by blood," he was actively engaged in helping install in power a government which was not only stained by blood but stained by much worse than blood. At the very time that he was announcing that he would "never condone iniquity because it was convenient to do so," he was not merely condoning but openly assisting iniquity and installing in power a set of men whose actions were those of ferocious barbarians.

Remember that I am not engaged in defending the factional opponents of these victorious wrong-doers. There is not evidence sufficient to decide which of the many factions behaved worst. But there is ample material to decide that they all behaved atrociously. Apparently the Administration took1 the ground that inasmuch as Mr. Huerta and his followers were bad men, it was our duty to condone the evil committed by their opponents. Father R. H. Tierney, of New York City, an entirely responsible man, informs me that when (in company with two other gentlemen whose names he gives me) he called upon Mr. Bryan to bring to his attention the abominable outrages committed on certain nuns by the followers of Carranza and Villa, Mr. Bryan informed Father Tierney that he had information that "the followers of Huerta had committed similar outrages on two American women from Iowa!" (This sentence has been read to Father Tierney, who states that it describes the interview with exactness. The original of the affidavits herein quoted are in the possession of Father Tierney, 59 East Eighty-third street, New York City, and Father Kelly, and will be shown by them to any reputable person.) Apparently Mr. Bryan believed this disposed of the situation and relieved the revolutionaries of blame.

Surely, it ought not to be necessary to say that if the facts as thus stated to and by Mr. Bryan were true (and if there was any doubt immediate investigation as to their truth by the government was demanded), then the way to get justice was not by treating one infamy as wiping out the other but by exacting the sternest retribution for both and effectively providing against the repetition of either. Even assuming for the moment that the attitude of the Administration had not so committed the government that it was its duty to interfere on behalf of the nuns thus outraged, Mr. Bryan's statement to Father Tierney shows almost incredible callousness on his part to the most dreadful type of suffering, to acts far worse than the mere murder of any man. It seems literally impossible that any representative of the American government in high office could fail to be stirred to his depths by such wrong, or could have failed to insist on the immediate and condign punishment of the wrong-doers and on the amplest safeguarding against all possible repetition of the wrong. Apparently the only way in which it occurred to Mr. Bryan to take any action against the faction whose adherents had perpetrated these hideous wrongs on the two American women was by encouraging another faction which he must have known in advance and certainly did know after the event would commit and had committed wrongs equally hideous.

I have before me a copy of Hi Heraldo de Toluca of September i3th, 1914. It contains a manifesto on behalf of the victorious revolutionaries of the party of Messrs. Carranza and Villa, dealing with the "conditions under which the Roman Worship will have to be practiced." (I translate into English.) Among the preambles are the following: i, that the ministers of the Catholic Worship circulate doctrines which are not in accordance with the principles of the true Christ; 2, that on account of the learning that these ministers have acquired they cannot in the minds of those who possess equal or greater learning (but who differ from them in opinion) pass as sincere believers in the doctrines they preach and that they thereby exploit the ignorance of the ignorant masses; 3, that inasmuch as this conduct harms people by frightening them with the fear of eternal punishment and thereby tends to make them subservient to the priesthood and that inasmuch as all kinds of people from workmen to capitalists give too much money to the churches and because of various other similar facts, the decree in question is promulgated.

This decree includes the forbidding "of any sermons which will encourage fanaticism;" the proscribing of any fasts or similar practices; the prohibition of any money being paid for christenings, marriages or other matters; the prohibition of the soliciting of contributions (that is, the passing of the plate) ; the prohibition of celebration of masses for the dead or the celebration of more than two masses a week; the prohibition of confession and with this object in view the closing of the churches excepting once a week at the hour of the masses; and, finally, the prohibition of more than one priest living in Toluca and the requirement that he, when he walks in the streets, shall be dressed absolutely as a civilian without anything in his costume revealing the fact that he is a minister. In order to be permitted to exercise the functions thus limited, the priest is required to affix his signature of acceptance to the foregoing regulations.

Now, in various South American countries there have been bitter contests between the Clericals and the anti-Clericals and again and again the extremists of each side have taken positions which in the eyes of sensible Americans of all religious creeds are intolerable. There are in our own country individuals who sincerely believe that the Masons or the Knights of Columbus, or the members of the Junior Order of American Mechanics, or the Catholic Church or the Methodist Church or the Ethical Culture Society, represent what is all wrong. There are sincere men in the United States who by argument desire to convince their fellows belonging to any one of the bodies above mentioned (and to any one of many others) that they are mistaken, either when they go to church or when they do not go to church, when they "preach sermons of a fanatical type" or inveigh against "sermons of a fanatical type," when they put money in the plate to help support a church or when they refuse to support a church, when they join secret societies or sit on the mourners' bench or practise confession. According to our ideas, all men have an absolute right to favor or oppose any of these practices. But, according to our ideas, no men have any right to endeavor to make the government either favor or oppose them. According to our ideas, we should emphatically disapprove of any action in any Spanish-American country which is designed to oppress either Catholics or Protestants, either Masons or anti-Masons, either Liberals or Clericals, or to interfere with religious liberty, whether by intolerance exercised for or against any religious creed, or by people who do or do not believe in any religious creed.

I hold that these should be our sympathies. But I emphatically hold that it is not the duty of this government to try to make other countries act in accordance with these sympathies, and, above all, not the duty of the government to help some other government which acts against these great principles with which we sympathize. Messrs. Wilson and Bryan by their actions have assumed a certain undoubted responsibility for the behavior of the victorious faction in Mexico which has just taken the kind of stand indicated in the proclamation above quoted; a stand, of course, hostile to every principle of real religious liberty, a stand which if applied logically would mean that no minister of any church could in public wear a high-cut waistcoat or perhaps even a black frock-coat, and which would put a stop even to such common-place actions as the passing of the plate in any church to encourage home missions.

But this attitude is only one of the offences committed. Catholic schools almost everywhere in Mexico have been closed, institutions of learning sacked and libraries and astronomical and other machinery destroyed, the priests and nuns expelled by hundreds and some of the priests killed and some of the nuns outraged. Archbishop Blenk of New Orleans, Father Tierney, editor of America, Father Kelly, president of the Catholic Church Extension Society, Mr. Pe-try, one of the directors of the Catholic Church Extension Society, and a Mexican bishop whose name I do not give because it might involve him in trouble, came to see me at my house; and in Chicago I saw other priests and refugees from Mexico, both priests, nuns and lay brothers. The statements and affidavits, submitted to me in the original and copies of which I have before me as I write, set forth conditions which are literally appalling and for which, be it remembered, the actions of Messrs. Wilson and Bryan have made this country partly responsible.

For example, Archbishop Blenk submitted to me an affidavit by the prioress of the Bare-footed Carmelite Nuns of the Convent of Queretaro. This sets forth from the personal knowledge of the prioress how the churches have been profaned by soldiers entering them on horseback, breaking statues, trampling on relics and scattering on the floor the Sacred Hosts and even throwing them into the horses' feed; how in some churches the revolutionaries have offered mock masses and have in other ways, some of them too repulsive and loathsome to mention, behaved precisely as the Red Terrorists of the French Revolution behaved in the churches of Paris; how, for example, St. Anthony's Church at Aguascali-entes has been made into a legislative hall and the Church of St. Joseph at Queretaro and the great convent of the Carmelites and the lyceum of the Christian Brothers all have been confiscated; how the church property has been sequestered and the archives burned and the men and women in the cloistered communities expelled without being allowed to take even an extra suit of clothes or a book of prayer.

The prioress states that she has herself seen in Mexico City nuns who have been "victims of the passions of the revolutionary soldiers," and some whom she found in their own homes, others in hospitals and in maternity houses, who in consequence are about to be delivered of children. She deposes: "I have seen soldiers dressed up in chasubles, stoles, maniples and cinctures, with copes and altar linen, and their women dressed up in albs, surplices, and corporals used as handkerchiefs." She has seen the sacred vessels profaned in a thousand ways. She describes meeting seven nuns who had been outraged, whom she directed to a maternity house, and who had abandoned themselves to utter despair, saying "that they were already damned and abandoned by God and they cursed the hour of their religious profession." She describes how she escaped from Quaretaro with nuns who had been obliged to hide in private houses in order to escape being taken to the barracks by the soldiers. She describes how she had daily to beg the food necessary to sustain the twenty-four sisters with whom she escaped.

In Chicago I saw a French priest, Father Dominic Fournier, of the Congregation of the Passion, who had just escaped from Mexico with two young Spanish students for the priesthood. He had escaped from the City of Toluca with nothing whatever, not even a Rosary. He and the two novices described to me their experience in Toluca. The churches and religious houses were sacked and confiscated and the soldiers and their women indulged in orgies before and around the altars. One of the lay brothers named Mariano Gonzales tried to save some of the things from the church. The revolutionists seized him and accused him of robbing the state. He was shot by a file of soldiers on August 22nd, 1914, and his dead body was left all day long in the court in which Father Fournier and the other priests and the two novices who spoke to me and their associates were confined. They were kept in prison sixteen days and then allowed to go with nothing but what they had on.

I have seen the original of and have in my possession a translation of a letter written on October 24th by a young girl of Toluca to her pastor who had been exiled. She described how the bishop had been heavily fined and exiled. She describes how the clubs of boys and girls for whom she had been working had been broken up, but how some of the boys to whom they used to give breakfast on Sunday mornings still occasionally come to see them; and she asks advice how to keep these clubs of the poor together. But the dreadful and pathetic part of the letter is contained in the following sentence: "Now I will ask you a question. Suppose some one falls into the power of the Zapatistas. Would it be better for her to take her own life rather than allow them to do their will and what they are accustomed to do? As I never thought such a thing could happen, I did not ask you before about it, but now I see it is quite possible. If we had not our good God in whom we trust, I think we would give way to despair."

In other words, this girl who had been engaged in charitable work in connection with the church asks her pastor whether she is permitted to commit suicide in order to avoid the outrages to which so many hundreds of Mexican women, so many scores of nuns, have been exposed in the last few months. I cannot imagine any man of whatever creed—or of no creed—reading this let ter without his blood tingling with horror and anger; and we Americans should bear in mind the fact that the actions of President Wilson and Secretary Bryan in supporting the Villistas (until President Wilson suddenly swapped bandits and supported the Carranzistas) have made us partly responsible for such outrages.

I have been given and shown letters from refugees in Galveston, in Corpus Christi, in San Antonio and Havana. These refugees include seven archbishops, six bishops, some hundreds of priests, and at least three hundred nuns. Most of these bishops and priests had been put in jail or in the penitentiary or otherwise confined and maltreated. Two-thirds of the institutions of higher learning in Mexico have been confiscated and more or less completely destroyed and a large part of the ordinary educational institutions have been treated in similar fashion.

Many of the affidavits before me recite tortures so dreadful that I am unwilling to put them in print. It would be tedious to recite all the facts set forth in these affidavits. For instance, there is one, by Daniel R. L,oweree, a priest of the diocese of Guadalajara, the son of an American father, and librarian of the Seminary and professor of chemistry. He describes what took place in Guadalajara. On July 2ist, about one hundred priests from the city and country round about were put in the jail, while the cathedral was used as a barracks. In the affidavit of Canon Jose Maria Vela, of the Cathedral of Zacatecas, he sets forth how the constitutionalists shot a priest named Velarde, how twenty-three priests were gathered together and under the orders of General Villa required to produce one million pesos within twenty-four hours, under penalty of being shot. A committee of the priests went out through the city begging from house to house and accepting even pennies from the children. A girl was forcibly violated by one of the soldiers in the room adjoining that in which these priests were kept. Finally, the citizens raised a couple of hundred thousand pesos and the priests were released and allowed to flee without any of their belongings. Seventeen of the fleeing priests are now in El Paso and their names are given in the document and those of some of them signed to an accompanying document.

In an affidavit by the Reverend Michael Ku-bicza, of the Society of Jesus, whose father was a Hungarian physician, he describes how he was tortured in order to make him give up money. A soldier nicknamed Baca, in the presence of Colonel Fierro, put a horsehair rope around his neck and choked him until he became unconscious. When he came to, Baca fired a revolver near his head and commanded him to give up and tell him where the Jesuit treasures were buried. On answering that there were none, he was again choked until he was unconscious, and this was repeated a third time. The affidavit describes at length some of the sufferings of the priests in fleeing.

All kinds of other affidavits have been submitted to me, dealing with torture and murder, as, for example, the killing of Father Alba, the parish priest of Cabra, the killing of the parish priest and vicar at Tula, the killing of the chaplain and rector and vice-president of the Christian Brothers' College, etc., etc.

The one feature in the events narrated to me and set forth in the affidavits to me which can give any American the least satisfaction is the statement of the kindness with which the unfortunate refugees had been treated in Vera Cruz by the officers and men of the Army and Navy, particular mention being made of General Funston.

What I have above stated is but a small part of the immense mass of facts available to the President (and Mr. Bryan) had they cared to examine them. They relate to outrages on Catholics. This is merely because the enormous majority of the religious people of Mexico are Catholics. I should set them forth just as minutely if they had been inflicted by Catholics on Free thinkers or Protestants or Masons—I am myself both a Protestant and a Mason and I claim and exercise the right of full liberty of thought. Even if we had no responsibility for them, I nevertheless fail to see how any American could read the account of them without a feeling of burning indignation. As things actually are, shame must be mingled with our indignation. The action of the President (and Mr. Bryan) has been such as to make this country partly responsible for the frightful wrongs that have been committed on the Mexicans themselves. For the wrongs committed on Americans, and neither prevented nor redressed, our Government is not merely partly, but wholly, responsible.

A year ago I was shown a letter from Naco, Arizona, written by a railway engineer on January 10, 1915. He mentions that five persons had been killed and forty-seven wounded on the American side of the boundary line by stray bullets shot by the Mexicans, and adds: "My wife was shot in the neck in our house, six hundred yards from the line, when she was reading. I would rather a thousand times be with Emperor Bill than an American citizen under such conditions." I have just been visited by a Boer gentleman, who has been resident in Mexico for a dozen years; after the Boer War he was exiled from Cape Colony and his property confiscated; but in Mexico he does not claim to be an American; he clings eagerly to his British citizenship; for England, like Germany and France, does try to protect her citizens, whereas bitter experience has taught the average American citizen in Mexico that in his case, robbery and murder will bring no protest from his home government.

At this moment the Administration is protesting about the seizure of cotton, copper and rubber in ships owned by American merchants and destined for one of the belligerent powers in Europe. It is standing strongly for the property right of the man who wishes to sell his goods to foreigners engaged in war. It at one time urged passage of a law to let it purchase the ships of one of the powers engaged in war, which ships had been interned in our waters; a purchase which would have been to the pecuniary advantage of certain banking and business firms, and to the pecuniary advantage of the power in question, but which might very well have embroiled us with the nations now at war with this power; so that the proposed law would have been very objectionable.

Yet while thus endeavoring to serve, sometimes properly and sometimes improperly, the interests of the business men which have been hurt by this war, the Administration pays not the smallest attention to the cases of the corresponding business men—certainly no less deserving— who have suffered so terribly in Mexico; and it pays no attention whatever to the cases of American citizens of humble position and small means, men, women and children, who have lost life or limb, or all their few worldly goods, during the past two years on the Mexican border and within Mexico itself.

The El Paso Morning Times of December 26, 1914, a Democratic paper supporting President Wilson, stated that in the firing by Mexican soldiers across the border "fully fifty persons, including American soldiers," were wounded. A former district-attorney of New Mexico writes me that the exact number was fifty-seven, some of whom were killed, and that the men shot included American soldiers walking their beats as sentries. This information was obtained from the coroner at Naco. From the same source I am informed that before President Wilson came into power, eighteen American citizens were killed and wounded in like manner at El Paso.

Perhaps the most extraordinary feature of the whole Naco affair is that at that point there is an open port of entry. The arms and ammunition used to kill American women and children, and American soldiers, were openly purchased in the United States and openly delivered through a port of entry to the warring factions in Mexico. An American army officer whose name, of course, I cannot give, who has been serving along the Mexican border, informs me that, among the enlisted men, man after man, when his enlistment ran out, refused to re-enlist because the orders of the Administration were that when fired at, on American soil, by Mexicans, he was not to return the fire. I speak of what I know personally when I say that this action by the Administration has not only deeply damaged us in the eyes of the Mexican people, but is a frightful source of demoralization among the American troops. It is literally incomprehensible to me that any American who knows the truth can be willing to tolerate such a condition of affairs.

Surely our people shou}d ponder these facts. Here are American private citizens, men, women and children, and American soldiers, all on American soil, scores of whom have been killed or wounded by bullets shot across the line. Some of the killing has been done through sheer carelessness and contemptuous indifference for our rights; some has been done maliciously and of purpose; and yet President Wilson's Administration has failed to take any action. The culmination came in the month of January of the present year 1916, when sixteen Americans were taken from a train in the state of Chihuahua and murdered premeditatedly and in cold blood. Had Mr. Wilson had in him one faint spark of the courage of Andrew Jackson no Mexican would have dared even think of such action. The murder of these Americans was the direct result of President Wilson's recognition of Car-ranza's government for otherwise they would not have been in Mexico, and their murderers felt they could act with impunity because for three years President Wilson had shown again and again that American citizens could be murdered, and the American flag outraged, without hindrance from him. The record of the preceding Administration as regards Mexico was not a pleasant object of contemplation for Americans brought up to honor the flag; but the present Administration has made Americans in or near Mexico feel that they have no flag to honor.

Be it remembered also that there was not the slightest difficulty in stopping the particular kind of flagrant outrage that occurred along the border. There were difficulties connected with other features of possible policy in Mexico, but there never has been the slightest difficulty as regards this particular matter. At any moment since, some five years ago, the revolution began, this type of outrage could have been stopped within twenty-four hours. It can be stopped over night. All that is necessary is to notify the Mexican authorities that if there is any repetition of such action at any point, the American troops will promptly be sent over to the locality where the outrage occurs and will drive all the contestants to beyond extreme rifle range of the border, and will exact immediate punishment for any man or party violating the measures which the American officer in charge deems it necessary to take to protect our peaceable citizens within our own borders. It is literally incomprehensible that orders such as this should not have been issued years ago.

I speak of the cases of this type because they are so flagrant; because there can be no discussion about them and no defence of them which can puzzle any man of reasonable intelligence. But the wrongs thus committed constitute only the tiniest fraction of the innumerable wrongs committed upon Americans and upon foreigners of every nationality in the course of the five years of anarchy during which Mexico has been torn to pieces by various groups of banditti. The worst of these banditti have been more or less actively helped by the present Administration, and during the entire five years, but notably during the last three years, they have all of them been permitted to prey with impunity upon the persons and the property of Americans and of other foreigners in Mexico..
The Administration should be condemned for its policy in Mexico; but let us be frank with ourselves, we Americans, and say the condemnation should be visited upon us as a nation, for we have had the amplest knowledge of all that has happened. It has been put before us in detail officially. Yet we have declined to make our indignation felt by President Wilson, and by Mr. Bryan (when Mr. Bryan was in office).. Messrs. Wilson and Bryan not merely sat supine, but actually encouraged the Mexican leaders who were responsible for the murder of American men and the outraging of American women. Since Mr. Bryan left office, President Wilson has continued the policy unchanged, and his is the sole responsibility for the innumerable murders and outrages that have since occurred; murders and outrages committed by Carranzistas and Villistas alike.

I wish that every American citizen would read the speech of Senator Albert B. Fall, of New Mexico, delivered in the Senate of the United States on March 9, 1914. Not only have Senator Fall's statements been left unanswered, but no adequate attempt has even been made to answer them. One or two Democratic Senators have striven to answer similar statements by the assertion that things as bad were permitted under the Administration of President Taft. But Senator Fall's speech was open to no such rejoinder, for he impartially cited outrages committed prior to the advent and subsequent to the advent of the present Administration to power.

The Senate partially performed its duty. On April 20, 1913, it sent to the President a formally worded request for information as to the number of Americans killed in Mexico, the number driven out of that country and as to what steps had been taken to obtain justice. No answer whatever was made to this request, and it was repeated in the following July. Then the President answered, declining to give the information on the ground that it was not compatible with the public interest. If the President had then had a well-thought-out policy which he intended forthwith to apply for remedying the conditions of affairs, such an answer might have been proper. But, as a matter of fact, events have shown that he had no policy whatever, save in so far as vacillating inability to do anything positive may be called a policy. Two years and a half have passed since this answer was returned to the Senate; murder and spoliation have continued unchecked; and still not one action has been taken by the present Administration to right the fearful wrongs that have been committed, and still the public has never been shown the material in possession of the State Department.
The following statements are contained in Senator Fall's speech. They form but a small proportion of the cases that have been brought to my own attention. But they are officially stated by Senator Fall. President Wilson and Secretary Bryan had it in their power, when these statements were made over two years ago, at once to find out whether or not they were well founded. It was their duty immediately to investigate every case thus specifically mentioned by Senator Fall and either to take action or to furnish to the Senate and the people refutation of the .charges. They did nothing whatsoever. They dared not do anything whatsoever.

Senator Fall recites extracts from the report of W. W. Suit, the chief of the Order of Railway Conductors in the republic of Mexico; the statement of Conductor T. J. O'Fallon; the affidavits of Conductor J. S. McCranie and Engineer J. D. Kennedy, of August 3, 1913; all reciting in detail the outrages committed in 1911, which resulted in 500 American railroad men being driven from Mexico. The chief of the Order of Railway Conductors remarks very pertinently, "Every American who has been in touch with the situation and every citizen of other civilized countries sees the necessity of adding the Big Stick to the Monroe Doctrine," which is merely a picturesquely idiomatic way of stating the common sense truth that unless resolute purpose and potential force are put back of every such doctrine or declaration of foreign policy, our enunciation of the doctrine or declaration excites mere derision.

These particular infamies complained of here, like not a few to which Senator Fall calls attention, were committed prior to Mr. Wilson's coming to power; but Mr. Wilson has never sought redress for them or for the outrages committed since he has been in power. Senator Fall, for instance, asks, "What has been done to investigate the death of Mrs. Anderson, which occurred in Chihuahua on June 22, 1911? Not under this Administration. This is no partisan question and I think I will be acquitted of any attempt to take any possible partisan or political advantage in what I shall say as to the last Administration and this Administration; but I should like to know whether there has been any attempt whatsoever made to investigate the case to which I have just referred."

He then recites the facts. Mrs. Anderson was a poor woman, living with her little daughter of thirteen and her little boy of seven in their house. The soldiers of Madero's army entered the house and demanded that she should cook for them. She was shot, fell to the ground, compelled to rise from the ground and continue to cook, although bleeding to death; and at the same time her little daughter, thirteen years old, was outraged in her presence. The boy of a neighbor, running to their assistance, was shot at the door of the house and killed. The American colonists, not being at that time as intimidated as they have since been, procured the arrest of the men charged with this crime. They were convicted, were sent for six months to jail, and then were turned loose upon the community. The woman died.

A little American girl of twelve,. Mabel Richardson, was assailed seventeen miles from where this first outrage occurred. Her assailants were never punished; and Senator Fall in his speech recited the fact that not one word, not one line of protest ever proceeded from our Government in the matter, although these were among the cases to which he referred in his speech in the Senate on July 22, 1912.

James W. Harvey was killed in the state of Chihuahua in May, 1912.

William Adams, a citizen of Senator Fall's own state, was murdered at about the same time, and not an effort was made by the Government to punish the perpetrator of the outrage.

In the case of A. J. Fountain, who was killed, the Government did act, and its action was worse than inaction. It notified the man responsible for the murder that American citizens must not be killed. This man, named Salazar, serving under Madero, disregarded the notice sent him, killed another American, and when Senator Fall made his speech he had fled from the Huertistas and was living under the protection of our Government at El Paso. Says Senator Fall: "He is eating three square meals a day on this side of the river at Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas, protected by American soldiers. Meals are being provided and paid for by the taxpayers of this Government for something over four thousand of the Mexicans who came across the river."

Joshua Stevens was killed near Colonia Pa-checo, Mexico, on August 25, 1912, and his two little daughters assaulted. The case was brought to the attention of the State Department, but no protest was made.

Johnny Brooks was killed at Colonia, Chihuahua, in May, 1913. He, however, was a former Texas Ranger and, after being mortally wounded by five assailants, he killed their leader, a Mexican lieutenant, before he himself died. This man had been originally in the employ of Senator Fall himself. His life was taken without the slightest provocation, and nothing was ever done by our Government to demand reparation.

On July 26, 1913, near Tampico, Matthew Gourd, from the State of Iowa, and his daughter and niece were attacked by Mexicans. Gourd was tied to a tree and his daughter and niece outraged in his presence. Apparently the only action taken by President Wilson's Administration was to send word to the American Consul at Tampico that a Red Cross ship would be sent down there for a short while and that all Americans should be notified that if they desired they could go on board it and leave Mexico!

On June 18, 1913, Rogers Palmer, an English citizen, was killed, and Carl von Brandts and L. W. Elder, American citizens, were wounded in Tampico, while endeavoring to defend American women from the attack of certain of Villa's bandits.

About the same time H. W. Stepp, an American, was shot because of his refusal to pay five hundred pesos ransom.

Edmund Hayes and Robert Thomas were killed by Santa Caravo. Senator Fall personally called the attention of President Wilson and Secretary Bryan to the fact that the murderer was walking the streets of Juarez, five minutes' ride from El Paso. The Department demanded his arrest and punishment. He was arrested, but nothing more has been heard of the case; and Senator Fall could get no answer to his requests to know what the Government had done to back up its threats and to enforce the punishment of this man, a red-handed murderer of two men, among the best-known American pioneers in Mexico.

Benjamin Griffin, a ranchman, was murdered July 5, 1913. No reparation has been obtained.

John H. Williams, a mining engineer; Boris Gadow, a consulting engineer, and U. G. Wolf, a mining engineer, were all shot, but nothing was done about it. I quote verbatim from what Senator Fall says of the next case he mentions: "Frank Ward was shot in the back by bandits near Yago, Tepic Territory, April 9, 1913. I endeavored to obtain information, not by asking the State Department, but from other sources, as I have been compelled to obtain information in other cases. For a long while it was impossible for me to get the facts of the occurrence resulting in Ward's killing, because when American women are attacked and outraged, they themselves and their friends attempt to keep their names out of the press and avoid in every way possible publicity in matters of that kind. But I can say to you now, Mr. President, that an affidavit is on file in the American Embassy in the City of Mexico from Mrs. Ward herself stating that when her husband was shot, and writhing in his wounds on the floor, she was outraged by Mexican bandits, who then killed him. The affidavit is on file. Has any attempt been made to secure the punishment of those guilty of this crime?" No; President Wilson took no action whatever.

Senator Fall went on to enumerate scores of similar murders and outrages. It would be useless to recapitulate them. I call attention only to one or two cases. A United States Customs Inspector, John S. H. Howard, was assassinated near Eagle Pass, Texas. The United States Government did nothing, but in this particular case the State of Texas caught one of the assassins and dealt with him, says the Senator, "as Texas is prepared to deal, I am glad to say, with other assassins."

L. Bushnell, a mounted policeman, was killed in Naco, Arizona, by a bullet from over the line, March 24, 1913. R. H. Ferguson, a member of the troop F, Third United States Cavalry, was killed by a bullet fired over the border in similar manner.

Senator Fall states that it is probable that not as many Americans have been killed during the last two years as during the preceding three years, because the Americans have been driven out of Mexico by herds. On July 28, 1913, he notified the Secretary of State, Mr. Bryan, that he had in his possession a list of 284 men, 301 women and 1,266 children, all of them Americans, who had been driven out of Mexico for no fault of their own. They were people of small means; their little cottages had been burned to the ground in most cases. Secretary of State Bryan acknowledged the receipt of the letter and did nothing whatever about it. President Wilson supported Mr. Bryan in the matter.

Senator Fall gave minutely and in detail case after case of unspeakable outrages. He showed that these cases were called specifically to the attention of the Administration and that the Administration deliberately declined to act on behalf of the unfortunate beings who had suffered such dreadful wrong. He recited, what has been told to me personally by other men who have seen Mr. Bryan, that Mr. Bryan declined to act in behalf of Americans who had lost their property, on the ground that he was not interested in "protecting American dollars.." But the enormous majority of the men, women and children who have suffered in Mexico belong to the class of those persons of small means who support themselves by their own work. Undoubtedly the destruction of property has fallen upon the wealthy no less than upon the humble; but the American women who have been outraged, the American men who have been killed and the American children who have been deprived of their parents or of their homes, in the immense majority of cases, belong to the class whose means are small.

President Wilson and Secretary Bryan endeavored to "protect the dollars" of wealthy foreign corporations by purchasing from or through them the German ships interned in our ports, and they endeavored to "protect the dollars" of wealthy property owners who desired to make fortunes through the sale of contraband, but they made no effective protest, they took no action whatever, as regards the railway conductors, the brakemen, the small farmers and ranchmen,-the mining engineers, our fellow citizens peacefully plying their trades in Mexico, whose property was taken from them, who themselves were sometimes killed and whose wives and daughters, American women, American girls, sometimes suffered outrages worse than death.

It is eminently right to "protect American dollars," so long as this can be done without interfering with the just rights of others. It is even more necessary to protect the persons and lives of American men and women. But what shall we say of the governmental representatives who do neither, and seek to cover their failure by prattle about despising "dollars"? Especially when on the high seas they treat "dollars" as of more importance than the lives of women and children ?

Let me repeat that I quote Senator Fall only because he has spoken as a Senator, so that his remarks are contained in an official document, which should be circulated broadcast throughout the United States. I relate a few of the specific cases he quotes merely as instances, to show that our public officials have had multitudes of such cases specifically called to their attention. Any number of similar statements to those of Senator Fall have been made to me by private individuals. American after American has told me that our fellow-countrymen are eagerly seeking to obtain English or German citizenship, and American heads of corporations in Mexico have told me that they are employing only Germans or Englishmen, because, though Englishmen and Germans are not treated well in Mexico, they are infinitely better treated than Americans.

There is no government in the world for which the Mexican people now feel the profound contempt that they feel for the United States Government ; and we owe this contempt to the way in which our governmental authorities have behaved during the last five years, but especially during the last three years. Well-meaning people praise President Wilson for having preserved "peace" with Mexico, and avoided the "hostility" of Mexico. As a matter of fact his action has steadily increased Mexican hostility, has not prevented the futile and infamous little "war" in which we first took and then abandoned Vera Cruz, and has been responsible for death, outrage and suffering which have befallen hundreds of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Mexicans during the carnival of crime and bloodshed with which this "peace" has prevented interference.

Senator Fall made it evident in his speech that he held no brief for either of the contending Mexican factions. He described Huerta in language of just severity, but he showed, what every man in his senses knows, that Villa has been a bandit and murderer by profession, and a murderer, robber and outrager of women since he has become a general in the revolution. Car-ranza and his party have stood precisely on the same level of bandit-murder. There was no reason whatever for any American to uphold Huerta ; but to antagonize him on moral grounds, and then to endeavor to replace him by a polygamous bandit, was not compatible with any intelligent system of international ethics. Nor did any betterment follow from dropping this bandit, and putting the power of the United States Government behind another bandit. It may be entirely proper to take the view that we have no concern with the morality of any chief who is for the time being the ruler of Mexico. But to do as President Wilson has done and actively take sides against Huerta and for Villa, condemning the former for misdeeds, and ignoring the far worse misdeeds of the latter, and then to abandon Villa and support against him Carranza, who was responsible for exactly the same kind of hideous outrages against Americans, and insults to the American flag, is an affront to all who believe in straightforward sincerity in American public life.

Senator Fall gives in detail the circumstances of a few of Villa's crimes, some of them so shocking that any decent man's blood boils as he reads them. Villa's efficiency has unquestionably been great, but it has been efficiency of the type which in the reign of King Bomba gave certain Sicilian and Calabrian bandit chiefs international prominence. The statements of Senator Fall have never been successfully questioned. Villa can, of course, be defended, but only in the sense that it is possible to defend Geronimo or some other Apache chief of Geronimo's type; to defend Villa as representing freedom and justice and democracy in the sense that the words are used in speaking of civilized nations is literally like defending an old-time Apache chief on the same grounds. The sincerity of such a defence can escape question only if the defender is admitted to be entirely ignorant of all concerning which he speaks.

It is not possible to give all the facts in full. For this the responsibility lies entirely with the President, for he has consistently carried out a policy of secrecy as regards the outrages on our citizens in Mexico. He has persistently refused to let the facts be known. He has worked in the darkness and behind cover. He has followed the policy of preventing all publicity. He has concealed the truth and furtively evaded telling the truth. But nevertheless we do know the facts in a very large number of cases. From the information available, it appears that over two hundred American lives have been lost in Mexico; that as regards none of them has redress been secured, and that as regards most of them it has not even been demanded.

Apparently many hundreds of millions of dollars of American capital was invested in Mexico, and of this almost all is gone. As before stated, when remonstrated with on this subject, Mr. Bryan, speaking for President Wilson, repeatedly informed callers that he was not "interested in American dollars"; that Americans who invested in property in foreign countries could not look to this Government to protect them. Yet at that very time another member of the Cabinet who sat at the same council board with Mr. Bryan was making an earnest appeal that Americans should invest their property—"dollars"'—in enterprises in South America; and at that very time Mr. Bryan, in accordance with the orders of Mr. Wilson, was making protests about the interference with American property—"dollars"— on the high seas.

Of course what Messrs. Wilson and Bryan say about "American dollars" is a mere rhetorical flourish in any event. If we have no right under any circumstances to jeopardize life to protect property in international matters, then we have no right to jeopardize it to protect property in municipal matters. If the Wilson-Bryan doctrine is true, then no policeman should arrest any violent offender for a crime less than murder or rape, and no householder should defend himself against a burglar or highwayman, for in such case he is undoubtedly jeopardizing the life either of his assailant or himself in order to "protect dollars."

However, President Wilson's practice is a little worse even than his theory. His theory has been that he would not protect American property in Mexico. His practice has been that he would not protect American men from murder and American women from rape in Mexico. And at the same time President Wilson, in striving to secure and protect certain kinds of property—that is, in dealing with matters of contraband and of the purchase of the interned ships of one of the powers now at war—has been following in feeble and irresolute fashion a policy which it is quite conceivable would, if successful, let us drift into war in peculiarly ignoble fashion.

The Hague conventions bound us to protest against the dreadful wrong done to the men, women and children of Belgium. President Wilson declined to make any protest on behalf of human life, lest to do so might embroil us with some powerful outside nation; but he protests heartily against any interference with our selling copper to be used in the warlike operations against these same Belgians; thereby showing that in practice he puts property rights above those highest of human rights which concern the lives of the helpless.

A year ago President Wilson spoke on the subject of Mexico in a speech at Indianapolis. At the beginning of his speech he said, "I got very tired staying in Washington and saying sweet things. I wanted to come out and get in touch with you once more and say what I really thought." Disregarding the implication as to his own past sincerity contained in this statement, we have a right to take the speech as expressing his deliberate conviction and purpose. He said that he possessed "a reckless enthusiasm for human liberty," and then spoke of his own policy of "watchful waiting in Mexico." Apparently, in his mind "watchful waiting" is a species of "reckless enthusiasm." He asserted that the people of Mexico have a right to do anything they please about their business, saying, "It is none of my business; it is none of your business how long they take in determining it. It is none of my business and it is none of yours how they go about the business. Haven't the European nations taken as long as they wanted and spilled as much blood as they pleased in settling their affairs ? Shall we deny that to Mexico because she is weak?"

This is the kind of language that can be used about Mexico with sincerity only if it is also to be applied to Dahomey and to outrages like those of the French Commune. It cannot in the long run be accepted by any great state which is both strong and civilized nor by any statesman with a serious purpose to better mankind. In point of public morality it is fundamentally as evil a declaration as has ever been put forth by an American President in treating of foreign affairs ; and there is to it the added touch of inefficiency.

Moreover, President Wilson's words, bad though they are, have not been borne out by his deeds. He has actively interfered in Mexico on behalf of some of those spillers of blood whose right to "spill" blood he exuberantly champions. He has not interfered to punish the bandits and murderers who have killed American men and outraged American women. He has not interfered to protect the honor and the interest of the United States. He has not interfered to protect the lives and the property of our citizens or of the citizens of any other country. But he has interfered to help put into power the very worst among the leaders of the various murderous and thieving groups and factions, and then to replace him with the next worst.

President Wilson refused to run the risk of shedding the blood of any American soldiers to protect American citizens and put a stop to anarchy and murder and prevent further blood-spilling or to try to bring peace to the distracted land of Mexico. He refused to run the risk of shedding the blood of any American soldier in order to prevent the killing of American soldiers and American private citizens on our own territory by Mexicans who shot at or toward them from the other side of the border line. The rape of women, the murder of men and the cruel treatment of little children left his tepid soul unstirred. Insult to the American flag, nameless infamies on American women, caused him not one single pulse of emotion. But he wantonly and without the smallest excuse and without the smallest benefit to this country shed the blood of several scores of American soldiers and sailors in order to help put one blood-stained bandit in the place of another blood-stained bandit. And he now, without any reason of morality or sound public policy, is helping a third blood-stained bandit against his former ally and protege, the second bandit.

Murder and torture; rape and robbery; the death of women by outrage and children by starvation; the shooting of men by the thousand in cold blood—Mr. Wilson takes note of these facts only to defend the right of vicious and disorderly Mexicans to "spill" as much as they please of the blood of their peaceful fellow-citizens and of law-abiding foreigners. But when the chance came for him to use the Army and Navy of the United States in favor of the worst offender among all the rival bandit chiefs, he eagerly clutched at it.

Senator Lodge, in his speech of January 6, 1915, discussed at length what President Wilson has done in this matter, and no successful attempt has been made or can be made to answer what he then said. His speech, together with the speech of Senator Fall and the speech of Senator Borah, should be circulated among all honest citizens who wish to know what the facts really are.

The country should clearly understand the awful misery that has been brought upon Mexico by President Wilson's policy. It is extraordinary that we do not realize that, thanks to our own selfishness and heedlessness, thanks to the dishonorable timidity of the Administration, the conditions of life in Mexico are worse at this moment than the conditions of life in the regions over which the contending armies in Europe have fought. In 1914 we sent Christmas ships abroad to the war-stricken countries of Europe. This was well; but why did we neglect Mexico, where our own responsibility is so heavy?

At that very time a pathetic appeal had been issued by a company of Mexicans near the international boundary line addressed "To the American People and their Exalted Authorities." It was a plea for work for the men and bread for the women and children. They asked for work, for justice, for bread. Conditions like those which in Europe have shocked the civilized world have existed here right against our own borders, for four years, unconsidered by us.

As the wife of one of our consuls-general has said: "Mexico is peopled with widows and orphans, and famine is in the land. One sees it daily, in emaciated forms, shrunken cheeks, tightly drawn skin and burning eyes. It is in the faces of women, old men and little children. Many have died on American soil during the past year, ostensibly from obscure disease, but actually from starvation, and there are hundreds of children who have never had sufficient food in their pitiful little lives. That is the heartbreaking tragedy in it all—the unsmiling little children who sit silently by the doors of the huts through the long hours of long days. The sound of laughter and of playing children has been stilled in Mexico. From these people comes a cry of bread for the starving. The United States has claimed the exclusive right to intervene in Mexican affairs. Will we demand the right and repudiate the obligation?"

This is the state of affairs to which Mexico has been brought by the practical application of Mr. Bryan's doctrine as to not caring for "American dollars" (it is American dollars that buy food for the starving, Mr. Bryan!) and of President Wilson's doctrine that we must not interfere or let any one else interfere to stop "spilling blood" in Mexico. President Wilson's position meets the enthusiastic approval of the bandits who spill the blood. It meets and it merits the enthusiastic support of the blood-smeared leaders to whom his inaction has given the chance to murder men and outrage women and to let little children starve.

But the laughter of little children has been stilled in Mexico. It has been stilled because President Wilson in his handling of the Mexican problem, as in his handling of every other branch of our foreign affairs, has placed this country in the position of shirking its plain duty, of seeking its own ignoble ease beyond everything else, and of declining to protect its own citizens or to fulfill its international obligations or to interfere for the weak and helpless, when rapine and murder stalk in insolent mastery over the land.

Our course as regards Mexico has been a terrible thing for Mexico. It has been a shameful thing for the United States. But if this policy is permanently continued, there will be yet further shame in store for the United States. Sooner or later the war in Europe will come to an end; and then the great armed nations, after a more or less brief interval, will certainly turn their attention to us and to Mexico. We cannot forbid interference with Mexico in the name of the Monroe Doctrine and yet fail to fulfill the obligation imposed on us by common humanity if we maintain that doctrine.

Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen, Italians, Frenchmen, have been wronged in Mexico, only less than our own citizens have been wronged— only less than decent and well-behaved Mexicans have been wronged—by the inhuman bandits to whom our Government has furnished arms and aid for the perpetration of their crimes. President Wilson in his messages has confusedly advocated, first that we stay unprepared and helpless in the face of military nations, and next that we go into a policy of half-way preparation; and in actual fact he has not made even the smallest advance towards preparedness. He also advocates that in Mexico we pursue the policy of letting the violent and disorderly elements of the population slowly destroy all the leading men, all the reputable people, and bring destruction by fire and steel, by disease and famine, on the humble men and women and little children, and also ©n the strangers within their gates.

The self-respecting and powerful nations of the world will not permanently permit such a course of action. We will not permanently be permitted to render ourselves impotent in the face of possible aggression and at the same time try to forbid other nations from righting wrongs which we are too weak, too timid or too shortsighted ourselves to right. In the end foreign nations will assuredly take issue with the Wilson-Bryan theory, which is that America can adopt as her permanent policy the shirking of national duty by this country, combined with a protest against any other country doing the duty which we have shirked. Either we shall have to abandon the Monroe Doctrine and let other nations restore order in Mexico, and then deprive us of any right to speak in behalf of any people of the Western Hemisphere, or else we must in good faith ourselves undertake the task and bring peace and order and prosperity to Mexico, as by our wise intervention it was brought to Cuba.

In the last five years the suffering in Mexico has in the aggregate far surpassed the suffering in Belgium during the last eighteen months. Dark deeds have been done in Belgium, but they have not been as dark as the fiendish atrocities perpetrated in Mexico. For these Mexican atrocities the United States Government must shoulder a very heavy load of responsibility, thanks chiefly to President Wilson's Administration.

The other day a friend of mine, a German diplomat, wrote to me taking exception to my condemnation of Germany because of its acts toward Belgium, and his letter ran partly as follows : "You do not refer to the present Mexican question, at which I am not astonished. Don't you believe it would have been rather queer to get a protest about Belgium from a government which had created the most extraordinary breach of international-law-impossibilities (please excuse this queer expression) by at first not recognizing a President of a neighboring country, with whom it seemed on good terms, then allowing arms to be sent to the revolutionaries in that country, not to recognize them as belligerents though; then to forbid this export of arms, then to allow it again; to occupy by force a port, to leave it again, and to wind up by leaving the country in question—which was supposed to benefit by all this, at least that was what we outsiders were told—with, I think, five Presidents fighting one another and ruining the country completely. I think the results for Mexico have been worse than our invasion of Belgium."

There was no adequate answer that I could make to my German friend; and in the wrongs done to Belgium by Germany, Germany has at least shown strength and fearlessness and efficiency, whereas the course of the Administration in regard to Mexico has branded our country with the brand of feebleness, timidity and vacillation. A weakling who fears to stand up manfully for the right may work as much mischief as any strong-armed wrongdoer. For two years President Wilson has decreed that Mexican malefactors shall be allowed at will to spill the blood of the innocent, and because of this attitude of President Wilson, American men have been wantonly ihurdered and American women outraged, while the famine-stricken women of Mexico mourn, and among their starving children there is no laughter.