The arrest of General Huerta on the Mexican border on a charge of
violating the neutrality laws of the United States by plotting another
Mexican revolution within our borders, adds new spice to the Mexican
situation. Perhaps one revolution more or less in Mexico wouldn’t make
much difference, but the United States is bound to protect its neutrality
and not permit the various factions of Mexican banditti to carry on their
operations or to enlist men on our soil. No actual or would-be Mexican
leader has as yet displayed sufficient patriotism to subordinate his
personal ambitions to the welfare of his country. These leaders are not
amenable to advice from Washington, and hence there does not appear to
be any way for the United States to enforce order and protect life and
property in Mexico short of intervention. However, intervention is not to
be thought of for the present. This is a very inopportune time for our
country to engage in a military adventure in Mexico. President Wilson, in
a speech last winter, asserted that the Mexican people had the same right
to cut each other’s throats as the people of Europe had. If that was true
then, it is equally true now. The stories of anarchy and starvation among
the Mexican people are no doubt greatly exaggerated. We are so informed
by a gentleman who has spent the last two years in and near Mexico. He
says that the soil of the country is so rich and the skies so kindly that
a very little labor suffices to raise ample food, and that conditions
in all the towns he visited were orderly and business going on as usual.
Most of the men make a business of fighting for some chief, while the
women and children do the work and keep the pot boiling. Almost all the
casualties are among the belligerents who have adopted fighting as an
industry. It was so in Europe during the formative years of the various
nations. Mexico’s political development is about that of the twelfth or
thirteenth century in Europe. We should wait patiently until some leader
arises strong enough to dominate the situation and enforce order, in the
mean time bringing to bear such moral influences as we can to hasten the
pacification of our sister republic. But we do not think that public
sentiment in the United States is ready to approve the shedding of red
American blood in a Mexican crusade to compel that people to adopt our
ideals.