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After Huerta, What? Will Mr. Wilson Please
Consider This Vital Problem?
The swiftly changing phases of the effort to check or avert
the inevitable war with Mexico by some vague and ill-defined
plan of ‘“‘mediation’’ enmesh the whole proposition in perplexity
and uncertainty.
Probably nothing will come of it. The plan is so illogical,
so utterly out of tune with the professed attitude of the Wilson
Administration toward Huerta, and so utterly incompatible with
the position that the Mexican dictator comsistently maintained,
that for it progress beyond the preliminary stages seems un
likely.
But suppose it did so progress, setting aside any question of
the motives of the A. B, C. governments in proposing mediation,
any discussion of the wisdom of the Wilson-Bryan government
in so precipitately accepting it, or any question of its ultimate
acceptance by Huerta, let us consider what must be its final
result. s -
According to the repeated declarations of President Wil
son, the one point upon which there is to be no argument, no
discussion, the part of the verdict determined upon before the
court is created, is expressed in the Administration’s watch
word: ‘‘Huerta must go!”’
Without such a predetermined verdict the United States will
not participate in the mediation proceedings.
BUT IN WHAT POSITION WILL THE UNITED STATES
AND MEXICO BE WHEN THE COMMISSION HAS
REACHED SUCH A CONCLUSION AND HUERTA HAS SUB
MITTED TO HIS OWN DEPOSITION?
In the thirteen months‘of the Wilson watchful waiting
Huerta has shown himself to be the nearest approach to a force
for law and order that Mexico possessed. Stubborn, autocratic,
violent, bloodthirsty as he is, he has yet done more to protect
foreigners—including Americans—in the territory he controlled
than have the brigand leaders warring on him with whom the
United States has been trafficking for his undoing.
Go back of the Tampico incident, and the withheld salute
which President Wilson sought to make our sole complaint
against Huerta, and you will find the record of insult to the
American flag, of violations of American women, and of the
murders of Americans of both sexes and all ages blacker and
President Wilson Plays for Tremen
~ dous Stakes in the Lives of
American Soldiers =~
, The New Orleans Item, stalwart among American and loyally Southern
newspapers, has this striking editorial hig
President Wilson plays with tremendous stakes in the lives of American
goldiers when he halts the forward movement from Vera Cruz to the City of
Mexico while Argentina, Brazil and Chile chat with Huerta on “mediation.”
We take it for granted that “mediation” is acceptead only to ascertain it
without further bloodshed, there can be gained: -
The elimination of Huerta; N
_ The restoration of peace and order in Mexico; 5
. The re-establishment of absolute respect for the American flag every
where IN Mexico, by Federals and Constitutionalists and Zapatistas all alike.
Any aim LESS than this MAKES AMERICA RIDICULOUS AND CON
TEMPTIBLE, X :
" Few believe that “mediation” can accomplish these ends. Even Presi
dent Wilson, even Secretary Bryan, avowediy are skeptical.
' 'And while we parley, Huerta destroys the railroad lines of advance from
Vera Cruz to the Qity of Mexico, fortifies the passes from the lowlands to
the high plateaus, stirs the anger of the Mexicans, MASSES HIS TROOPS
AND PLANS FOR WAR. "
* Perhaps Huerta will yield, consent to leave Mexico, consent before leav
ing to salute, consent to the establishment of a commission to plan out a
provisional government leading to a constitutional election; perhaps Car
ranza, Villa, Zapata and all the rest will agree—all as a result of the
CONVERSATION!
' And if this is done, THEN PRESIDENT WILSON WINS HIS
STAKES! The dead who have died will NOT have died in vain. The lives
of others, who would die if the advance to Mexico’s capital began this day,
will be SAVED!
If thig is done, then President Wilson’s judgment is better than the
judgment of the men who have studied Mexico all their lives, and who see
in Huerta's willingness to TALK a mere move for TIME wherein he plans
for battle, and strives to win ALL MEXICO to his side, determined always
to PLAY HIS DESPERATE GAME TO THE END!
Rut if the judgment of the President’s naval and soldlerly advisers and
fis War Department chiefs is right, and the parleys end at last with
Huerta's refusal to do more than FIRE TWENTY-ONE GUNS-—if that—
then indeed will President Wilson HAVE LOST HIS STAKES!
And the wager must be paid in trebled and quadrupled totals of the
wounded and the dead!
In 1846 and 1847 we talked and parleyed, waited and delayed, after the
first battles on the Texas frontier. As result, when at last Winfield Scott
began his forward movement from Vera Cruz, it took from March to Sep
tember of fierce fighting for him to win through to the Mexican capital.
Mexico was divided then. Mexico is divided now.
. We talked then—after the first victories, just as we are talking now.
We sought the aid of Santa Anna then, just as we traffic with Villa and
Carranza now,
And at the last we had to fight united Mexico, and the fruit of all the
delay was a multiplied death list of American sallors, regulars and volun
teers, stricken in the field with bullets or in camp with the disease of the
CS.
anch are the stakes for which President Wilson plays,
Such is the light cast on his wager Ig our own past experience with
the Mexicans. fetil
If he wins, he wins tremendously, el sl
i+ If he loses—he loses as no President has ever loat before, r ¥ v
THE :
WE EREYC7irZ-GEORGIAN
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more execrable in the territory controlled by Carranza and Villa
—now our diplomatic allies—than in that upon which Huerta en
forced at least a semblance of civilized order. But ‘‘Huerta
must go!”’ o
Suppose he goes. What then? The axiom ‘‘nature abkors
a vacuum,’’ is as true in politics as in. physics. Huerta’s place
will not remain vacant. ik
Who so ready to rush in to fill it as Villa and Carranza,
already made powerful by the countenance of the United States
Government and the ready supply of machine guns and rifles
made in our workshops? 2 : : '
That would be the obvious, the inevitable result of the elim
ination of Huerta by the method of mediation. It could only
be averted by the maintenance in power of some other Mexican
recommended by the mediating body, who would find the sup
port of American guns and men necessary to his continuance in
power. ’
There can be no possible third result. Either the elevation
to power of Carranza or Villa-—probably the latter—or a Presi
dent selected by forces wholly exterior to Mexico, and supported
by our army against the attacks of the present Constitutionalist
leaders. Y :
How do the American people like the choice? How would
either alternative leave us in better state than we are to-day?
Since it began its course of mishandling the Mexican situa
tion, the Wilson Administration has been consistent in only one
thing. It has never deviated a hair’s breadth from its habit of
taking the immediate step withouf consideration of the next one.
It refused recognition to Huerta and laid the foundation of
its tottering edifice of disast;rous diplomacy.
It raised the embargo on arms for the Constitutionalists and
thereby equipped armies which presently we shall have to fight.
It landed determinedly at Vera Cruz, and ever since has
hesitated, trembling before taking the obvious next step.
Now it precipitately agrees to a mediation proposed by not
wholly disinterested nations. We beg of the Administration to
set aside its policy of never looking ahead and consider the ques
tion, AFTER HUERTA, WHAT?
Where ‘Colonel’ Barleycorn Is
Losing Ground
By ELBERT HUBBARD
URING the last six months
D 1 have attended 47 ban
° quets. And I still survive.
1 state the number of banquets,
not to boast, but in a way of
confession..
Also, 1 mention the matier for
the further reason that I desire to
qualify as an authority in gas
tronomics.
Sixteen of the banquets were
dry. Eighteen were semi-arid—
that is, they started with a cock
tail and stopped there. The rest
were of the Qld-!nhioned Vkind.
beginning with cocktails, running
into wine, and often there was
beer and whisky that had been
contributed by charitable parties
for advertising and ethical pur
poses.
1 can well remember a time
when a banquet without “booze”
was connh;ered a barren ideality,
worse than Hamlet with the
Melancholy Dane omitted, or a
ham sandwich without th,e ham,
| give it now as my ordnion
that the most successful banquets
are those where no strong drink
of any kind is served.
. s
A BANQUET is merely an ex
cuse for getting men to:
gether for a certain purpose. This
purpose is good fellowship, fo
cused to further ideas, plans and
schemes d¢ivic and social in which
all should be interested. A ban
quet is supposed to bind men into
the common bond, to create a
oneness of feeling and sentiment
~—all this for some beneficent,
specific purpose,
A bangquet has its basis in good
fellowship, and good fellowship is
a thing to be both commended
and recommended, However, good
fellowship need not be confound
ed with conviviality.
The dining clubs which started
up in numbers, in cities all over
our country a few years ago,
have given way to Ad Clubs, the
Rotary Club, Boards of Trade,
Chambers of Commerce and va-
Week Ending
May 5, 1914.
rious associations that glvok
lunches and banquets from time
to time. E ; /
I have noticed that the Rota
rians especially cut . out strong
d;ink. At a Rotary Club, if you
have anything to say, you say it
to sober men. And it's worth
while, ' !
¢s : v
SPEECHMAKING is a collabor=-
ition between the listeners and
the speakers, just as music is a
collaboration between the per
former and the auditor,
The listeners at a banquet key
the discourse. And I have known
a few banquets that were actual
dy ruined by the actions of the
silly, simpering, swilling “souse.”
He vitiated the atmosphere, and
turned all discourse into discord.
There is nothing between busie
ness and “booze” that forms &
bond. The two are better sep
arated,
Therefore, it seems to me a
superfluity for any Board of
Trade or Chamber of Commerce
to ever allow Colonel Barleycorn
a place at their boards.
Business stands for human
betterment. “Booze” isn't so’ par
ticular.
All of which is presented with
malice toward none, and charity
for all.
Stars and Stripes
California attacks Pullman
Company for underpaying its por
ters, Why not keep on putting It
up to the pu:en.ger.a?
One could fabricate a few lines
of epic with “sniper” and “viper”
if one had any other rhymes that
were just as good to mix in.
. » *
Why should the suffragists
bombard poor King George with
a “votes-for-women vetition?” He
hasn't got any more vote than
they have,