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Editorial Page 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 LY== e b ,—‘% S );:"igsé,’,/‘\\v;('\,g%i < ’l’-x-b.._ 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,