Crimes 4gainst Mexico Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/crimesagainstmexOOIemkrich Crimes Against Mexico BY WILLIAM LEMKE, B.A., LL.B. FARGO, N. D. Published by GREAT WEST PRINTING CO. Minneapolis Copyright, 1915, BY WILLIAM LEMKE CONTENTS Page President Wilson and Mexico 5 Letter of Ambassador Wilson 19 Pancho Villa 24 Zapata 32 The President's Mexican Policy ZZ The President's Ally 37 Bryan — Promoter 44 Bryan's Foreign Policy 49 Villa's Tactical Blunder 50 The Mexican People 52 The Citizens of El Paso Protest 58 The Speech of Congressman Ainey 63 American Refugees 71 Cowardly Desertion of American Citizens 77 A Nation's Duty 85 We Appeal to the President 89 The President's Indianapolis Speech 100 Affairs in Mexico 106 Oil Again 116 John Lind 120 Government by Headline 129 Lind for Bloodshed and Subterfuge 134 Hopkins-Pierce Letters 137 President Huerta 144 Diaz's Resignation 148 Address Before Mexican Congress 150 William Jennings Bryan 152 \sf^>l ) T-Ha^C^UHHi^H PRESIDENT WILSON AND MEXICO. William Lemke When Woodrow Wilson came into office, the most important question confronting his administration was the Mexican situation, be- cause human life and morality were involved. The Indians of Mexico, instigated and financed by competing oil companies, and a few ambi- tious leaders, had gone on the war path and wrought ruin and desolation. Three hundred and seven Chinamen had been massacred in the streets of Torreon. President Diaz, the build- er of the nation, had incurred the displeasure of the American oil interests and had been compelled to resign by Madero, who was the servile tool of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company. The tragic ten days had occurred during which human blood flowed freer than water in the streets of Mexico City. And the then insane Madero, having failed to run the government by spiritualism and to cover up the raids of his friends and relatives upon the public treas- ury, had been arrested by request of a majority of his own Congress and cabinet officers, and later met the same fate that he himself had meted out to at least ten thousand non-com- 6 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO batants, including women and children. Amer- ican citizens and other foreigners had been and were subjected to every torture known in me- dieval times. This was the situation when Wilson became President. It did not take him by surprise. He came into office after Mexico had been upset for over two years. He had the advantage of the information that had been gathered, and of all the experience of the previous adminis- tration. How has he met the problem? For more than six months he insulted our intelli- gence by his silence — and when he was at last compelled to break his silence by the foreign powers, he calmly requested the American citi- zens in Mexico to run. Thus he informed the bandits of that country that our government had forsaken its citizens in their hour of need, and that it would give them no protection — hundreds sought safety by proclaiming them- selves citizens of other countries. To the honor of all the other nations may it be said that none of them followed this dishonorable and cow- ardly example. The President's policy toward Mexico has not only been wrong, but criminally wrong, in the sense that it has been responsible for the destruction of thousands of lives and the out- raging of thousands of women. When Wilson CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 7 became President he found a government in Mexico which was doing its utmost to restore order and protect the lives and property of all, and opposed to it he found the forces of an- archy and crime. This government had been declared the constitutional government of Mexico by its own Congress and Supreme Court. All of the great nations, among them Great Britain, Germany, France, Austria, Bel- gium, Denmark, Spain, Holland, Italy, Portu- gal, Russia, China and Japan, had recognized this government. President Wilson was ad- vised by our Ambassador and Consuls to ex- tend recognition, and could have had similar advice from all of the foreign Ministers and Consuls in Mexico. He was assured that if rec- ognition were given, the bloodshed in that un- happy country would speedily come to an end. The danger of withholding recognition was made plain to him — all the fearful conse- quences that followed were pointed out to him. One can hardly believe it possible that an honest man could have blundered here, and yet, in place of giving recognition, he defied the laws of nations and actually took the side of anarchy and crime against the very govern- ment that was endeavoring to uphold law and order. 8 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO "Huerta must go/' These were the words of President Wilson. No more cruel or inhu- man words ever fell from mortal lips — the head of a nation must go, and fifteen million people be turned over to anarchy, murder and shame. This fearful decree was imposed upon the in- habitants of Mexico for the simple reason that their country was rich in oil — crude petroleum, and because the head of that nation had refused an offer from the American oil kings of a loan of two hundred million dollars and the assur- ance of recognition from the Wilson adminis- tration in return for certain oil concessions. Huerta had the courage to ask, "What author- ity have you to represent the United States of America in Mexico?" "Huerta must go." This perhaps was the oil kings' reply through Presi- dent Wilson. For over two years the President has sup- pressed the truth in regard to the real situa- tion. He has even refused to submit to the United States Senate the information which the State Department has in regard to the crimes that have been committed by Villa and other murderous criminals, although the Sen- ate made a just and formal demand for this in- formation. Our Constitution gives to Congress alone the right to declare war, and yet the President refused to submit to them the facts CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 9 upon which they could base an intelligent de- cision. When he said, "It was not compatible with public interest," he stood convicted of a subterfuge. He stood convicted of violating the Constitution of the United States, which he took solemn oath to uphold. "Not compati- ble with public interest" — no, not compatible with President Wilson's political interests. He did not wish the American people to see his friend and ally, Villa, in his true colors, with the blood of Benton, Bach and hundreds of others dripping from his fingers. He did not wish the American people to see his friend and ally with millions of dollars' worth of stolen cattle and stolen cotton, brought into and dis- posed of in this country without a protest from him, although he had full knowledge that these cattle and this cotton had been stolen. And all this by the man who has been preaching to us that the best way to settle ail public questions was to throw open the blinds *and let in the light of publicity; and who threatened to point out, and justly so, with the finger of publicity, any millionaire who would even dare to suggest a panic, and thus annihi- late him forever with public opinion. The President discredited Ambassador Wil- son for doing his duty and telling the truth, the same as he reprimanded United States District 10 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO Attorney McNab for telling the truth in the California White Slave cases. He even caused the House Committee on Foreign Relations to withdraw its invitation to Ambassador Wilson to appear before it and give them information — he did not wish them to know the truth. Had he not, by innuendoes, slurs and half truths, led the public to believe that Huerta murdered Madero, when he was advised, and must have known, that it was not true? He did not care for the facts, but insisted upon having them made so as to suit his own political purpose. When he reprimanded Ambassador Wilson for telling the truth, he degraded and closed the lips of every American diplomat. They re- alized that what the President wanted was me- dieval diplomacy — diplomatic lies, and as many could not afford to lose their positions, they remained silent. The President surrounded himself with a group of confidential agents — diplomatic sleuths, that would have brought shame and dishonor to any nation. It was the first time in the history of our national existence that we sent scores of spies to pry into the affairs of a friendly nation, and had the audacity, or ig- norance, to openly and publicly designate them as such. Rumor has it that two American Con- suls, finding that Villa was willing to part with CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 11 some of his stolen goods, gave the President the information he wished, and thereupon be- came the confidential agents of this govern- ment, and for all practical purposes members of Villa's staff, a sort of international body- guard for this monster. The President and his Secretary of State not only refused to receive Major Gillette, the Rev. Butler and hundreds of other Americans who had lived in Mexico and knew conditions there, but actually insulted them. The shameful man- ner in which Americans, who, bleeding and in agony, appealed for help, have been treated be- cause they did not use language pleasing to the artistic ear of William Jennings Bryan, is a matter of Congressional Record. When Villa and his followers were hard pressed and had to take to the mountains, the President came to their assistance by dispatch- ing another confidential agent, John Lind, "A deserving Democrat looking for a job," to Mexico with those impossible proposals that threw the nations of the world into convul- sions of laughter. The President demanded that he be permitted to name the President of a sovereign nation — and that against the will of its own people. And when the world stood amazed at the audacity of this demand, he quietly assured the American people that he 12 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO had the approval of the European nations. This was not true. All that the European pow- ers did in the matter was to ask the Mexican government to give Mr. Lind an audience. They never dreamed that he was on such a silly mission. They smiled audibly when they learned the nature of these proposals, and the British Minister, Sir Lionel Carden, made some unkind remarks, which did not meet with the President's approval. It was then that the President began to talk about not sacrificing morality for expediency — forgetting that civi- lization would answer back that to assist mur- der, rape and robbery was neither morality nor expediency. It is hard to believe that these proposals were made in good faith. They were made to harass and cripple the Mexican gov- ernment at the very moment that its labors were about to be crowned with success. The American flag had been insulted at Tampico — no, the American flag had not been insulted. The President had learned from his confidential agent, Mr. Lind, that large ship- ments of arms and ammunition were about to land for the Mexican Government. He feared for the safety of Villa and his followers, and gave to Admiral Fletcher the order: "Seize the Custom House at Vera Cruz.'' Twenty^ two American marines sacrificed their lives — CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 13 two hundred and fifty Mexicans are no more, as a result of this inglorious war. The Pres- ident says this was not a war. No, it was in- ternational and political manslaughter. Why did he not submit the flag incident to arbitra- tion, as General Huerta suggested? It would have been the proper thing for him to do, since he and his Secretary of State have been preach- ing arbitration for years. There is but one an- swer and that is, that he knew that no inter- national board of arbitration would sustain his contention. After he got Huerta and destroyed the Mexican Government, the American sol- diers and marines were withdrawn from Vera Cruz just as ingloriously as they were landed there; and the Mexicans, who had been per- suaded by the United States Army and Navy officials to assist the Americans in the govern- ment of their city, were abandoned and left to the mercy of the various Rebel factions. Suffice it to say that the intellect of Mexico has been murdered and womanhood debauched. To the reader of the Congressional Record, it would seem that the President's relations with Villa have been so intimate that it was impossible for him to protect the just interests of our Government and its citizens. By rais- ing the embargo on arms, he permitted the Rebels to import thousands of firearms and 14 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO millions of rounds of ammunition with which they murdered American citizens and peaceful Mexicans. This he did, knowing that in all hu- man probability these same arms and ammuni- tion would be used to shoot down our own soldiers, when we are ultimately compelled to put a stop to the crimes against civilization committed by these brigands, and he did this against the advice of the commanders of our Army and Navy, against the advice of the men who will finally have to stand on the firing line, and receive in their bodies the impact of this same ammunition, fired by these same rifles, in the hands of the erstwhile allies and friends of our President. While the President has been very sensitive about the supposed insult to the flag, he has not shown quite so much sensitiveness about the American lives and property in Mexico, of which after all the flag is but the symbol. He has talked rather freely about the sacredness and glory of the American flag, but has for- gotten that when the flag of any nation fails to protect the lives and property of its citizens, it becomes a mere rag, not even worthy of the respect of the most degraded. The Demo- cratic platform of 1912 contains this plank: "The constitutional rights of American citi- zens should protect them on our borders and CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 15 go with them throughout the world, and every American citizen residing or having property in any foreign country is entitled to and must be given the full protection of the United States Government, both for himself and his property." It was upon this plank that thou- sands of Americans voted for Woodrow Wil- son. Has he kept the faith? No, he has nnot — he has even assisted the enemies of all gov- d,rnment, who liave committed unspeakable outrages upon American citizens, and has even permitted them to bring into this country and sell the very property that they had stolen from American citizens. If he could talk with the five hundred Americans that have been mur- dered by Villa and other outlaws — if he would talk to the twenty thousand Americans that have been deprived of their homes and all their property by the very men whom he armed, then he would perhaps realize why it is that under his administration the American flag is not revered. He would perhaps realize why so many Americans at home and abroad con- sider his foreign policy weak and dishonorable. It is true that President Wilson threatened the Mexican factions whenever they endan- gered any oil wells, and he also became very active when the International Harvester Com- pany's supply of sisal for the manufacture of 16 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO binder twine was in danger. This was proper, but why were the lives and property of the thirty thousand American citizens, who did not possess great wealth, entirely ignored? Is our government a plutocracy, and is it neces- sary to be a millionaire to get protection under the Wilson administration? Over one hundred American citizens and soldiers have been killed or injured on Amer- ican soil by the followers of Villa and other outlaws firing across the international boun- dary line. One cannot help but share their hu- miliation — compelled as they were to stand there to be shot down, and prohibited from re- turning the fire. Governor Colquitt of Texas, and Governor Hunt of Arizona, finally relieved them from this miserable and contemptible po- sition by threatening to send the State Rangers and State Militia to protect them, and thus through shame, compelled the President to send General Scott, against his will, to meet the murderer Villa on the international bridge at El Paso, and beg him to remove his cut- throats from the boundary. This procedure of compelling an honorable general of the United States Army to hang around the international bridge for three days and wait on the mur- derer. Villa, has disgusted many of the of^cers of our army. CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 17 It ill becomes President Wilson to talk of the glory and sacredness of our flag. Others have made it great — his administration has disgraced it in the eyes of the world, and the only comfort that we can get out of it, is in the anticipation that succeeding administra- tions will again place it on high, and that the dark blot put upon it by this administration will be forgotten in the achievements of future glory. If the public were given the facts, the mov- ing hand behind the scenes in the Mexican revolutions would be found to be an American oil company. If the public were given the facts, it would find that the same oil company has produced a false and fraudulent public opinion by subsidizing a few of the larger and more influential newspapers, which the smaller newspapers unconsciously follow. If the pub- lic were given the facts, the President, who by force of arms, overthrew the Mexican Govern- ment, and who is responsible for the presen' revolting conditions in Mexico, would hav* been shamed out of his position of aiding such monsters as Villa and Zapata, by the moral and just indignation of an enlightened public opinion. Wilson got Huerta, but was it right? Can Woodrow Wilson get any glory or self-satis- 18 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO faction out of the misery and suffering, death' and destruction that he has caused to millions in Mexico? When he thinks of the blood that has been spilled, of the widows and orphans, of outraged womanhood, of the starving mil- lions, and when he realizes the part he has played in this horrible tragedy, does he still rejoice as during the days of "watchful wait- ing," when he, vulture-like, watched the last feeble struggles of the Mexican Government on behalf of civilization; or has his mad mania of hatred of the man, Huerta, abated in the full realization of the awful fearfulness into which he plunged the people of Mexico? LETTER OF AMBASSADOR WILSON. In Congressional Record. Indianapolis, Ind., May 11, 1914. Hon. William Alden Smith, Washington, D. C. My Dear Senator: I have just been shown a copy of the Congressional Record of April 21, which contains a copy of the recommenda- tions made by me to the President and after- wards read to the Committee on Foreign Rela- tions of the Senate, with reference to the rec- ognition of the present provisional government of Mexico. I detect no error in the wording of the recommendations. They were care- fully considered at the time they were offered, and I think have been fully justified by events which have since occurred. In the comments, however, which you had occasion to make at the time of submitting the recommendations you fell into the very nat- ural error of assigning them chronologically to the month of March, 1913. I think it of some importance that it should be known that these recommendations were made to the President and afterwa'rds read to the Senate 20 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO Committee on Foreign Relations in the month of August, 1913, while I was in Washington under instructions from the Secretary of State and prior to the acceptance of my resignation. Inasmuch as some overzealous supporters of the President's policies toward Mexico have with unfortunate haste commented upon the recommendations of August as being the sole and only solution of the difficult situation pro- posed by me, I feel that I am justified in say- ing that the records of the Department of State show conclusively that in the early months of the present administration — either April or May, I think — I recommended the uncondi- tional recognition of the Huerta administra- tion. If this is denied, I shall know how to demonstrate the truth. I made the same rec- ommendations with reference to recognition to the Wilson administration that I had made to the Taft administration in February, and I may say here, without fear of contradiction, that the Taft administration recognized the legality of the installation of the Huerta gov- ernment and withheld formal recognition only because of the delay of the new Mexican ad- ministration in adjusting certain long pending differences. When I made the recommendations for un- conditional recognition of the Huerta admin- CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 21 istration in the early days of the present ad- ministration, my position was justified by every consideration of interest and humanity; the revolution against Madero had been gen- erally accepted throughout the country. For- eign governments were rapidly according recognition, and the present revolutionary movement was a cloud no larger than a man's hand on the horizon. Prompt action by our government, if taken then, would, in my judg- ment, have averted all the horrors, sacrifices, odiums, and dangers which followed. Four months later, when I made the recommenda- tions which you have placed upon the records of the Senate, the situation had entirely changed. Our policy toward this unfortunate country had become the subject of severe criti- cism in European chancelleries, had excited profound distrust in Latin America, had alien- ated the friendly sentiments of the Mexican government, and inspired the hopes and ral- lied the spirits of those in rebellion against the government. I was, therefore, obliged to consider three things in making the recommendations, which you have placed upon the Senate records, viz.: First : The best method of restoring our na- tional prestige. 22 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO Second : The best method of affording pro- tection to our nationals in Northern Mexico, without being forced to go to war. Third: The best method of meeting what I understood to be the views and of conforming to the announced policies of the present ad- ministration. To accomplish the restoration of our na- tional prestige I recommended the severe con- ditions to be imposed before according recog- nition; to protect our nationals in Northern Mexico I recommended an agreement with the Mexican government to the effect that in case of necessity we should be permitted to go as far south as the twenty-sixth parallel with its consent — below the twenty-sixth parallel there was no semblance of a revolution; to meet the views and to conform to the policies of the present administration, I made the recommen- dation for demanding guarantees for a consti- tutional election. At the time I made this recommendation, I knew that a constitutional election could not be held in Mexico, but I also believed it would be impossible to carry this fact home to the minds of those in charge of the foreign affairs of this nation. I hoped that some satisfactory process might be gone through which would result in the selection of a good man for President, who, without hav- CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 23 ing been elected by constitutional methods, might nevertheless govern in accordance with democratic principles and endeavor to lay foundations upon which an intelligent and in- structed suffrage might be built up. The recommendations which I made in the first instance I still believe should have been acted upon, and those which I had occasion to offer later, and which are the subject of this letter, I am sure every disinterested person must believe were conceived in a spirit of devo- tion to the interests of this government. Very sincerely yours, HENRY LANE WILSON. PANCHO VILLA. William Lemke ''Villa is known and has been known for years; known to every American in northern Mexico and on the border; known as an ordi- nary, common, ignorant, brutal murderer for hire." He was born about forty-eight years ago in the State of Durango. All but thirteen of those forty-eight years have been spent in the actual commission of crime — to murder, torture and mutilate, that is his profession. He has personally murdered more men and has tortured and mutilated more, than any other character in all history. At the age of fourteen he was imprisoned for cattle stealing; at fifteen he served a term for homicide. Later he organized a band of robbers with headquar- ters in the mountainous regions of Durango, and became the terror of all that district. From this time on his life is a repetition of crime. I shall mention just a few of his crimes in order to give the reader an idea of the char- acter of the "Beast'' that President Wilson and Secretary Bryan have assisted in overthrow- ing the Mexican government, and whom they have attempted to fasten upon the fifteen mil- lion people in Mexico. CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 25 "When the city of Juarez was taken by Ma- dero in May, 1911, Villa, while seated on a table, drew his revolver and shot and killed a defenseless old man without provocation. During the same month, at the town of Rosa- lia, he shot a Spaniard over the head of his wife, who was trying to defend him, and then kicked her in the face as she lay on the dead body of her husband." A little later Villa at the head of a band of desperados, dragged three hundred and seven defenseless Chinese — men, women and chil- dren — through the streets of Torreon. "Lari^ ats were tied to the ankles of some and then were tied to the horns of saddles with the horses headed in opposite directions. Then the horses were whipped into a gallop and the Chinamen torn limb from limb." Children were thrown into the air and caught on knives as they came down. This massacre has been described as the most horrible that has ever taken place on this continent. "When !the Orosco revolution broke out, Villa looted the city of Parral. He was arrest- ed, but managed to escape. A year or so later he captured Casas Grandes, which was defended by one hundred and twenty-five home guards. When they surrendered one hundred and fifteen were set up against a wall 26 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO and shot by Villa. Ninety women, including seventeen little girls, were outraged on this occasion." "Villa next took the town of San Andres. Here he murdered more than two hundred men, women and children. In order to econo- mize cartridges, he placed one behind the other up to five at a time. Very few were killed out- right. The bodies of the dead and wounded were then soaked in petroleum and thrown into bonfires. After this he slipped into Tor- reon and murdered over two hundred Span- iards, literally beating some to death." "Domingo Flores, a resident of El Paso, went across the river to Juarez on the 22nd of February,, 1914, to have a settlement with Villa. He had been smuggling arms for Villa in partnership with another man. The part- ner had left, taking with him three thousand five hundred out of the ten thousand dollars which had been entrusted to them with which to buy arms and ammunition. Flores went over to account for six thousand five hundred dollars, and to explain to Villa that the part- ner had left, taking with him three thousand five hundred. Villa put him in jail. The mother of Flores went over and attempted to secure the liberty of her son. She was told by Villa that if she would raise three thousand CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 27 five hundred dollars he would release him. The old lady returned to her home in El Paso, made every effort and finally succeeded in selling her little house and lot — everything in the world that she had — and raised three thou- sand three hundred dollars, lacking only two hundred of the correct amount. She went to Villa, who accepted the money, but refused to turn the boy loose until she had paid the other two hundred. His sister finally managed to secure the two hundred dollars and took it to Villa, who accepted the money and sent the girl into the jail to see her brother released. The brother was shot in her presence. She was outraged, and then told by Villa person- ally to get back into the United States and not to come to Mexico again.'' "A few weeks later. Villa entered the city of Chihuahua, rounded up the Spaniards, con- fiscated every dollar of their property, amounting to five million dollars, and then put them on a special train, went down to the train, counted them, and told them to get out of the country and never to return, or he would kill every one. When he found that on the train there were wives and children of some of the Spaniards, who had been born in Mexico, he took them off and would not let them go 28 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO with their husbands and fathers to the Amer- ican side where they might seek safety and have some means of support." William Benton, a British subject, owned a ranch in Mexico. Villa had looted it several times. When Villa captured Juarez, Mr. Ben- ton went to him and tried to get a settlement. He was stabbed to death — Villa personally murdered him without provocation. On account of the Monroe Doctrine, the English government requested our govern- ment to make an investigation. Villa an- swered that he had never seen Benton. Secre- tary Bryan accepted this statement as true. The English government produced evidence that Benton had been seen to enter Villa's house. Villa then admitted that he killed Benton, but claimed that Benton had first drawn a revolver on him, and that he had killed him in self-defense. This explanation was satisfactory to Secretary Bryan. Self-preser- vation is the first law of nature. But the English government was persistent and produced evidence showing that Benton was unarmed. Villa answered that while he had seen no revolver, yet Benton put his hand on his hip pocket as though reaching for one, and that he. Villa, overpowered him, had him arrested and court-martialed, and that he was CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 29 found guilty and executed by a firing squad. He stated further that Benton was allowed to die an honorable death, and that he had been buried with religious ceremony in the little churchyard at Juarez. This explana- tion was both satisfactory and pleasing to Sec- retary Bryan — the whole thing had been done so religiously. Still the English government was not satis- fied. It produced evidence showing that Ben- ton was not shot by a firing squad, but was murdered by Villa personally. They request- ed that the body of Benton be produced for examination, and then given to Mrs. Benton for burial. Villa objected, claiming that it was sacrilegious to disturb the dead. Secretary Bryan acquiesced, but the obdurate English government intimated that Villa, the murderer of hundreds, could have no religious scruples, and insisted that the body be produced. Then President Wilson and Secretary Bryan tried ''moral suasion" on Villa, and Villa demurely replied that Benton had not been buried in Juarez at all, but had been shipped for burial to Chihuahua, He then hurriedly departed for Chihuahua. This persistence of the Eng- lish government embarrassed him. But still the English government persisted, and our government tried some more "moral 30 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO suasion." Villa finally agreed that he would permit an international commission to exam- ine the body, but before he agreed to this he had made arrangements with Carranza to have him step in at the opportune moment and up- set the whole proceeding by declaring that if England wished to have any dealings with the constitutionalist^, she must first recognize them and deal with them directly, thus politely informing our government that this whole Benton affair was none of its business. Carranza then appointed a commission of his own. This commission, in accordance with instructions previously given it, reported that Benton was killed somewhere between Juarez and Chihuahua by a man named Ferro. This man was already under death sentence for hav- ing displeased Villa. He was executed — dead men tell no tales. "Moral suasion'' and the amateurish diplomacy of our administration was outgeneraled and outwitted by the ignor- ant, brutal murderer. Villa. At about the same time that Villa murdered Benton, he also murdered a citizen of the United States by the name of Bach. While the American press made a great deal, and justly so, of the murder of Benton, very little was said about Bach. Why should there be — he was just an American citizen, and like hun- CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 31 dreds of his countrymen, who sleep in lonely graves in Mexico, he was passed over in silence. "Villa now has in his hands Luis Terrazas, son of old General Terrazas, who is one of the few remaining men that made Mexico. Gen- eral Terrazas gained the first victory over the French, drove them out of the city of Chihua- hua and put Juarez into power. His son is an educated man — a man whose society one can- not help but enjoy. Villa demanded of him every dollar he had, and received it. He tor- tured him and made him disclose the hiding place of five hundred and ninety thousand dol- lars. He was promised his freedom, but was not released. Villa now demands of old Gen- eral Terrazas two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, not for the surrender of his son, but simply as an agreed price for his life at the present moment." I have endeavored to select a few of the hundreds of crimes committed by Villa in such a way as to give the reader an idea of the extent and character of these crimes. I have taken my facts from personal observa- tion and from the Congressional Record, and more especially from the speeches of Senator Fall of New Mexico, and I have not hesitated to use the Senator's own words wherever consistent with the rest of the article. 32 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO ZAPATA. Like some huge crawling, stinging thing He sallies from his lair, And piteous cries and dying sighs Disturb the desert air. With this brute chief the shrift is brief And blood is everywhere. He does not fight as patriots fight Or dream as patriots dream; His powerful band could aid his land, But that is not his scheme. His eyes grow bright, his heart grows light When he hears the tortured scream. His soldiers tremble and salute To do his last decree. For these wild brutes have met no brute More merciless than he. Pitting his might 'gainst law and right, Laughing at every plea. Zapata! All his hellish plans No mind but his may know; If his brute strength shall serve at length To banish every foe, Pity the weak that his lust will seek — And God help Mexico! William F. Kirk in New York "American." THE PRESIDENT'S MEXICAN POLICY. By Senator Wm. E. Borah. The President now says that we are to let Mexico alone. How unfortunate that that was not the policy from the beginning. I think if he had said in the beginning that we were to let Mexico alone, he would have been in an almost impregnable position. All that needed to have been added to that to make a perfect policy would have been that Mexico should respect the rights of American citizens and of foreigners living in that country. Let them settle their own form of government, let them elect whom they would, let them have a despotism or a republic, according as they lived up to the one or the other, and that we would recognize whatever form of government they established, always adding the proposi- tion that whether it was one form of govern- ment or another, the rights and the lives of American citizens should be protected there- under. But we did go to Mexico, Mr. President. What did we go for? What were we at Vera Cruz about? What were the results of the ex- 34 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO pedition? The first result was that we killed two hundred Mexicans; the second result was that we lost twenty-two of our own men. We were at war with Mexico. Had we killed one English subject or one German subject or one subject of France, there would have been no doubt about our being at war with that coun- try. The only reason it did not take on all "the pomp and circumstance of glorious war" was the fact that the country with which we were at war was unable to respond against the pow- erful enemy who had entered its borders. Not only did we intervene when we declared against Huerta, but we were at war when blood was shed upon the soil of Vera Cruz. That was the first result. The second result of our going there was the destruction of the only semblance of gov- ernment which they had in Mexico. The third thing which we did in connection with it is one which may have far-reaching consequences in the future, and that is, we notified foreign nations that they must keep hands off of Mexico, that they must not build up or give sustenance and support to Huerta, or to any form of government. The result of it was that we assumed the responsibility mor- ally, if not legally, for the injuries which flowed CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 35 from that time on to those foreign powers or to their nationals by reason of the acts or of the conduct of the warring factions of Mexico. Then we assumed further, Mr. President, at that time to reform the land laws of Mexico. So we did not let Mexico alone. What is the situation in Mexico today? Mr. President, the situation in Mexico today is in- describable. We have no conception of it. I doubt if it would be possible to conceive a proper measurement of the condition of af- fairs in Mexico unless we were there, but we know that it is as bad as it could possibly be in a civilized or semi-civilized community. We know that over two hundred and fifty of our own citizens have from time to time been mur- dered; we know that countless others have been injured in different ways and have no apparent remedy or redress. Now, sir, when a condition of affairs exists in Mexico such as the civilized world has sel- dom witnessed and Republicans rise to ex- press their views as to what shall be done, the answer which we get from the public rostrum of the country by the Chief Magistrate of the Nation is practically, in the language of Ba- rere, that the revolution in Mexico shall be permitted to float in upon seas of blood and 36 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO that the man who questions the course of revo- lution in Mexico is to be suspected before the American people! Mr. President, speaking for myself, I am de- sirous of peace with Mexico; I want no war; and I know we shall never take any part of the territory of that Republic; but above and beyond that, and more important to my mind, is the fact that we should at least protect our own citizenship, securing our women against ravishment and our men from murder at the hands of those ferocious men who prey upon our nationals wherever they find them in their territory. There are some things which are dearer to me than peace. I do know this, Mr. President, that no nation ever retains respect among the other nations of the earth, or long maintains the consideration of other powers, that does not protect its citizens and the honor of its women and prevent them from being ravished and -murdered even upon its very doorsteps. THE PRESIDENT'S ALLY. Condensed Speech of Senator Fall. Villa issues his own currency, and if you do not take it you are shot. You have to take it at the price he puts on it. You are not per- mitted to pay your laborers with American or Mexican gold. You must take your gold to Villa and you must buy from him certificates at a given price — thirty-five cents on the dol- lar. They are quoted on the market today at nine and a half cents, but you are not permitted to buy them from a broker. You are not al- lowed to start a new enterprise on the money of Mr. Villa unless you buy it from him. The result is that when it is once out in circulation, there is no chance for a new enterprise to start up, except by getting some more of it in cir- culation from Villa himself. Pancho Villa owns a packing house in Juarez. He seized it and took charge of it. Then issued a decree prohibiting the exporta- tion of cattle from Chihuahua. He has had some trouble because the stolen cattle were seized on this side and identified by their brands. So he took possession of this packing 38 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO house with an American representative of one of the great packing establishments of this country in partnership with him, and there they are killing stolen cattle, known to every man in the State of Chihuahua to be stolen, taken from Americans and Mexicans alike. They are killed and shipped into this country. The hides are packed so that there is no way of identifying them, and our government will not revise its laws so as to compel them to state what certain branded hides are in the bales of five hundred pounds, which are shipped over here, although the collector of the port of El Paso has made this request. These things are going on all the time. You have heard of the millions of dollars' worth of cotton belonging to the Spanish and the French citizens that were seized at Torreon by Villa. It is an open scandal in Mexico that certain parties claiming to represent this gov- ernment are said to have received two hun- dred thousand dollars out of the sale of this cotton. In the eyes of the people of Spain and France, and other countries, we are acting as an international fence in protecting these ban- dits and robbers who are stealing property in Mexico and shipping it over here with im- punity, and we are enforcing our laws so as to protect them, instead of assisting the own- CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 39 ers so that they may make demands for repay- ment if there ever is a government established in Mexico. If the President would enquire of the repre- sentative of the State Department, v^ho is al- ways with Villa in more ways than one, he would know that there never has been in the history of Mexico such bold-faced thievery and grafting as has been carried on by the pets of Mr. Villa, some of them foreigners, under the system of concessions. Never in the history of Mexico, nor the history of any civilized country has anything like it been known. The birds of prey are gathered along the border, and they have their representatives at the throne of Villa. The great struggle in Mexico is over the Tampico oil fields. Every move Villa makes in attempting to drive his foes out of his way in the north is toward Tampico. It is for the purpose of seizing and confiscating the oil wells in that district, which is the greatest oil district on this continent. Efforts have al- ready been made by agents of Villa in this country to finance him when he seizes those oil fields. Whose property is it? It makes no difference. One method or another of confis- cation is used. 40 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO When we read in the papers that a certain piece of property has been or will be confis- cated, we naturally think that means by a de- cree of some authorized or duly constituted body, followed up by the party whose property is taken having his day in court. What they understand in Mexico by a decree of confisca- tion is confiscation such as is perpetrated by the train robber upon the express messenger with a six-shooter at his head. No legal forms have ever been invoked or carried out or pro- ceeded under in any decree of confiscation in Mexico. In Mexico there were sisters of charity, wo- men engaged in undertaking to spread educa- tion among the poor people, women engaged in charitable work in the hospitals and sani- tariums, and there is not one of them left today to carry on the work, but hundreds of them have suffered the most horrible outrages at the hands of these so-called Constitutionalists. There is not one solely to blame, but all are equally guilty. There has just been driven out of Guadalajara in the last day or two one of the men who drove women along in front of him — kindly, gentle, charitable, educated wo- men. He drove them along, herding them for the use of his army when he evacuated Guad- alajara. I have said that every town was the CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 41 enemy's country. In going through the coun- try the poor, common, ordinary Mexicans, who had nothing to do with the revolution, who were not interested in it, who were friendly, and who met them in a friendly way when they came through, have been mal- treated and shot down without provocation or excuse by so-called "Constitutionalists,'* "Villistas," and others, their homes burned, their property seized, and their women out- raged. It makes no difference who they are, every piece of loot that can be obtained is con- sidered legitimate loot, and every town that is captured is the enemy's country for the pur- pose of loot and worse than loot. I have denounced Villa before as a bandit without conscience, as a bloody murderer for hire, and I have known of him personally for years. When Mr. Villa went into the City of Mexico, at the time Gutierrez went in as Presi- dent, he visited a hotel in that city known as thei Hotel Palaccio. The proprietor of the hotel is a French reservist who had joined his colors and who is now fighting for his country in France. Before leaving the City of Mexico this Frenchman made a schedule of his prop- erty and placed it in the hands of the French embassy. He left his wife, a young French woman, in charge of the hotel. I am not going 42 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO into all of the details, I do not want to arouse passion, but I do want the people to be in- formed. Suffice it to say that Villa, with a file of soldiers, dragged that French woman from her home, took her, screaming, down the street in his automobile, and kept her for four days — Villa himself, personally. That was no act of one of his irresponsible officers or vandals. I am not going to repeat rumor as to what hap- pened to her after that. These facts are veri- fied. This is the man whom the administra- tion has apparently, and undoubtedly sincerely, thought might be used to work out something good for Mexico. At the outside, 200,000 people have been in- terested in this revolution. There are fifteen million Mexican people appealing to the Chris- tian people of the United States and of the world. Religion itself is calling upon the civ- ilized nations of the earth to uphold that ban- ner which was carried among those poor In- dians three hundred and fifty years ago. If the State Department of this govern- ment would publish its reports, would publish statements as to why Huerta left Mexico, and a list of the outrages committed by Villa, the killing of men, women and children, the assas- sination of members of Congress, of members of the Senate, the assassination of everyone CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 43 who disagreed with him, names and lists giv- en by the then President, Gutierrez, if these lists could be published, and if the people of the United States could see the affidavits which have been made by the women of the religious orders in Mexico and the statements which there has been no attempt made to controvert, showing the absolute breaking down of civili- zation, the President of the United States would no longer remain in ignorance and in control of the sentiment of the people of the United States. BRYAN— PROMOTER. By John Hazen Hazzard The shamelessness of Bryan in exploiting Pancho Villa is without parallel in American history. Together they form an unholy alli- ance that cannot be justified in terms of Amer- ican honor. In promoting the fortunes of this bandit the Secretary of State has resorted to methods which are so brazen and unscrupu- lous that intelligent observers are aghast at his startling self-revelation. Methods that are wholly devoid of the American spirit of fair play and more like the shifty, conscienceless tactics we are wont to ascribe to other people. Bryan's fellow countrymen have looked on the use of his exalted office to advertise "The Com- moner'' as a stroke of business not exactly illegitimate. They have watched more with pity than censure his Chautauqua perform- ances for money. They have come to realize that this "man of the people" has an infinite capacity for accumulating wealth, which is certainly no crime, but rather an interesting commentary on his professions of self-sacrific- ing principles. But it is no exaggeration to sav that the people are dumb with amazement CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 45 to find this man of advertised noble ideals prostituting his high office in the service of a notorious gunman and cutthroat. To w^hat end? Has he really hypnotized himself into the belief that in some inscrutable way of Providence his disgraceful actions v^ill be of service to humanity? There have been men v^ho have burned 'Vitches" at the stake with good intentions. There are and always have been those who believe that the end justi- fies the means. Our notable penal institutions are full of them. There is no doubt that Bryan does not want to have the United States at war with any other country while he is in a position to use his influence against war. It has been pointed out that the Secretary has keen visions of the $40,000 Nobel peace prize. Even so, the fact remains that Bryan wants peace at any price. But what must one think of the warped nature of a man whose conscience will not let him fight his neighbor with whom he has a quarrel, but who sees nothing wrong in hiring a thug "to beat him up"? What must the nation think of a man who carries that warped soul into high office and injects it into an international misunderstand- ing involving the welfare of a hundred million people? Is he a sincere lover of peace or is he 46 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO simply a monumental hypocrite? When the full history of the Bryan-Villa alliance is writ- ten, it will scarcely be believed that such a thing could be in this enlightened age. Perhaps out of this Mexican welter and muddle may develop something of lasting good to Mexico. It may conceivably be that a United States' protectorate over the neighbor- ing republic, or United States' occupation and exploitation of that rich country, even without "the consent of the governed," will bring peace and prosperity to the Mexican people. The scroll of the future is yet to be read. What- ever the future may be, for good or ill, in Mex- ico, history will record that the methods of the administration in bringing Huerta "to terms" were unworthy of American traditions and particularly that the activities and intrigues of the Secretary of State were unworthy of any honorable man and a disgrace to our country. History will record that the Secretary of State used his office to promote and press- agent a self-confessed murderer and bandit in a friendly neighboring country as a weapon with which to overthrow the ruler of that country. Was that American? That in this work of promotion truth was suppressed or distorted and untruths were de- liberately concocted. CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 47 That widespread brigandage, robbery, loot and rape were fostered and the facts of mur- der and pillage metamorphosed into the pleas- ing fiction of "constitutionalism/' That the United States consuls in Mexico, simply commercial agents, were used by the Secretary of State as agents of information and propaganda for the Mexican rebels. Was that American fair play? That American lives and property w^ere de- stroyed as a result of the encouragement of Mexican disorder and that because responsi- bility rested on his bandit allies the Secretary of State belittled the loss or viewed it "with complacency/' Was that American? That the Secretary of State knew that Pancho Villa deliberately murdered the Eng- lishman, Benton; that he lied in detail about the killing; that he disposed of millions of dol- lars' worth of stolen cattle and cotton in this country, and, knowing all this and infinitely more of the man's crimes, he had a clerk in the State Department prepare a laudatory biog- raphy of the bandit. That he sent a telegram to a Chicago friend emphasizing the point that some of the Amer- ican refugees to protect whom Huerta was do- ing everything humanly possible "might be executed," when he had information that they were safe. Was that playing straight? 48 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO That he used the well-intentioned mediators of Argentina, Brazil and Chile as a catspaw to help Villa on his way to sack Mexico City. That through a State Department agent, Carothers, he advised, directed and instigated Villa in his bloody career. That he maintained intimate relations with the rebel junta in Washington and that when a Mexican lawyer, Bonales Sandoval, ap- proached Villa in the interests of Felix Diaz, the junta wired to Villa that "Washington would view with satisfaction the execution of Sandoval.'' That he consistently suppressed facts unfa- vorable to the pretentions of the rebels. Was that fair play? That as Secretary of State he was virtually an agent of a Mexican revolution, planned, fos- tered and financed in the United States, which has brought Mexico to the verge of ruin and cost thousands of lives. If such a man should get a peace prize under any circumstances it would be putting a pre- mium on underhanded war and hypocritical pretension. ^ ^ _ j BRYAN'S FOREIGN POLICY. The Spoil System Department of State, Washington, August 20, 1913. Hon. Walker W. Vick, Santo Domingo, D. R. My Dear Mr. Vick: Now that you have arrived and are acquainting yourself with the situation, can you let me know what positions you have at your disposal with which to re- ward deserving Democrats? Whenever you desire a suggestion from me in regard to a man for any place there, call on me. You have had enough experience in politics to know how valuable workers are when the campaign is on and how difficult it is to find suitable rewards for all the deserving. I do not know to what extent a knowledge of Span- ish is necessary for employees. Let me know what is required, together with the salary, and when appointments are likely to be made. Sullivan will be down before long and you and he together ought to be able to bring about such reforms as may be necessary there. You will find Sullivan a strong, courageous, reliable fellow. The more I have seen of him the bet- ter satisfied I am that he will fit into the place there and do what is necessary to be done. W. J. BRYAN. VILLA'S TACTICAL BLUNDER. The unspeakable Villa prides himself on be- ing the friend and ally of President Wilson and the instrument with which the latter hopes to overthrow Huerta. But Villa is a blunder- ing ruffian whose regard for human life is so small that he loses sight of his own interests. He is continually bringing embarrassment to President Wilson through his ignorance and native brutality. This most recent outrage laid at Villa's door is serious. Had William S. Benton been an American citizen his death would have been a mere incident — regrettable, of course, but without diplomatic significance. But Benton happened to be a subject of Great Britain and the customary "aggressive atti- tude" of Great Britain in "pressing for repara- tion where her subjects have been wronged" calls for something more than renewed assur- ance of "watchful waiting." * * * Villa kills with little or no provoca- tion, and impudently tells Americans that when he orders somebody to be shot it is "no- body's business" but his own. Yet Villa is the man upon whom President Wilson has pinned his hope. It appears that in all this terrible CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 51 Mexican lawlessness and slaughter the Wash- ington administration has but a single definite purpose — to oust Huerta. It is a stubborn and unreasonable obsession based on the fact that Huerta refused to abdicate when called upon to do so. From the day that Huerta defied President Wilson there has been but one as- pect of the case, so far as the general public in America could see, and that was the firm de- termination of President Wilson to force him out. If the murder of William S. Benton results in an awakening of our own government to a change of policy toward Mexico, it will have accomplished more than the sacrifice of scores of lives of Americans heretofore, in that re- public. We have assumed a kind of unofiicial protectorate over Mexico. We have, in effect, assured other nations that we will afford ade- quate protection for their citizens. As long as only Americans' suffered in Mexico foreign governments made no protests. But now that an Englishman has been killed, in the simple defense of his property against destruction by Villa's soldiers, the United States government is inclined to think that the incident warrants attention. — Kansas City "J^^^^^l-" THE MEXICAN PEOPLE. William Lemke • The question naturally suggests itself, how could such a murderer as Villa get a following sufficient to overthrow a government of fifteen million people? The answer is, that Villa did not overthrow the Mexican government. But Villa assisted and financed by American oil in- terests — elevated, romanced and paraded in the public press, and backed up by the Wilson administration, did overthrow it. Our Presi- dent allowed him arms and ammunition, but denied them to the Mexican government. He berated and financially crippled that govern- ment, and finally landed the marines at Vera Cruz in behalf of Villa's interests, and Villa's interests were the interests of certain Ameri- can oil kings. It must be remembered that Mexico's fifteen million population is less than ten per cent white. There are some seventy-eight different Indian tribes, with many different languages and customs. Of the fifteen million, forty per cent are pure Indian, and fifty per cent mix- tures of various degrees. I do not wish to do an injustice to the Mexi- can people. I have a higher regard for some CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 53 of her Indians than I have for our government officials, who assisted Villa. The Mexicans are not all of the Villa and Zapata type. After three years of turmoil, less than two hundred thousand out of fifteen million are in arms. The great majority of Mexicans are non-re- sistant. Outside of a few Indian tribes and individuals, the Mexicans are altogether too docile and submissive. Their patient suffering without resistance makes such monsters as Villa and Zapata possible. Our Indian lived in a wigwam — the Mexican Indian lives in a hut built of adobe, poles, or bamboo, thatched with palm leaves. He owns a few cattle, goats or sheep, some chickens and occasionally a pig or two, while a burro fur- nishes him with means of transportation. He cultivates a few acres of corn and beans and knows how to live within his means. I had seen him in rags, but before the land was cursed by Villa and Zapata, I had never seen him hungry. If we think of government in connection with the Mexican people, we must think of gov- ernment in connection with our own Indian. How have we governed him? In spite of our constitution and Declaration of Independence, we have governed him with the bayonet. We 54 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO have not given him the right of citizenship, nor the right of suffrage — we have killed him in- stead. President Wilson talks of self-govern- ment among the Mexican Indians, but has he given the Porto Ricans, the Filipinos or the Hawaiians the right of self-government — does he allov^ them to elect their own officials? No, he appoints "deserving Democrats" looking for a job. He has grown maudlin over the con- ditions of the Mexican Indian, but has rcT mained silent over the fact that, during the past two years, scores of our Indians starved to death on the Standing Rock Reservation of the Dakotas. The Waters-Pierce Oil Com- pany has not had occasion to press-romance these Indians — so they escaped the President's notice. The Rev. Aaron McGaffey Beede tried in vain to get the President's sympathetic ear. The Waters-Pierce Oil Company, in order to distract the attention of the American peo- ple from the real cause and source of the revo- lutions in Mexico, declared, through its subsi- dized press, that the Mexicans were fighting for land. They knew that the American peo- ple were ignorant of the real conditions in Mexico, and that their sympathies could be easily aroused. We are always ready to sym- pathize with the unfortunate in a foreign land, CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 55 but forget all about them at home. How about President Wilson's army of unemployed — do they all own land? But let us pass on lest we embarrass the President. He too, intimated that the Mexicans were fighting for land, and that they had been oppressed for generations. Yet the President knows that the Mexicans that are in arms are not the tillers of the soil — he knows that Villa and Zapata never cultivat- ed anything but crime. He knows that these same leaders and their followers have robbed the sons of toil, ravished their women and car- ried away their daughters — that they are not fighting for land, but for loot and lust. The President has this information on file, in the State Department. There is evidence on file in the State Depart- ment showing that the Waters-Pierce Oil Company has been the instigator of the revolu- tions in Mexico. Letters to the same eflfect, purporting to be photographic copies, have ap- peared in the New York Herald and other papers. The names of President Wilson and Secretary Bryan appear in these letters, and Mr. Lind, the President's confidential agent, is represented in these letters as advising the rebels how to get around the embargo by sub- 56 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO terfuge during the mediation proceedings, and as assuring them that this subterfuge would have the President's approval. While there has been a struggle between an American and an English Oil Company for the possession of the Mexican oil fields, there has not been a struggle for land. The Mexican can buy or lease land at such a low figure and on such easy terms that it would be foolish for him to fight for it. Many of the thousands of Americans, that our government has helped to rob, located in Mexico because land is cheap- er and more productive there than in our own country. There have been abuses in the Mexican land system, but has our own system been perfect? The same conditions exist today in Porto Rico, in the Philippine and Hawaiian Islands as do in Mexico. The great majority of people in these islands own no land — they are poor and ragged. They are paid about twenty-five cents a day for their labor. These islands are part of the United States. Charity begins at home. What has the President done for these people? Again, a few individuals own all of the mines, railroads and oil fields in the United States. These are all sources of production as well as land. Why does the President not attempt to give these to the poor people? CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 57 There is room for reform — there has been graft in Mexico, but all the graft in the last thirty-five years in Mexico does not equal that of one or two individuals in New York or Chicago. Is Secretary Bryan's search for jobs for "deserving Democrats" not in itself politi- cal corruption and graft — is it not a bartering of public offices to political henchmen? Is the integrity of the nation secure under such a sys- tem? With this as an example, and our own President writing personal letters endorsing Roger Sullivan of Chicago and others for the United States Senate, just because they be- longed to his party, we certainly were in no po- sition to use "moral suasion" on Mexico. There have been wrongs in Mexico — the la- borer has not always received full justice, but before our President destroyed the Mexican government, it was impossible to find outrages equal to those perpetrated in the mining re- gions of Colorado, West Virginia and Michi- gan. What did our President do in these cases? He first consulted with John D. Rocke- feller and his associates, and then sent the United States troops to the Colorado mines. It would seem that he should have been the last person to throw the stone, and yet he was clamoring loudest to throw the first. THE CITIZENS OF EL PASO PROTEST. El Paso, Texas, Feb. 20th, 1914. Senator A. B. Fall, Washington, D. C. At an indignation meeting here tonight, at- tended by two thousand people, and hundreds unable to get into the buildings, a preamble and resolution was unanimously and enthus- iastically adopted, copy of which has been wired to the President and sent out through the Associated Press to all the world. Feel- ing very bitter over the brutal murder of Ben- ton. * * * Resolutions Adopted Whereas, Mr. William S. Benton, a highly respected and honored citizen of the State of Chihuahua, and subject of Great Britain, was brutally murdered and assassinated at Juarez, Mexico, by Francisco Villa, we, the citizens of El Paso, Texas, and refugees from Mexico, at an indigation meeting held in El Paso, Febru- ary 20th, 1914, wishing to protest most em- phatically against the cruel and violent treat- ment which has been accorded foreigners dur- ing the last three years of revolution in that CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 59 country, beg to submit to the world and the American people, the following brief state- ment of facts: The cold-blooded and heartless assassination of William S. Benton, without any cause what- ever other than the fact that he went to Juarez to protest against the confiscation of his prop- erty, the Los Remedios ranch in northern Mex- ico, which has been repeatedly looted, is but another crime to be added to the hundreds that have already been committed against all for- eigners living in Mexico, who have not been driven from their homes, their property de- stroyed; in many cases women have been out- raged and foreigners murdered in cold blood, and for no other reason than on account of their nationality. We believe that the State Department at Washington has persistently suppressed facts concerning the true conditions in Mexico, and endeavored through inspired newspaper arti- cles and by other means to mislead the Ameri- can people, and form public opinion for polit- ical purposes in support of a policy that is ruin- ous to all foreign interests in Mexico and the Mexican people themselves. In support of the statement we would call attention to a recent article in the New York World which purported to be a semi-official 60 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO interview coming from the Secretary of State's office, and which stated that while a great many Americans had lost their lives in Mexico, not one had been murdered solely on account of his nationality; this statement we know to be absolutely false, and we believe there are re- ports on file in the State Department from their own consuls to the contrary. We recall in the last few months such cases as the assas- sination of Mr. Burton, at Santa Rosalia, Mr. Hayes and Mr. Thomas, at Madera, and Mr. Brooks in northern Chihuahua, and in every one of these cases they were brutally murdered for no other reason than that they were Amer- ican citizens. Some months ago the State Department of- ficially declared in one of its messages to Mex- ico that it would hold the Mexican leaders per- Stonally responsible for outrages committed against the American citizens. At the present moment our government is harboring Gen. Ynez Salazar, who has an unbroken record ever since he took the field in Mexico of outrages committed against our citizens. There are many citizens of this city who were cruelly and brutally treated by this man, many who have been held for ransom and at least one, Mr. Fountain, who was shot by his order, and thus far he has been immune from all punishment by our government. CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 61 At the present moment Maximo Castillo, who for many months has been at the head of an outlaw band in northern Mexico, holding our citizens for ransom and perpetrating all kinds of outrages, whose band recently burned alive between fifty and sixty passengers in the Cumbre tunnel on the Northwestern railroad, is being given an asylum and protection by our government. We submit these facts as evidence that our government is, through a weak and vacillating policy, encouraging these lawless leaders to commit all kinds of outrages against foreign- ers, and doing a great injustice to our own people, resulting in a loss of hundreds of mil- lions of dollars of foreign capital, the murder of many of our citizens, the raping of American women, and ruination of Mexico itself. The career of Francisco Villa, a man who has been an outlaw and a murderer for many years, and who is now wielding an arbitrary and despotic reign of terror in Northern Mex- ico, is more cruel and barbarous in his methods than any tyrant in the world's history. It is a fact that he has treated with contempt the rep- resentatives of nations, and that he does not hesitate to put a man to death for the slightest cause and for in any way incurring his displeas- ure. We believe it a disgrace to our govern- 62 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO ment and the American people to tolerate such a man, much less to give him moral support; Therefore, be it Resolved, that this message be sent to the President of the United States, the British Am- bassador at Washington, to our United States Senators, and those of New Mexico, with the request that it be read into the Congressional Record, and we apply to them and to all our representatives in both branches of Congress to adopt a resolution to compel the State De- partment to transmit to Congress its records pertaining to the outrages committed against Americans and foreigners in Mexico, and to take such action as will give our people the protection guaranteed under their constitu- tional rights and maintain the honor and pres- tige of our country in the eyes of the world. We apply to you to make known the facts to the American people and to see that our citi- zens who are living in Mexico and have in- vested their money there in good faith are given the protection justly due them. GEORGE CURRY, Chairman, Ex-Governor of New Mexico. SPEECH BY CONGRESSMAN AINEY. Delivered in the House This resolution was presented because of in- formation coming from Mexico disclosing, if true, a condition there existing involving the rights and safety of American citizens so hor- rible and unspeakable in detail as to shock the world. The walls of civilized warfare were broken down and neither the lives nor sex of noncombatants were spared by the ignorant, brutal and lustful looters, constituting the misnamed constitutionalist army of Gen. Villa. It seeped through to the public's ear that outrage after outrage upon these American citizens had been reported by our consular representatives in Mexico to the State Depart- ment at Washington; there, after feeble and ineffective protests, to be pigeonholed and to gather dust while the administration watched and waited. The President, exerting the pressure of his high position, has asked the Congress of the United States to surrender its right of inde- pendent judgment; to reverse the policy of a great Nation already worked into law; to re- pudiate the platform declaration of his own 64 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO and other political parties, and to do so in the face of his own strongly stated pre-election utterance. He asks the members of this Congress to reverse themselves without a fact being divulged or a reason presented for such a re- markable request other than the vague and disquieting suggestion of international com- plications of grave importance and nearer con- sequence. So grave and important and of nearer consequence are these international matters that the membership of this House must no longer think or judge for themselves, but are called lipon to abandon principles and position heretofore taken and advocated, be- cause an extreme condition has arisen in inter- national affairs requiring this surrender of brain and heart and mind and plan. The tolls speech of the President created great anxiety in the hearts of the people of this country. It said too much or too little. It led one irresistibly to the conclusion that the Mexican policy of the President has not borne the full fruitage he expects for it, but that complications have arisen possibly involving Mexico's relations with Germany and Japan requiring us to have the moral support of Eng- land, in payment for which the American peo- CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 65 pie are asked to repeal the toll provision exempting American ships engaged in coast- wise trade. Whatever may be the Administration's rea- sons, they should not be hidden in a corner. This Nation can not support an unknown as against a known policy. When the officially ascertained facts are withheld from them, the public will be forced to form their conclusions from unofficial sources. Starting with a false premise which has led him to run counter to approved diplomatic precedents in refusing to recognize the de facto government of Gen. Huerta and in mak- ing demands so drastic in character and con- trary to the announced and long standing policy of noninterference of this Government as to be in themselves under the law of nations acts of war, the President has found himself unsupported by a single nation other than the negative support which may be implied by the obedience of three South American republics to the request of the United States to withhold for the present their recognition of Gen. Huerta. * * * If the gentleman refers to the papers of to- day, the dispatches which were no doubt in- spired by those supporting Gen. Villa, and in- 66 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO fluenced largely from the Hibbs Building in Washington, I frankly say I do not give cre- dence to all such statements. I believe even today, handicapped as he has been by reason of the violation of the principles of neutrality and recognition which have heretofore led this country to act. Gen. Huerta is better qualified to bring peace in Mexico than any other Mex- ican in sight. * * * The gentleman misunderstood me if he thought I said they were written in the Hibbs Building. I suggested to the gentleman that they were undoubtedly inspired from the Hibbs Building. If the gentleman will look at the papers he will find they are not Associated Press dispatches. Giving all credence to the reporter, the reporter has to get his informa- tion from inspired sources in Mexico, from the interests supporting Villa; and I would like to suggest to the gentleman that the purpose of my resolution, which the Foreign Affairs Com- mittee has not seen fit to report favorably, un- der a suggestion which, I assume, comes from the administration that it be not so reported, has deprived us, and the gentleman as well as myself, of the opportunity of knowing the de- tails of conditions in Mexico as the representa- tives of the American people in this Congress are entitled to know them. * * * CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 67 Villa neither reads nor writes, except as in jail he learned to write his first name, "Francis- co." To those who know him as a vulgar, ig- norant, and brutal specimen of humanity the high-sounding phrases contained in dispatches purporting to repeat his words carry their own refutation. An effort to depict him as a hero, driven to the hills by great wrongs inflicted upon him, has failed in the light of truth. The glory with which an inspired press sought to clothe him has been stripped away by the Benton and other gory incidents of his career, and he stands before the world as a hideous monster, gloating over the bodies of his helpless and quivering victims ; a man who kills for the love of killing, whose armored heart appeals for sympathy never reach; a man who has no pa- triotic sentiments, who has stood for lawless- ness rather than for order; a man whose love of war is not inspired by love of liberty nor love of country, but longing for loot. Every general of the constitutionalist arrny, with the possible technical and nominal exception of Villa, was in pillaging rebellion against Mad- ero. * * * Villa belongs to the hills. Peace has no charms for him. Against a strong and reso- lute force he would not tarry a moment, for he 68 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO is as cowardly as he is brutal, and he has the weakness and fear of a blustering bully. The success of Villa would turn Mexico over to a reign of terror. * * * At Durango, in spite of the protest of the American consul, the city was given over by the constitutionalist general to the unre- strained license of his soldiers for 24 hours be- cause it was said to be the only way of paying them. Little girls scarcely 10 years of age and women did not escape and now hang their heads in awful shame. American women were gathered in MacDonald's Institute, where their husbands barricaded the building and fought to preserve them from the rapacity of the rebel soldiers. Specific instances, the details too revolting to be repeated, are, I am informed, contained in the consular reports in the archives of the State Department, revealing conditions which affect the rights of American citizens, their wives, children, and property. The cry of suffering coming up from Mexico uttered by American citizens, whose lives have been sacrificed, whose wives and daugh- ters have been ravished, whose property has been confiscated, has not reached the sympa- thetic and responsive ear of the Chief Execu- tive 'K 'K H^ CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 69 How to turn vast acres into small farms and inspire the populace with a desire to own and till them is a problem which has confronted Mexico for a hundred years. The people must acquire the farming desire before any project will be successful. To get a piece of land for the purpose of selling it and not to cultivate it is the mental height to which the masses have thus far attained.* * * The position adopted by the executive that Americans should leave Mexico upon his warning, or failing to abandon their homes and property no particular duty or responsibility was owing them by the Government, is abhorrent to one of patriotic senses. The rights of American citizens are as deep- seated as the rock upon which their claim for liberty rests. It is as fixed as our national heritage. It follows them in every country and every clime. Neither the despotic act of foreign government nor the edict of their own chief executive can legally or morally despoil them of it. The direction of the President to Americans to abandon their all and leave Mexico was as unwarranted as it was un- American. It worked a confiscation of their property as effectually as any act of brigan- dage perpetrated by the unrestrained marau- ders of Mexico. * * * 70 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO The danger of war comes not from those who seek to know the truth but from those who would conceal it. * * * A nation cannot long endure except it be supported by the patriotism of its people. Patriotism cannot be engendered except as it is inspired by a sense of protecting strength and support extended its citizens. The pride of American citizenship has been that the American flag embraced in its protecting folds the humblest citizen in every land he chanced to be. When a nation is too busy with aca- demic questions or too indifferent to hear and heed the supplication of her helpless citizens it will have reached the first milestone of dis- integration in its downward career, and when the flag of her citizenship fails to afford pro- tection then will come loss of faith in and respect for her institutions; and without faith and respect, love of country soon ceases and the end is near. * * * AMERICAN REFUGEES. William Lemke After our President formed his alliance with Villa, he ordered all the Americans to aban- don their property and leave Mexico. We do not know whether this was at the request of Villa or the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, but we do know that it was just what the Waters- Pierce Oil Company and the President's bandit ally wanted. It lessened the necessity of mur- dering Americans, and thus tended to avoid complications with the American people. There was no danger of a misunderstanding with the President, because in his dealings with Mexico, he did not consider the lives and prop- erty of American citizens. The President's proclamation just as effectually confiscated the property of the American citizens in Mexico as the decree of any court could have. It gave millions of dollars worth of property to the rebels with which to fight the battles of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, and provided them with the means to enrich a few million- aire firearms and ammunition companies, when later the President raised the embargo. The President and his Secretary did not hesitate to add insult to injury by compelling 72 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO these American citizens, made refugees and the victims of bandits by his proclamation, to take steerage passage, and in many cases crowded men, women and children under a blazing tropical sun, into filthy, unhealthy cat- tle boats. Hundreds of these innocent victims have not, and never will fully regain their health as a result of this ordeal. There is not one word in the Congressional Record author- izing or suggesting to the President to treat American citizens in this dishonorable and brutal manner. Not satisfied with this, the President went further and even compelled these innocent victims of his proclamation to sign promissory notes for the amount of the steerage passage. These notes bore eight per cent interest after maturity and were made payable to the order of William Jennings Bryan. Benjamin C. Martin, of Garfield, New Mex- ico, was one of these unfortunate American ref- ugees. He was robbed of everything, even part of his clothing, and then bound hand and foot by the rebels — the tools of the Waters- Pierce Oil Company — and left to die. He re- mained in this condition for twelve hours, when a Mexican woman discovered him, cut the ropes and liberated him. He walked eighty- seven miles to the nearest railroad that had CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 73 not been destroyed. He then notified the Mex- ican government of what had happened to him, and President Huerta furnished him with free transportation and food to Mexico City. From there he made his way to Vera Cruz, where he applied to the American Consul for transportation to Galveston. Steerage pass- age was granted after he had been closely questioned as to his financial condition and after he had signed the remarkable docu- ment, which is in the form of a promissory note, a correct translation of which is given below. The translation was made from a photographic copy of the original, by Prof. H. R. Brush, Professor of Spanish at the Uni- versity of North Dakota. Note for Twenty-Six Dollars American Gold I owe and will pay, on the 15th day of May, 1914, to William J. Bryan, Secretary of State of the United States of North America, or to his order, the sum of twenty-six dollars Amer- ican money, for value received in cash to my complete satisfaction in quality of a mercantile loan to be devoted integrally to acts of com- merce, and as this sum is actually in my power, I renounce the right of opposing the acception of money not handed over. 74 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO I will make the payment in American money current of the weight and standard marked by the monetary law in force or in bank notes ex- cluding any other species of money or paper, even though its acceptance be compulsory by law, leaving to Mr. William J. Bryan the priv- ilege of selecting the sort of money in which payment is to be made in case the weight of actual standard of that agreed upon should vary. If the sum mentioned in this document should not be punctually discharged at matu- rity, I will after that date pay on it the interest accruing from the date of maturity until com* pletely discharged, at the rate of eight per cent annually, making hereby formal renunciation of the prescription and of section 1 of article 1044 of the statute of commerce which estab- lishes it and agreeing to reimburse Mr. Bryan for all the cost which he may incur, both judi- cial and extrajudicial, in order to recover the face of this note and of the proceeds accruing, even though they should be for more than five years. It is expressly agreed that the credit pro- ceeding from this note is by its nature mercan- tile, and shall not in any case or for any reason be subject to any discharges or delays, to which effect I renounce the provisions of arti- CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 75 cles 988, 989, 991 and 994 of the statute of com- merce which relates to business dealings be- tween bankrupts and their creditors and to the effect of said agreements. (Signed) Benjamin C. Martin. Vera Cruz, Ver., March 19, 1914. This is not dollar diplomacy — it is eight per cent diplomacy. When President Huerta of Mexico learned that our government supplied only steerage passage for its citizens, he or- dered that funds be given to the refugees to en- able them to travel first-class. He said: "We desire that the Americans who leave Mexico carry with them the remembrance of the com- fort and safety which have characterized their stay in this country, rather than the possible penury and poverty of the place whither they are going.'' And so the Mexican Government, in several hundred cases, paid the difference between steerage and first class passage to American refugees. Compare this generosity of President Huerta with the niggardly per- formance of President Wilson and Secretary Bryan. Shylock never demanded his pound of flesh in a more shameful document than did the author of the "New Freedom'' and the author of the "Prince of Peace" in the above note. The words, "I renounce the right of opposing 76 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO the acception of money not handed over," was undoubtedly put into this note because the ad- ministration knew that twenty-six dollars for steerage passage from Vera Cruz to Galveston was extortionate. Before the railroads in Mex- ico were destroyed the rate for first class pass- age from Minneapolis to Mexico City and re- turn was fifty-six dollars. The distance from Minneapolis to Mexico City and return via El Paso is five thousand two hundred and ninety-four miles. The distance from Vera Cruz to Galveston is but six hundred and eighty miles, and yet our government per- mitted the steamship companies to charge twenty-six dollars for steerage passage one way, and forty dollars for first class passage one way, to the American refugees, whom the President had ordered to leave Mexico. Our President and his Secretary paid these extor- tionate rates with government money without a protest. COWARDLY DESERTION OF AMERI- CAN CITIZENS. Speech by Congressman Mondell. The gentleman from Texas wants to follow the administration. I wonder if he desires to be understood as following the administration in what occurred at Tampico. Tampico was attacked by the rebels, and several hundred Americans were gathered in a hotel and felt reasonably safe because in the' neighboring river, but a short distance away, lay three American gunboats, with their guns shotted, their decks lined with sand bags, and the marines with rapid firing guns alert behind them. Our forces had just taken Vera Cruz, and the news had been flashed to Tampico that the invader had landed; that he was shoot- ing Mexicans. Meanwhile the rebel forces were thundering at the gates, and so the cry went round, "They have invaded our land at Vera Cruz and shot down our people; they have furnished the guns with which the rebels are pounding at our doors," and out of this grew an anti-American demonstration. The mobs gathered around the hotel where these Americans — men, women and little children — 78 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO were gathered, depending upon the marines and gunboats for protection. And then what happened? While the mobs howled and bat- tered at the doors, while every horrid and vile threat that those savage and angry Mexicans could conjure up were being shouted at these imprisoned refugees and strong men stormed in their impotent wrath, and women — Ameri- can wolnen — and children cowed in terror, those American gunboats, on command of the Secretary of the Navy, three times repeated over the protest of the American admiral, weighed anchor and steamed out to sea, leav- ing two thousand Americans — men, women and children — defenseless in the face of that howling mob, inflamed to madness because we were attacking their countrymen at Vera Cruz, and had allowed the shipment of arms to the rebels who were attacking them and threaten- ing their lives and property. Fortunately, there was a German gunboat and a German commander at hand, and when our own brave men had been ordered away the German com- mander ordered the mob dispersed, which was done. This German commander then sent his men to escort the American men, women and children to his boat. Fortunately, there was an English ship and an English officer at hand CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 79 to assist in the rescue of our people. * * * When our citizens, two thousand of them, were rescued by German and English officers and sailors and taken out to sea in German and English boats they found seventeen American dreadnaughts lying at anchor — two thousand Americans, stalwart men, fair women, little children, in danger of death, torture, and dis- honor — seventeen of the finest ships afloat, ten miles away, three gunboats, manned and shot- ted, weighing anchor and sailing out to sea, leaving them to their fate. Does the gentle- man from Texas follow the administration in that incident? * * * Above all things I am thankful, and from the information I have I am satisfied, that no man wearing the American uniform was responsible for that desertion. Three different times, so I am told, the officer in command protested the orders sent him, and only obeyed when those orders were made final and imperative from Washington. How he must have felt, how the brave men under him must have felt, as they sailed away can be readily imagined. This Tampico incident is so astounding, so utterly contrary to all American traditions, that some of our people have found it difficult to credit it, much less to understand it. But when one 80 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO views it in the light of the policy which the administration has steadily pursued toward the Mexican situation, it is simple enough. The one end and aim and only purpose of the administration's policy has evidently been the downfall and elimination of Huerta. The taking of Vera Cruz had so inflamed the Mexi- can mind, military and civilian, constitution- alist and federal, that there was a strong prob- ability that the contending forces at Tampico might join against the common enemy; that the rebels might cease their assault upon Tam- pico and thereby disarrange the administra- tion's policy of playing one force against the other as a means of the elimination of Huerta. Forgotten or ignored was the duty of protect- ing the lives and the honor of our people in the consuming desire to carry out the administra- tion plan. And so the flags were dipped, the anchors weighed, and while the mobs howled, hurled their insults and battered at the doors, our people were abandoned to their fate. If there is any other explanation than this of the Tampico incident, let some one give it. If this was not a cold-blooded abandonment in carry- ing out the policy of the administration to bring about the downfall of the Federal Gov- CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 81 ernment in Mexico without regard to loss of life or property, I should like to know what excuse there was for it. I shall insert in the record as part of my re- marks a statement handed to me by John I. Newell, an honest American citizen, who was at Tampico at the time the incident I have re- ferred to occurred. The statement is as fol- lows: ''* * * Monday, April 20th, in the eve- ning, Admiral Mayo received instructions to withdraw all gunboats from the river. * * * The three gunboats, the Dolphin, Chester and Des Moines, in the river had been stripped for action. * * * Admiral Mayo protested against the removal of the gunboats at least three times, and I have every reason to believe he stated that his withdrawing the boats would subject hundreds and thousands of Americans to extreme danger. I know that the American consul sent a long message of protest stating the extreme danger that would arise to all Americans. These messages did not avail and at nine-thirty o'clock, April 21st, the last of the gunboats left the river. The Americans immediately felt themselves to be in extreme danger. * * * At four o'clock in the after- noon the Americans for the first time became aware of the taking of Vera Cruz. They 82 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO learned this through posters put out by the Mexican authorities saying that the American invader had come, and had landed at Vera Cruz, and calling on all patriotic Mexicans to rally for the defense of the city. * * >i^ The American consul had not been notified of the taking of Vera Cruz and was not in communication with our battleships, which were now located nine miles away in the gulf. At four-thirty mobs began to form, incited by speeches made by leading Mexican lawyers and doctors. They were incited to kill all Ameri- cans and to tear down the American flags. These mobs kept increasing in size, and three different attacks were made on some buildings occupied by Americans. A hundred and fifty American men, women and children were guarded at the Southern Hotel. Determined efforts were made to batter down the doors of the hotel. It was shot into, windows were broken, and no relief was given until the Ger- man commainder of the German gunboat Dres- den sent word to General Zaragosa, of the Federal forces, ordering him to disperse the mob, and if it was not done he would land Ger- man marines. This German commander sent two of his officers to the Southern Hotel and to other places to take the American women CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 83 and children to his boats. This was about two o'clock in the morning of April 22nd. This was done voluntarily on the part of the Ger- man commander without any communication whatever from the American fleet. Earlier in the evening the Consulate tried to get into communication with Admiral Mayo by wire- less from the English boat, but the English commander refused the request, stating that Mexico and the United States were at war and England was neutral. * * * During April 22nd and 23rd over two thousand five hundred Americans were taken but of Tampico by boats flying the German and English flags and in charge of German and English officers. The English officer on one of the boats stated to the Americans in a speech that it was not his duty to do this, but that he did so in as much as our own country had deserted us and humanity- demanded that he should take care of us. * * * The feeling of every American coming from Tampico is that he was deserted by his coun- try. He knew that he was in no danger as long as the quarrel was between the Mexicans, but after the United States landed at Vera Cruz the hatred of the Federals against all Ameri- cans became intense, and the protection was removed from us at a time when it was at its height without any notice to us." 84 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO In Volumn 51, part 8, of the Congressional Record of the 63d Congress, 2d session, on page 8132, there is a statement by three hun- dred and seventy-two of the Tampico refugees in regard to the same infamous desertion of American citizens by the Wilson administra- tion, which in substance is the same as that given above. A NATION'S DUTY. William Lemke A nation owes the same duty to its citizens that a father owes to his children. It is just as much the duty of a nation to protect its citizens from insult, injury and destruction wherever they may be, as long as they have a right to be there, as it is for a father to protect his chil- dren from insult, injury and destruction wherever they may be, as long as they have a right to be there. I arn willing to defend my nation — I am willing to lay down my life in defense of the stars and stripes, but I shall ex- pect that in return for this devotion that that nation and that flag will protect me and my children wherever we may be, as long as we have a right to be there. The nation that does not protect its protectors cannot long endure. No nation on earth is great enough to ignore the appeals for help of its citizens whether at home or abroad. As there are times when an individual must be firm, or even fight, to pre- serve his manhood, so there are times when a nation must be firm, or even fight, to preserve its nationalism. The reason for all organized government and taxation is that, as a group, people are 86 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO more powerful and have more protection, than as individuals. This is true as long as those in charge of a government perform their sacred duty and impartially protect the lives and property of all of its citizens wherever they may be. Patriotism is the feeling that you are somebody. It is the feeling that you belong to a nation that is not only powerful, but that is interested in your welfare. The contract be- tween the individual and his nation is recip- rocal. He tacitly agrees to protect the nation in time of danger even unto death, and the nation tacitly agrees to protect him in his life and property wherever he may be. This is the compact between the nation and the individual. None but a coward will deny it. Without this feeling of security and reciprocity, there can "^ be no true patriotism on the part of the in- dividual — there is no nationalism. The Americans in Mexico had a right to be there. They had violated no law. They had been invited by the Mexican government and had been promised the most absolute pro- tection. They had been advised by William Jennings Bryan to go into Mexico under the Diaz administration, invest their capital, and seek work there. The vast majority of Americans in Mexico are of the middle class — they belong to the CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 87 same sturdy class that settled in Texas. They are the forerunners of civilization. They are, as ex-President De la Bara of Mexico has so ably said, the educators and civilizers of Mexico. Shame on the cowards at Wash- ington and elsewhere that would brand these sturdy and hardy people as exploiters and desert them. They are in Mexico to make their homes, and to assist in the onward march of civilization of Latin-America. If Great Britain had followed President Wil- son's Mexican policy, then our forefathers would have been told to leave this continent when the Indians became hostile. If Presi- dent Madison had followed the Wilson Mex- ican policy, then the Americans would have been requested to stay off the seas in 1812. If the Wilson Mexican policy had been fol- lowed, then Texas, New Mexico, California and Arizona would not be a part of the United States today. If this same policy had been followed, then the man who said, "If anyone hauls down the American flag, shoot him on the spot," would perhaps have been jailed or reprimanded — and the man who said, "Mil- lions for defense, but not one cent for tribute," would perhaps have been compelled to revise his statement to, "Millions for tribute, but not 88 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO one cent for defense," or else he would have been discharged, and all the force of the ad- ministration brought to bear to discredit and dishonor him, as was done with Ambassador Wilson. WE APPEAL TO THE PRESIDENT. By Col. George Harvey. ''The large thing to do is the only thing we can afford to do — a voluntary withdrawal from a position everywhere questioned and misun- derstood. We ought to reverse our action without raising the question whether we were right or wrong, and so once more deserve our reputation for generosity and the redemption of every obligation without quibble or hesita- tion." Those words, Mr. President, spoken by you as the head of the nation to the Congress of the United States upon the first day of your second year in office were more than worthy, more than courageous; they were noble. They breathed the sense of national honor; they were shot through with patriotic feeling; they evinced the power of personal greatness to ac- knowledge and repair a fault. And they will serve the purpose for which they were uttered — never fear! Pending the accomplishment of that great triumph which is to be yours, may we not ask you to perform the more pressing duty of turn- ing your eyes upon the stricken people of 90 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO bleeding? Mexico, and consider — consider in candor and with deep solicitude which we know you feel — whether you may not apply those words to them. Is not our attitude to- ward them also "everywhere questioned and misunderstood"? We think and presently shall try to convince your mind that it is. If we shall succeed in that endeavor, is not "the large thing to do the only thing we can afford to do" — a reversal of our action "without raising the question whether we were right or wrong, and so once more deserve our reputation for gener- osity and the redemption of every obligation without quibble or hesitation"? Four months have elapsed since we raised the questions: What legal or moral right has a President of the United States to say who shall or shall not be President of Mexico? and Did not President Wilson imbed himself in a practically inextricable position when he de- manded the retirement of Huerta? and the only answers forthcoming are to be found in a consensus of the world's opinion and in a hopelessly tangled diplomatic situation sur- charged with peril. But no ! That is not strict- ly accurate. You answered the first question, Mr. President, when you recognized the Hu- erta of Peru, and you answered the second CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 91 when you urged so impressively upon the Con- gress, as a primary reason for repudiating a pledge of your own party platform the neces- sity of mollifying foreign powers. * * * Never before to our knowledge, while their countries were at peace and resolved to con- tinue in amicable relationship, has one Presi- dent declared war upon another President. Yet that is what you did without a quiver of hesita- tion. And you did not stop there. You cer- tainly struck deep and hard in those days early in November when the following declaration was served upon Huerta as coming from the President of the United States : * * * That unless Huerta, voluntarily and on his own initiative, retires at once from power and abandons every idea of controlling the organ- ization of the government and the conduct of negotiations, the First Magistrate will find himself under the necessity of intervening by means of an ultimatum, and if this is not ac- cepted he will be obliged to propose to the Con- gress of his country the adoption of practical measures of a most serious nature. * * * And when the old Indian coolly ignored this demand you did not shrink from inviting the criticism of your own countrymen by lifting the embargo upon guns which, like those in the Philippines, may at no distant day be turned 92 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO upon our own soldiers. No, Mr. President, it is not from lack of energy or resolution that your attempt to apply political eugenics to Mexico in a schoolmasterful way has failed. It is from the fatal defect within the policy itself — the futile threat which, as we declared in November, "instead of eliminating Huerta from power, riveted him in his place, there to remain, in all probability, until he shall be ex- pelled by force !of arms." This judgment, based upon certain logic, has now found gen- eral acceptance, and it is to that most impor- tant fact, Mr. President, that we would direct your attention. No writer has made it so clear as you that "the only force" that can control a President in shaping his course with respect to large mat- ters of public policy is "the force of public opinion." But public opinion is no less subject to change than individual judgment and, if it is to be accepted as a true guide, it must be ex- amined and interpreted at frequent intervals. When, in November, we urged upon you man- ful reversal of a policy which we then believed to be and which has since proved to have been untenable, we did not assume to reflect the common view. We could not but feel that much of the seeming approval was no more than natural and praiseworthy restraint; but CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 93 there were few evidences to that effect, and you were quite justified in assuming that your attitude had won general commendation. The newspaper press in particular was notably in- sistent and steadfast in support of your deter- mination to drive Huerta from his position of authority. But is it so now? Let us mark the indications afforded by our leading journals. He * * The extraordinary character of this galaxy of editorial and individual pronounce- ments is its unanimity. There may have ap- peared somewhere a word of approval of "watchful waiting'' since the embargo was lifted, but if so, despite our painstaking read- ing of many American newspapers, we have not seen it — not one word. * * * You spoke, Mr. President, in your latest message, of the difficulties which you are now experiencing in dealing with foreign govern- ments, especially with respect to "matters of even greater delicacy and nearer consequence" than the canal-tolls dispute, and you pleaded with the Congress to empower you to adopt conciliatory measures. It is clear, therefore, that you attach particular importance to for- eign public opinion at this crucial time. What, then, is the consensus of that judgment upon your Mexican policy? 94 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO The most consistent friends of America among the public journals of England are The London "Times" and the "Spectator." Both have deplored from the beginning your refusal to recognize the de facto government. While hoping for the best, the "Times" still cannot escape the conclusion that you have "assumed responsibilties that may well lead to armed intervention." * * * The conservative "Morning Post" pronoun- ces your position "absolutely unintelligible" and possessing "all the appearance of encour- agement to anarchy, civil war, and murder of foreign residents in Mexico." What to do? Why, Mr. President, there is but one thing to do. There never has been but one thing to do. That is to put under your feet the solid precedent that was established by this nation at the beginning of its career and that has been heeded by all other powers in this particular instance: Extend to the de facto government of Mexico official recognition. We pass no criticism upon your refusal to take this logical and sensible action originally. You erred, of course, as all the world now con- cludes, and as you yourself confessed when you acknowledged the validity of the "usurping" governments of Peru and Haiti; but it was an excusable, possibly even a justifiable, error be- cause it sprang from the best of intentions. CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 95 What we do ask is that you do not persist in a course which leads straightway to the un- doing of all your good works, through the cer- tain defeat of your party and the execration that just as surely will be visited upon yourself if, as a consequence of sheer obduracy, this country shall be dragged into a hateful war. It may or may not be a correct assumption that Huerta, unhampered, could have pacified his country, but there is and can be absolutely no question that you deprived him of the means of effective striving. Confronted at the outset by a hostile Con- gress such as he well knew had achieved the downfall of Madero, surrounded by a cabinet of intriguers, refused recognition by the United States, branded rightfully or wrong- fully, but without adduced evidence, as an ac- cessory to assassination, deprived of the oppor- tunity to borrow moneys through the desire of foreign governments to curry favor with the nation which is now more commonly than be- fore referred to throughout Latin America as "the big bully," cajoled, threatened, cut off from aid wherever possible, while simultane- ously the hordes of opposing bandits and des- peradoes were being supplied, furtively at first and then openly, with arms and ammunition, and now — at the end of thirteen months — he is 96 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO conceded to be more strongly intrenched than ever! It is an amazing personal record, Mr. President, worthy surely of admiration, and remarkable especially for the consistent dig- nity, courtesy, and consideration exhibited by the old Indian himself in his dealings with an administration which has been — shall we frankly admit? — not invariably tactful and per- haps upon occasion slightly dictatorial. It is not too late. It is never too late to do the right thing. Moreover, the change in con- ditions affords you full warrant for reversing your position. While you had faith in the sin- cerity and high purpose of the rebel leaders, there appeared at least a semblance of reason for taking their part, but now that they have dropped the mask and stand revealed in their true light as murdering marauders, their last claim upon your consideration has disap- peared. You gave them their chance, at great risk to your own reputation, when you opened the doors for the delivery of arms, and they have shown their appreciation by ignoring your wishes, flouting your authority, and making you appear before the world as a virtual ally of a dastardly bandit. While Huerta has been earning your respect. Villa has been abusing your confidence. Clearly, the withdrawal of CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 97 aid from the rebels now would be regarded everywhere not only as fully justified, but as a fitting response to the demands of humanity and civilization. But what, you may ask, is to be gained by recognizing Huerta at this late day? And we answer, everything. He may not be able under any circumstances to pacify Mexico, but all there whose lives and properties are at stake agree that he is rightfully, or wrongfully, Mex- ico's only hope. He is ours, too, and yours, be- cause he has come to be the only force capable of maintaining order and so possibly of avert- ing the dreaded intervention which continu- ance of the existing chaos is certain in time to produce. Practicability, no less than theory and tradition, calls for upholding of the de facto government. There are other reasons, Mr. President, more personal to yourself. You have no base now from which to act; no avenue through which to communicate; no way of meeting the just demands of foreign powers except, as in the case of England, by proffering special favors. And you are under suspicion. The mere fact that your policy is ^^unintelligible" has given rise to a growing conviction, espe- cially in South America, as evidenced above, that it is insincere and is deliberately designed 98 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO to engender war and conquest. You no longer have at your back the mighty force of public opinion, as we have shown. Abroad, as you must realize, the common at- titude toward your watchful waiting is quite frankly contemptuous; at home it is one of grave doubt and grave anxiety. To speak plainly, Mr. President, the feeling is growing stronger daily that your persistence in a course which in common with everybody else you must know to be wrong, is attributable to no kind of reasoning whatsoever, but to your own stubborn pride. For your own sake, then, if for no other cause, it is of the utmost impor- tance that, if there must be war, it shall come as an inevitable consequence, as demonstrably unpreventable by any conceivable means and in strict conformity with the customs and prece- dents fixed by international usage. Is it not clear, Mr. President, that this condi- tion can never be realized until the only gov- ernment, however discreditable, that does exist and the only really strong man, however dis- reputable, who has appeared, shall have been accorded the full opportunity which so many believe he could utilize even now with ulti- mate effectiveness? It is the only way, sir, the only way out, the only way to save Mexico, to save your party, and to save yourself. It is. CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 99 too, "the large thing to do/' the "only thing" you "can afford to do'' to escape from a posi- tion "everywhere questioned and misunder- stood." We implore you, Mr. President, to take to heart your own splendid words, "We ought to reverse our action without raising the question whether we were right or wrong," and then do it "without quibble or hesitation" and win for your country just honor and for yourself the fine renown which the world invariably ac- cords a noble act nobly done. THE PRESIDENT'S INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH. William Lemke In his Indianapolis speech, the President said: "Have not the European nations taken as long as they wanted, and spilled as much blood as they pleased in settling their affairs, and shall we deny that right to Mexico, be- cause she is weak? No, I say." These words had more properly come from the lips of Villa or Zapata, for the success of whose murderous career the President is responsible. Horrible as these words are, they fail to describe the sea of blood that the President has caused to flow in Mexico by encouraging and materially assisting these monsters. No, the President will not be permitted to escape his responsibil- ity by subterfuge. He did interfere in Mexico, and he interfered on the side of crime. Did he not destroy the Mexican government? Did he not land the United States marines at Vera Cruz for the express purpose of ousting Huerta? Did he not raise the embargo on arms so that Villa and Zapata could get more arms and ammunition to slaughter the inno- cent and outrage women? Did he not sup- press the truth in regard to the crimes of these CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 101 criminals, and shelter them in every way pos- sible? It has even been said that he got his Secretary of State to delegate a subordinate to write a laudatory biography of the mur- derer, Villa, and was only stopped from ac- complishing his purpose by Senator Lodge reading the crimson career of Villa into the Congressional Record. "False face must hide what the false heart doth know." "Macbeth shall sleep no more." "Go get some water and wash this filthy 'Villa' from your hands." President Wilson said that the Mexicans must be allowed to spill as much blood as they please, and I suppose that he would also say that they must be allowed to outrage as many women as they please. For justification of this doctrine he refers us back to ancient and me- dieval Europe. He might with equal propriety have referred us back to the cave man, or to some cannibal tribe. I had believed that these horrors were part of the distant and barbarous past, until I saw them reenacted, with the President's assist- ance, in Mexico. I believed, and still believe, that it is part of civilization to prevent the re- currence of these awful things. I deny that the President, in this speech, voices the senti- ment of the American people. According to 102 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO the President, I should be allowed to spill the blood of my brother, if it pleased me, because in the remote and hazy past, Cain arose and slew his brother, Abel. The President said further: "So that when some great dailies, not very far from where I am temporarily residing, thundered with rising scorn at watchful waiting, Woodrow sat back in his chair and chuckled, knowing that he laughs best who laughs last." So while out of Mexico there came gruesome pictures of hu- man beings chained together in groups, soaked in oil and burned to death, "Woodrow sat back in his chair and chuckled." While Benton, Bach and hundreds of others were being mur- dered, "Woodrow sat back in his chair and chuckled." While, Durango, a city of seventy- five thousand, was being drenched in blood by the Villa hordes, and hundreds of women were ravished, while scores committed suicide to avoid a worse fate, "Woodrow sat back in his chair and chuckled, knowing that he laughs best who laughs last." Nero fiddled, and perhaps "chuckled," while Rome was burning, but that was no consola- tion to the victims of his conflagration. No, Woodrow, it was not a question with the inno- cent victims of your particular kind of "watch- CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 103 ful waiting*' as to who laughs first or last, or yet, as to who laughs best. Many of these are dead, while what is worse, others bear upon their brow the stigma of shame — their lives and their virtue, unwillingly and against their consent, sacrificed upon the Villa-Zapata altar of cruelty, greed and lust. "All great Nep- tune's ocean" cannot wash away the blood and dishonor that your allies, Villa and Zapata and their followers, have placed upon your policy of "watchful waiting." This is no chuckling matter. The President talks of himself in the third person — "Woodrow sat back in his chair and chuckled." What would we have thought of President Lincoln, if during the civil war, he had said, "Abraham sat back in his chair and chuckled." Some time ago the President in- formed us that he had a "one track mind," and I presume that his mind runs back on one track to the days of Caesar, when the innocent and defenseless were made prisoners and slaugh- tered, and their women outraged and carried away as legitimate prize. "Have not the Euro- pean nations taken as long as they wanted, and spilled as much blood as they pleased in settling their affairs, and shall we deny that right to Mexico, because she is weak? No, I 104 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO say." In the face of this remarkable new doc- trine of the President, what has become of the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." "Against this doctrine I raise my voice in protest before the tribunal of universal jus- tice." I appeal from the President, the ser- vant, to the American people, his master, and demand punishment for the unspeakable out- rages perpetrated against thirty thousand Americans, the looting of their homes and the profanation of their bodies. I know that there is enough chivalry and manhood left in Amer- ica, regardless of the President, to uphold wo- manhood and to rescue her from the degrada- tion and desecration to which she has been subjected in Mexico. If the President's home had been looted by Villa or Zapata, with torch and dagger in hand, and then destroyed — if he had been tortured and mutilated, and then in his dying condition compelled to witness the outraging of his daughters, then he could perhaps realize what we thirty thousand Americans, nearly all of whom have been robbed, many of whom have had some friend or relative murdered, tortured, mutilated or outraged, think of him when he says that those demons must be allowed to spill as much blood as they please. We have a right CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 105 to interpret the President's words in the light of conditions as they exist, and as he knows them to exist. Woodrow ! "How much longer are you go- ing to abuse our patience ?" Do you know that in the words of the immortal Lincoln, "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can- not fool all of the people all of the time." Whether you wish it or not, your name will go down into Mexican history linked forever with that of Villa — Wilson and Villa, one and in- separable, known to fame or infamy to all the ages yet to come. AFFAIRS IN MEXICO. By Senator William Alden Smith ***From a somewhat intimate knowledge of the historical facts and upon my responsibility as a Senator I say that the revolution against Diaz was planned and perfected and stimulated and encouraged upon the soil of the United States. It is a notorious fact that three men in a hotel in the city of New York held in the hol- low of their hands the fate of Mexico while they were attempting to adjust between them- selves the railroad and the oil interests of that country. While under oath, Mr. Sherburne G. Hop- kins, of Washington, told a committee of the Senate that he was the counsel of the Maderos, or of the Madero revolution, and at the same identical moment admitted that he held a re- tainer as the counsel of a great American oil company. After President Diaz was put out of the capitol of Mexico, and Francisco Madero was put in, the first money paid out of the Mexican treasury was fifty thousand dollars to this Washington lawyer for services to the revolu- tionary junta in this capital. * * * CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 107 How have we acted with reference to our neighbor on the south? Does anybody ques- tion that the loan negotiated by the Mexican government in Europe was defeated by our Government? Let my associates upon the Committee on Foreign Relations say. We have sent emissaries directly to those in rebel- lion against the de facto government of Mex- ico; we have dealt directly with the revolution- ists or constitutionalists in Mexico in open re- bellion against President Huerta. * * * Why was the embargo raised upon the exportation of arms from America, so that banditti and revolutionists might obtain their powder and their munitions with less difficulty from our own people? * * * j have thought that the least respectable thing that our Government could do would be to refrain from encouraging banditti and revolution in a friendly state. * * * I assert, without any hesitation whatever, that the very same element in Mexico which banded together to overthrow the government of President Diaz, which instigated and fur- nished the means and much of the munitions for President Madero's successful revolution, are the men who have engineered the Carranza and Villa movement. Their headquarters are in the city of Washington; their offices are in 108 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO the Hibbs building. * * * The following were here in person during the summer: Felix Sommerfield, the head of the secret service corps, operating with Consul Llorente along the Mexican border, who claimed that there was no limit to the expenditures he had a right to make; and it was found, without any diffi- culty whatever, that Mr. Llorente, consul, had over two million dollars to his credit in the city of El Paso alone with which he was to buy arms and ammunition and create propa- ganda in favor of his faction of the Mexican people; Mrs. Francisco Madero; the Madero brothers coming and going; Manuel Perez Ro- mero, broker of Mrs. Madero, Washington rep- resentative of the rebels, their minister of finance; while Mrs. Madero's brother was busy through the entire summer fulminating against the government of Mexico, safely and usually in the District of Columbia. * * * When the Mexican revolution, headed by Francisco I. Madero against President Diaz, broke out, the Eagle Oil Company, which in- cludes the Aguila Oil Company, dealing in the refined products of oil, and the Pearson oil con- cessions belonging to Lord Cowdray, of Eng- land, producing crude oil, were doing their business in sharp rivalry with the Waters- Pierce Oil Company. Mr. Hopkins says they CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 109 were active competitors. At that time the controlling interest and stock of the Waters- Pierce Oil Company was owned by the Stan- dard Oil Company. According to the witness, Mr. Henry Clay Pierce, president of the Waters-Pierce Company, "conceived it to be imminently proper that the public should un- derstand how Lord Cowdray got these conces- sions and how he exercised the control which he had over the Mexican government," and witness says that he was employed by Mr. Pierce for that purpose. * * * Mr. Hopkins says that his employment took place in the city of Mexico. He further says that he was consulted with a view to exposing the graft by means of which Lord Cowdray had attained the degree of influence which he wielded with the Diaz administration. He says also that he was at that time the adviser of the Madero revolutionary party in Wash- ington and gave it his advice as to the best manner of deposing the Diaz government; that he was employed directly by Gustavo Madero and others, and that he "made it as hot as he could for Lord Cowdray and the Eagle Oil Company." He says he was especially called upon to advise Mr. Madero regarding railroad matters, and, in fact, says, "I was the legal ad- viser of the revolutionary party in Washing- 110 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO ton from the beginning until the end/' employ- ing men for work in the secret service in the United States and doing everything to assist in creating public opinion in the revolution against President Diaz; and that he v^as called to Mexico immediately after the fall of Juarez by President Madero and his brother, Gustavo Madero, for the purpose of adjusting certain large outstanding accounts for secret service in the United States whom witness had em- ployed. During this visit to Mexico, Gustavo Ma- dero was paid six hundred thousand dollars, Mexican, out of the treasury of that govern- ment for revolutionary expenses, and this money was carried by Madero to the hotel where Hopkins was stopping and deposited in the International Banking Corporation, hav- ing a branch in Washington and various for- eign countries, with which Hopkins did busi- ness, and which he sometimes represented. Of this fund Mr. Hopkins was paid fifty thousand dollars in gold for his service in promoting the revolutionary cause in Mexico. * * * Hopkins says that he was interested in the railway aspect of that situation. * * * That he and Gustavo Madero thought that the old directors should be gotten rid of as expedi- tiously as possible. * * * He says that CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 111 the course outlined with reference to these railroads by Gustavo Madero and himself was known to Henry Clay Pierce, who "had a very vital interest in the management of the Na- tional Railways, and was both a bondholder and stockholder." * * * Hopkins first be- came interested in changing the directory of those roads through Gustavo Madero about the time of the revolution, and the matter was discussed at length by Madero and Hopkins in his office in Washington. * * * He also says that the consolidation of the Mexican Central and the Mexican Railways was made possible through Henry Clay Pierce, and admits that when Gustavo Madero took up the work of getting rid of the directory of the Mexican Railways that the railways were prospering. * * * That everybody con- nected with the revolutionary movement against Diaz shared the view of Gustavo Ma- dero as to the desirability of getting control of these railways. Hopkins admits that he was acting both for Pierce and Madero, who had ideas in common. That he went down to Mexico to bring these matters to the attention of the Mexican people and with a view to bringing about just what has taken place. Hopkins says that he was very familiar with the whole affair; that he was in Washington 112 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO when the battle of Juarez occurred, and that just prior to the battle of Juarez he was in con- ference in New York with the father of the late President Madero, Mr. Limantour, the Minister of Finance of Mexico, also a director in the Mexican national railways, and Dr. Francisco Vasquez Gomez at the Hotel Astor. That the attack upon Juarez was delayed pend- ing this conference, "where there were negoti- ations looking to a compromise.'' Why, Mr. President, is it conceivable that three men meeting in the Hotel Astor in New York should hold in the hollow of their hands the fate of seventeen million people at the south of us? Is it conceivable that all of this dire calamity, the loss of life, the murder, the outrages committed upon women and girls, the destruction of millions of dollars' worth of property, could all have been avoided if these three archconspirators had been able to agree upon a division of the railroad and the oil inter- ests of Mexico? Yet that is what this man says under oath. * * h^ Hopkins says that he has "had a good deal to do with revolutions, also in maintaining constituted government." He says he knew that President Zelaya was going to be put out of the presidency of Nicaragua some time be- fore it happened. That he imparted his infor- CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 113 mation to certain people in Europe, notably the French banker, whom he had approached for a loan in behalf of the Mexican revolution. He said he knew exactly what was going to happen. When asked if that information came directly from our Government he said: "I should not say directly from our Government; I knew what was going to happen before our Government did, and stopped Zelaya's loan from going through." You cannot dismiss with a wave of the hand this man who can stop a loan from a European banking house to a government in Central America. You cannot dismiss with a wave of the hand a man whose labors were sufficient to call for a personal appropriation out of the treasury of Mexico amounting to fifty thou- sand dollars. This man is an acknowledged and professional revolutionary authority; has been close to the department of state, and wields a powerful influence over the affairs of Central America. His hand can be seen in every vexatious movement involving the insta- bility of governments at the south of us, and in my opinion he and his associates are a menace to organized society. * * * Mr. President, Senators may say, "Why was not this matter presented to the Senate before?" That is a fair question. When we 114 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO returned to Washington after our labors we found our associates scattered from a long and laborious session of the Senate. We were un- able to get our committee together. Unfor- tunately, several of the actors in this horrible drama were killed. Your committee was squarely upon the trail of Gustavo Madero and the vice president of that republic, Mr. Suarez, when their lives were snuffed out. The change of administration occurred, and the complex- ion of the Committee on Foreign Relations changed; a new situation arose. We had no power to go on. We could not complete our work. All we could do was to report the prog- ress we had made; and we laid upon the desk of every Senator the testimony we had taken. Talk about murders of Americans in Mex- ico! I have talked personally with several of the unfortunate children whose fathers were murdered on Mexican soil. I know of my own knowledge of many instances of this charac- ter. The condition of affairs in Mexico is most deplorable. The reader will note from the above extracts from Senator Smith's speech, that the revolu- tions in Mexico have undoubtedly been insti- gated and financed by American interests and especially by American oil interests. It may CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 115 have been permissible for our administration to assist an American oil company to oust an English oil company in Mexico, but when it became necessary in order to accomplish this, to arm and assist such men as Villa in murder- ing, robbing or ruining some thirty thousand American citizens, and to cause a sea of blood to flow in Mexico generally, the administration should have halted — the price was too high. OIL AGAIN. By Major Cassius E. Gillette The fundamental cause of these awful condi- tions lie primarily with Madero, a half-baked devotee of spiritualism, who possibly seriously put forth the old propaganda of "free land" and a general democracy, with which fake shibboleth at least a hundred rebellions have been started in Mexico between the overthrow of Spain, in 1821, and the ascendance of Diaz, in 1876. The testimony of Sherburne G. Hopkins given before the sub-committee of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, under oath, suggests a possible, and even probable, finan- cial backing of Madero, such as may ulti- mately prove that the poor fellow was a mere catspaw, a pawn sacrificed to the greed of big American oil interests. Mr. Hopkins admitted under oath that he was the legal representative of Madero from the start; that he now represents the present constitutionalists, and that he has been such representative continuously. He also admit- ted that he had been a legal representative during at least part of the period since the Ma- CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 117 dero outbreak, of Henry Clay Pierce, the head of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, presumed to be one of the tentacles of Standard Oil. There certainly has been an intense fight in Mexico for years between the Waters-Pierce Company and the English Pearson Company of Lord Cowdray. Yet Standard Oil appears to own, through the Doheny interest, more oil and more capital invested than all the other interests in Mexico put together. The ques- tion then, is, Why is Standard Oil not engaged in this fight for the trade of Mexico, as are the Piercd interests and the Pearson interests? The only logical answer is that it owns either one or the other. Mr. Hopkins admitted on the stand that his services to Henry Clay Pierce were for the purpose of fighting Lord Cowdray in Mexico, and the only way Standard Oil or Mr. Pierce could reach him was to overthrow Diaz, the natural way to do which would be to finance Madero. That they did this financing is asserted by sworn testimony printed in the same report. Mr. Converse, an intelligent young Ameri- can who fought for Madero from the start, and was his intimate friend, when questioned under oath, said that Madero had personally told him several times that he got his money 118 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO from Standard Oil, and that Standard Oil would back him to the "last ditch/' the witness remarking that his memory was strengthened by Madero's use of the Americanism, "the last ditch." He swore that Madero told him this several times, as also did Madero's staunch supporter and intimate friend, Braulio Her- nandez, and Madero's governor of the state of Chiluahua, Abraham Gonzalez. There is much testimony in the printed vol- ume to the same effect, yet our State Depart- ment a few weeks ago gave out that it had no information to connect Standard Oil with the financing of Madero. This report must cer- tainly be on file there. On the same day the Standard Oil officials stated that the company had not financed Ma- dero. They did not deny that Standard Oil money, however, had been used for the pur- pose. There is a pretty strong rumor that Madero got his original funds for the purpose by mort- gaging his Guayule rubber land to the Conti- nental Rubber Company, whose president is John D. Rockefeller, Jr. A somewhat curious coincidence is that the largest contributor to President Wilson's cam- paign fund, and apparently one of his closest advisers, is Cleveland H. Dodge, a director, I CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 119 believe, in the Standard Oil National City Bank and a trustee of the Carnegie Peace Foundation, while the officials of his company in Arizona some months ago were under in- dictment for smuggling arms and ammunition to the Constitutionalists. In any event, Mr. Hopkins is admittedly the leader of the Constitutionalist representatives in Washington, and he is undoubtedly one of the most skillful press agents in the country. At times, from what appears to be his press agent work, he seems to have a remarkable knowledge of the inner workings of our State Department, and a most remarkable ability to get news telegrams started from out-of-the- way places in Mexico, a tremendous percent- age of which "news" is afterward contradicted. For example. General Villa, as is well known, can neither read nor write, and yet im- mediately after his recent murder of Benton, he gave out a statement involving an intimate knowledge of points of international law, with American and English precedents in the mat- ter, a knowledge of such things entirely be- yond the ken not only of Villa, but of arty- body within one hundred miles of his head- quarters in Chihuahua, at the time he gave it out. * * * JOHN LIND. William Lemke John Lind, the Wilson spy, sat under the protection of the guns of a friendly nation at Vera Cruz and gave information to the rebels in arms against the Mexican government. What w^ould Lincoln have done, if during our Civil v^ar, England had sent a spy of the Lind type to New York to give military information to the South? He would have had him shot, and if President Huerta had done his full duty to Mexico, Lind would perhaps now be sleep- ing beneath seven feet of earth. He was not an official of the United States government, but a spy, who, according to correspondence made public in the New York Herald, was giv- ing information to the rebels and the Waters- Pierce Oil Company. Whatever may have been Mr. Lind's reputation, character and standing before he went to Mexico, there can be no question but that his actions at Vera Cruz, his misrepresentations, and the false statements he has made in public since his re- turn, are dishonorable. He had better take warning that "truth crushed to earth shall rise again." CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 121 Senator Fall in a speech before the United States Senate said in substance: "The Presi- dent is not correctly informed. His personal representative, Mr. Lind, came back and wrote a history of Mexico by copying it from an en- cyclopedia, and I am informed that he told the President that if he would send the marines to Vera Cruz he could land there, take the post of- fice, the railroad yards, and the custom house without firing a shot; that there would be no resistance; that there would not be a drop of blood spilled; and that, if he held on, he could make Huerta get out of the country. I know that members of Congress have come to me seeking information concerning Mexico and made the statement as coming directly from Mr. Lind, that Pancho Villa was now studying metaphysics and reading several volumes of philosophy; that he really was educating him- self and was developing a great interest in deep subjects. I asked if Mr. Lind had said that he knew Villa, or had ever met him. They returned later and informed me that Lind ad- mitted that he had never been farther north than Tampico; that he had never met Villa in his life; that he did not know anything about him, but he did give the name of his in- formant, and that informant was a representa- tive of one of the greatest oil companies in the world." 122 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO John Lind's closest adviser in Mexico was Mr. Galbraith, the able manager of the Waters- Pierce Oil Company. Mr. Lind never was within a thousand miles of Villa, and yet he had him reading philosophy, when it is uni- versally known that he can neither read nor write. A number of Americans invited Lind to visit his friend, the murderer, rapist and rob- ber, Villa, but Lind refused to leave the protec- tion of the Mexican government, and preferred to give his laudations at long distance. Mr. Lind also sang the praise of Zapata. He stated repeatedly that Zapata was the most consistent patriot in Mexico. It is true that Zapata is consistent in murder, rape and rob- bery. Is that what Mr. Lind is pleased to call consistent patriotism? The President sent John Lind to Mexico by stealth, without the knowledge, advice or con- sent of the United States Senate, although our constitution makes the Senate, together with the President, responsible for the conduct of our foreign affairs. If the President had ad- vised with the Senate, Mr. Lind would never have been sent to Mexico. He was ignorant of the Mexican language, and lacked physical and moral courage. Aside from his stop at Tampico and his cautious trip to Mexico City, and his hurried return to Vera Cruz, and a visit CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 123 to a nearby ranch, his entire radius of knowl- edge and observation in Mexico was confined to the American Consulate and the Terminal Hotel at Vera Cruz, which were easily access- ible to the American gunboats. In some of his public utterances he boasts of having met thou- sands of Mexicans. Mr. Lind never met a thousand Mexicans in his life. He never ven- tured out or mingled with the public. His timid actions were the subject of general con- versation and ridicule by Americans and other foreigners as well as by the Mexicans in Mexico. The public was led to believe by President Wilson and the newspapers that Mr. Lind was reluctant to go to Mexico, and that he did so only as a public duty, and at a great personal sacrifice. The truth is that Mr. Lind wrote a letter from the city of Chicago to Secretary Bryan, demanding that he be appointed as Minister to Mexico, because of the work he had done for the Democratic party in Minne- sota. He was appointed as a result of that letter. Mr. Lind had no qualifications for this mission, except that he was friendly to the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, and the large lumber interests of St. Paul, both of which have interests in Mexico. These unquestion- ably would have been very much pleased if Mr. 124 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO Lind had succeeded in naming the President of Mexico. Lind did not go to Mexico to learn the true conditions. He went there rather as an attorney for interested parties. An old resident of Mexico has this to say: "A short time before my departure from Mex- ico, I was talking about the situation with an American Consul, whom I have known for many years. Suddenly the consul suggested that I go to see Lind. He said, looking rather worried. 'You know Villa and what he is — won't you tell Lind.' I was somewhat sur- prised at the request, but after thinking that, being neither a Mexican nor an American, al- though educated in the United States, Lind might not consider me a biased party, I agreed. "The consul's request had naturally led me to believe that Lind favored Villa. I went to see him and before long I became convinced that Lind did not wish to hear what I had to say about Villa and moreover that he thought the latter was the only salvation for Mexico. I have lived in Mexico twenty years, as you know. I asked Lind if he had talked to hon- est, neutral Mexicans, to representative men who did not take part in the struggle and had no political ambition. Lind answered that he had. I inquired specifically, mentioning more than fifteen names, and in each case he an- CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 125 swered, *No, not that one/ I soon perceived that he had not talked to the men whose opin- ions and views were really worth while. "Then I made him an offer to put at his dis- posal my own house so that he could see the men whose names I had mentioned, without the fact becoming known to any one and I told him I would see personally these men and arrange for them to meet him. 'Thank you/ — said Lind very indifferently, — 'sometime, perhaps, you may do that.' I left Lind con- vinced that his mind on the subject had been made up before he had gone to Mexico and that no one could change it and I said to my- self, Toor Mexico !' " I met Mr. Lind at Vera Cruz in March, 1914, and gave him some information in regard to Villa and Zapata. I presented to him a case where all the women of a village were held for ransom by the rebels with the threat that if their relatives failed to pay the ransom within thirty days they would be turned over to the soldiers. Lind's answer was that the Federals were just as bad. This answer I knew was not true. I soon discovered that Mr. Lind was not interested in knowing the real situation. I felt that he was representing some special inter- ests, and for that reason was a sympathizer of the rebels. In place of getting the truth, he 126 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO slandered and misrepresented the Mexican government. All the statements he made con- cerning this government, I knew at the time to be untrue. In one of Mr. Lind's notes to the Mexican government appears this passage: "The President of the United States of America fur- ther authorizes me to say that if the de facto government of Mexico at once acts favorably upon the foregoing suggestions, then in that event the President will express to American bankers and their associates assurances that the Government of the United States of Amer- ica will look with favor upon the extension of an immediate loan sufficient in amount to meet the temporary requirements of the de facto Government of Mexico." That the Mexican Government recognized this as in the nature of a bribe for them to betray their country for the benefit of New York bankers, is plainly indicated by its reply: "Permit me, Mr. Confi- dential Agent, not to reply for the time being to the significant offer in which the Govefn- ment of the United States of America insinu- ates that it will recommend to American bank- ers the immediate extension of a loan which will permit us, among other things, to cover the innumerable urgent expenses required by the progressive pacification of the country; for CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 127 in the terms in which it is couched it appears more to be an attractive antecedent proposal to the end that, moved by petty interests, we should renounce a right which incontrovertibly upholds us at a period when the dignity of the nation is at stake. I believe that there are not loans enough to induce those charged by the law to maintain that dignity to permit it to be lessened." The American bankers, especially the Waters-Pierce Oil Company's bankers, would have welcomed an opportunity to make a loan to the Mexican government at the rate of ex- change then in force, with the assurance from President Wilson that he would back up this loan with the United States army. This would have trebled their money over night. The sug- gestion of this loan made by President Wilson and Mr. Lind after Mr. Wilson had established a financial blockade and forced all the foreign bankers to withdraw their aid from the Mexi- can government, may throw some light upon our administration's whole Mexican policy. The President seems to be thoroughly familiar with the power of money — banker's diplomacy — financial starvation. In conclusion we may ask, how much was Mr. Lind paid for his seven months' stay in Mexico? The President and his Secretary of 128 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO State have refused to inform the public of the amount. When Mr. Bryan was asked to ap- pear before the appropriation committee and inform them of the amount, he went on a Chau- tauqua tour. A subordinate appeared before that committee and informed them in sub- stance that it would not be compatible with public interest to disclose the amount, as it would create a public discussion at a time when the situation was delicate. We may safely presume that Lind did not sacrifice very much, and that the amount was large, other- wise there would have been no apprehension of a public discussion. GOVERNMENT BY HEADLINE. By Major Cassius E. Gillette So it comes about that any wealthy individ- ual or corporation can, by skillful press-agent work, mould public opinion on almost any subject without much regard to the true situa- tion. This is especially true if the matter con- cerns things with which few people are famil- iar. Publicity for the facts and arguments in favor of any propaganda can be purchased as readily as groceries, and the skillful publicity agent can so distribute the news that the un- wary headliner, who of necessity works in haste, will give undue prominence to almost any facts or ideas the press agent wishes. When the owners of the papers or those who manage its "policy" wish to develop public opinion along a particular line the possibilities are even more remarkable. * * Editors write glibly of the Huerta-Diaz con- spiracy against Madero. Curiously enough there was a conspiracy fully justified, to arrest him by a coup d'etat, but neither Felix Diaz nor General Huerta knew anything about it. Both were brought into the resulting fight later and on opposite sides. 130 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO From the time Madero started out on his career of colossal blunder, or colossal crime, he and his clique have maintained in the Hibbs building, Washington, a junta of Mexicans and press-agency of great ability and unlim- ited imagination, which has wholly misled American sentiment. That this misleading of public sentiment is at the behest of the Great American Oil mo- nopoly is strongly indicated. Whether the President was subconsciously moved by this probability to skip with abnormal alacrity to the leadership must be left to the reader's own conclusion. Unpopular, powerful interests fought in public may sometimes be secretly friendly to a public official who aids them "un- consciously" in matters treated altruistically. But the news of the day show the unfortu- nate plight in which the Wilson administra- tion has placed itself by acting suddenly on misinformation when it refused recognition to the Huerta government. This has driven the administration into the astounding position of encouraging, apparently with a view to recog- nition, the unspeakable Villa, whose recent statements and actions have satisfied the American people that he, personally, foully murdered William S. Benton, a very promi- nent subject of Great Britain. CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 131 At the present time this headline principle is more than usually potent in national affairs. While Secretary Bryan pushes his own ideas with vigor, albeit most of those ideas seem based on gallery play, President Wilson works on a totally different plan. What his personal convictions really are, nobody knows. He has written profusely on almost every known subject and a co-ordination of what he has said at different times puts him not on two sides of every question, but generally on three or more, the net result being a sort of nebulous straddle where it generally takes an analytical astronomical observer to distinguish the neb- ula from the halo of glittering generalities that surrounds it. But a critical examination of his acts as an executive and verbiage with which he accompanies them will show that he never pushes his own ideas at all, but waits till he finds out what he thinks will "go" and then backs it to the limit, throwing consistency to the winds if necessary to land the proposi- tion on which he has embarked. Even if he mistakes public opinion, he never reverses the lever. These ideas explain all his palpably inconsistent actions, and no other explanation will cover them. A striking example of almost unbelievable press-agenting, which started the Presidency 132 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO marching with set visage in the wrong di- rection, is the present awful struggle in Mexico. From 1821 down to Diaz's time in 1876, the country was always in a state of semi-anarchy, rebellion, and destruction; any renegade man of wealth could start an uprising by simply promising free land to the peons, which would give the squaws a better chance to work. Hun- dreds of such rebellions were started on this same pretext which were never carried out. The mentally unbalanced Madero lacked even the virtue of originality when he worked the time-honored scheme, and he made only one feeble attempt to carry it out. This was made through his brother Gustavo, who bought a large hacienda down in Morelos at twelve dol- lars an hectara and sold it to his brother's Government at thirty-six dollars for issue to the peons. The old fake had worked because in the long period of peace which Diaz started before Madero was born, people had forgotten the former history and Madero's revival of it fired a few minds beyond the peons. Madero made no effective step to stop the conflagration he had begun. Every bandit he started on the warpath, and that means ninety per cent of his followers, stayed right on in "rebellion'' against Madero and on down to the present moment. CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 133 That General Huerta is an honest old sol- dier, and not an assassin, traitor, bandit or usurper in any sense of those words, is easily- demonstrated. I have challenged all comers to a public debate on that subject and I can get no takers. LIND FOR BLOODSHED AND SUBTER- FUGE. The following communications were trans- mitted to Carranza by Sherburne G. Hopkins, the attorney of the Waters-Pierce Oil Com- pany: "April 30th, 1914. * * Lind, in private conversation with me last nig-ht, expressed approval course of chief in consenting to hear mediation proposals of the plenipotentiaries of Argentina, Brazil and Chile, but as to the ces- sation of hostilities which plenipotentiaries will next propose as preliminary to further negotiations, Lind could not see that revolu- tion would profit in any degree by agreeing to such proposals. Lind is opposed to compro- mise. In regard to embargo, Lind said Presi- dent hesitated to raise embargo at this time while mediation negotiations were pending, but added that if, meanwhile, pertrechos (mu- nitions of war) were exported from the United States to Cuba for trans-shipment to Mata- moros, or coast of Tamaulipas in schooners, he would give assurance that no obstacle would be placed in the way by Washington. Lind believes chief should immediately send person of his confidence to Vera Cruz." * * CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 135 Later: "Mr. Lind I consider a very practi- cal man, extremely prudent and always tact- ful. In conversation he is disposed to be reti- cent, yet what he says goes directly to the point. He has made a very careful study of the political situation in Mexico and I am con- vinced possesses a better knowledge of it than any other person in the service of this govern- ment. "He certainly has the complete confidence of President Wilson, who does not hesitate to communicate to him his private opinions and desires, but which I think he is very reticent to impart to Mr. Bryan, who is always dis- posed to take into consideration his own future political career in connection with every prob- lem or question with which he is confronted. "Mr. Bryan believes in peace at any price and would be disposed to make any conces- sion, whatever the cost, to avoid war, believ- ing, as he does, that the majority of the people of this country share his opinions, in which he is mistaken. The President entertains no such ideas, and there is therefore a lack of co-ordi- nation between the policy of the White House and that of the Department of State, and it is for this reason that Mr. Lind has been selected as the medium of communication between your confidential agent and the American gov- ernment.'' * * 136 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO "But in this I beg of you to remember al- ways that there is a person of high position at this capitol, who, to insure his own personal ends, is capable of trying to inspire discord among those who support you, in the hope of putting in your place as supreme chief of the revolution another person who would be more obedient to his desires. I am pleased to learn, however, that settled suggestions relating to this matter have not provoked much interest on the part of the person for whose ears they were intended, and it has been of great gratifi- cation to me to learn of the absolute loyalty of that person to you. At the same time I am convinced that President Wilson on his part is a firm believer in your capacity and in your eventual triumph." LETTERS. Hopkins to Pierce. April 21st, 1914. Henry Clay Pierce, New York City. Dear Mr. Pierce: Carranza continues to take good advice and remains discreetly silent. I think within a few days he will be so used to the situation that there will be no danger of embarrass- ment from that quarter. Villa and Angeles are with him today in conference on matter of general policy. I have written today to Car- ranza relative to oil matters, suggesting that steps be taken to allow business in that line to be freely resumed under guarantees of which you spoke last week. From what I know now I entertain no doubt relative to the triumph of the Constitu- tionalists' cause, provided, of course, that Car- ranza continues to stand pat. My friend Pani, who has arrived in Chihua- hua, is to be placed in charge of the railways of the north. Faithfully yours, S. G. HOPKINS. 138 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO Pierce to Hopkins. April 18th, 1914. S. G. Hopkins, Washington, D. C. Dear Captain: Referring to your letter of the 17th inst. with enclosures : Mr. Richards is in the coun- try this afternoon, but on Monday he will ad- vise you concerning the reference which you have kindly sent. Mr. Vasconcelos was to have seen me today, but he telephoned that he would come in on Monday. He told me the other day he was waiting to receive money from Carranza before going to Canada. The attorney of the Canadian parties told me yes- terday that Vasconcelos would be wasting his time to go to Canada, as their representatives and the parties to whom Vasconcelos should talk reside in New York, and consequently I have arranged to have the party come to my office Monday, and if after talking with him it seems best, I will have Vasconcelos meet him. Yours very truly, H. C PIERCE. Pierce to Hopkins. New York, May 7th, 1914. S. G. Hopkins, Washington, D. C. Dear Captain : Referring to your letter of May 6th: Yes- terday I tried to impress upon Mr. Vasconce- CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 139 los the necessity for prompt action on the part of his chief concerning railroad matters. * * * It is not necessary nor desirable to wait until the capture of Saltillo, San Luis Potosi, Tampico and Aguascalientes is ac- complished before undertaking the new organ- ization of the National Railways of Mexico. I have not the pleasure of Mr. Pani's acquaint- ance, but assuming that he is well fitted for the work in connection with Mr. Vasconcelos, who I am sure understands the situation and requirements, I should think their appoint- ment by Mr. Carranza to investigate and with power to arrange, and their early arrival here most desirable. Yours very truly, H. C. PIERCE. Hopkins to Pierce. April 29th, 1914. Henry Clay Pierce, New York City. Dear Mr. Pierce: I confirm conversation on the telephone of today, and beg to state that reports to the Navy Department indicate continued fighting in the streets of Tampico, but nothing indi- cates that there has occurred any damage to foreign property. I note that Mr. Galbraith 140 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO and your other employees at Galveston are to return to Tampico on a Danish steamer, and will wait there until it is safe to land, upon the fall of which city they will go on to Vera Cruz and commence operations in the refineries at that place. * * * I asked you to favor me with a remittance several days ago, and regret that I did not receive one this morning, I presume you must realize that my expenses in conducting the work that I have laid out for me, amount to a great many times my income and I have not, up to the present, felt like calling on Carranza for anything, because my prestige would be so much the greater in the end. I have been pressed with offer after offer of retainers dur- ing the last six weeks from various interests in Mexico. But up to the present time I have not accepted one cent from any of them, although I might have done so with perfect propriety. My sole object being to remain absolutely free from entanglements whatsoever, that I might better represent you upon the establishment of the new regime. I do not expect anything extravagant, but in laying the foundation, that I certainly am, for the protection of your in- terests, I think it is only fair that you should respond with promptness when I need funds, especially so when I am asking only what I CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 141 require for expenses. I have made such ex- traordinary sacrifices during the past twelve months that I feel the necessity for protecting myself in some degree. I had a draft to meet on the 28th inst., but managed to hold it over until tomorrow awaiting your advice. If you have not already sent me a check, I trust that you will give the matter your immediate con- sideration. Faithfully yours, S. G. HOPKINS. Hopkins to Pierce. May 6th, 1914. Henry Clay Pierce, New York City. Dear Mr. Pierce : I thank you for your remittance of the 2nd instant, of $500.00, and regret that you could not, for the moment, make it for $1,000.00, the amount needed. I trust, however, that within the next week or ten days you will be able to let me have the balance, since it is very impor- tant for me to have funds at this particular time. Faithfully yours, S^G. HOPKINS. Was oil responsible for President Wilson's Mexican policy? Did oil get up to the steps 142 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO of the White House — did it get into the White House? These are the questions that one nat- urally asks when he reads the communications which Sherburne G. Hopkins claims to have had with Mr. Lind — when he reads the Hop- kins-Pierce letters, taken from photographic copies, only a few of which I reproduce here. A committee of the United States Senate had been appointed during the latter part of Taft's administration to investigate the ques- tion: "Whether any persons, associations or corporations domiciled in or owing allegiance to the United States, have heretofore been, or are now engaged in fomenting, inciting, en- couraging or financing rebellion, insurrection or other flagrant disorders in Mexico." This committee never completed its work. It was forced to cease its investigation because of in- sidious influences under Wilson's adminis- tration. Senator Smith, the chairman of the committee, asked for more money to pay ex- penses. His request was refused by the Sen- ate, which President Wilson at that time abso- lutely domineered. Senator Smith informed President Wilson and Secretary Bryan of the underlying causes of the revolution, and laid before them the sensational facts in his pos- session. Neither seemed to be interested. CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 143 At the time that Senator Smith gave this advice to the President and his Secretary, they were in friendly relations with the rebel or- ganization in Washington, D. C. The attor- ney for this organization was Sherburne G. Hopkins. In order to retain these friendly relations with the President and his Secre- tary the rebel organization employed Charles A. Douglas, an old-time friend of Mr. Bryan. Mr. Douglas remained in this employment un- til after the overthrow of the Mexican govern- ment, and held frequent conferences with the Secretary of State. PRESIDENT HUERTA. William Lemke On account of the forced and fraudulent pub- lic opinion against President Huerta, I hesi- tate to say anything in his favor, but I can assure you that the truth will eventually be made known, and that his name will be hon- ored and revered long after his defamers are forgotten and rotten dust — future history will write his name large. This man, in spite of all the obstacles that were placed in his way by the Waters-Pierce Oil Company and the Wilson administration, did all in his power to protect the honor, life and property of all for- eigners, as well as that of the Mexican people. He did all in his power to exterminate and sup- press murder, rape and robbery. In passing judgment on this man, remember that in gov- erning sixteen million people, forty per cent of whom are pure Indians, and forty per cent more of whom are half-breeds, extraordinary measures are sometimes required, and especial- ly in war times. In the saying of Lincoln, "Necessity knows no law." Huerta was the constitutional President of Mexico. President Madero, and Vice Presi- dent Pino Suarez, resigned after they had CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 145 been arrested by order of the Mexican Con- gress. Their resignations were accepted by Congress, and Pedro Lascurain, Minister of Foreign Affairs, became President, according to article eighty-three of the Mexican consti- tution. Pedro Lascurain then appointed Gen- eral Huerta Minister of the Interior, with the approval of Madero's own former cabinet, and then resigned. His resignation was accepted by Congress, and thereupon, according to the Mexican constitution. General Huerta, Min- ister of the Interior, became the Constitutional President. All this was done in the interest of humanity and to prevent further bloodshed, and in order to put an end to the reign of terror brought on by Madero. General Huerta was considered the one man capable of handling the situation. President Huerta had no more to do with the shooting of Madero than did President Wilson. Madero was shot, as is generally sup- posed, through the influence of a father, whose son Madero had murdered. The mistake that Huerta made was that he did not have Madero publicly executed immediately after he was arrested. Our administration's press has lost no opportunity to parade in public the black veiled figure of Mrs. Madero for political ef- fect. No sympathy ever existed among the in- 146 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO telligent Mexicans for the Maderos. They re- membered the well filled treasury and the splendid credit of their country under Diaz, which departed with the Maderos. They mourned the hundreds of thousands of lives that have been lost during the last three years of strife, inaugurated by the powerful Madero family. They remembered the wanton slaughter of the little orphan children in front of the National Cathedral. They recalled the two hundred military cadets, who were shot down without a trial, by orders of Madero and his brother, Gustavo, in the National Palace. But let us not enumerate more of the awful crimes of Madero. In the words of an Amer- ican consul, "Let us be merciful to the dead, and say he was insane." President Wilson has been lauded for keep- ing us out of war. Nothing is further from the truth. Every act of his has brought us closer to war, and the end is not yet. Let us be fair. We are not now at war with Mexico, because General Huerta realized that the struggle would be useless, and did not resist when Wilson landed the marines at Vera Cruz. To Huerta, not to Wilson, belongs the credit. Huerta does not profess to be a puritan, but he is honest and does not parade in public for something that he is not. He has been called CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 147 a usurper by our President, and has been maligned and defamed by the subsidized oil press, but that is to his credit. Sometimes an honest man is known by the enemies he has made. PRESIDENT DIAZ'S RESIGNATION. Sir: The Mexican people, who generously covered me with honors, who proclaimed me as their leader during the international war, who patriotically assisted me in all works un- dertaken to develop the industry and the com- merce of the republic, establish its credit, gain for it the respect of the world and obtain for it an honorable position in the concert of na- tions; that same people, sir, has revolted in armed military bands, stating that my pres- ence in the exercise of the supreme executive power is the cause of this insurrection. I do not know of any fact imputable to me which could have caused this social phenom- enon, but permitting, though not admitting, that I may be unwittingly culpable, such a pos- sibility makes me the least able to reason out and decide my own culpability. Therefore, respecting as I have always respected the will of the people, and in accordance with Article 82 of the Federal Constitution, I come before the supreme representatives of the nation in order to resign unreservedly the office of Con- stitutional President of the Republic, with which the national vote honored me, which I CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 149 do with all the more reason since in order to continue in office it would be necessary to shed Mexican blood, endangering the credit of the country, dissipating its wealth, exhausting its resources, and exposing its policy to interna- tional complications. I hope, gentlemen, that when the passions which are inherent to all revolutions have been calmed, a more conscientious and justified study will bring out in the national mind a cor- rect acknowledgment, which will allow me to die, carrying engraved in my soul a just im- pression of the estimation of my life, which throughout I have devoted and will devote to my countrymen. With all respect, PORFIRIO DIAZ. ADDRESS BEFORE MEXICAN CONGRESS. By President Huerta. I am not going to call you deputies and sena- tors any more, but simply fellow citizens, Mexicans; we are face to face with a mission entrusted to us, with the eyes of the nation, nay of all humanity, upon us, and — let us admit it as well now as later — we are in the presence of God. I am a Liberal, but even so I am deeply re- ligious, and I call upon God to give us strength in the present situation. Circumstances have placed me at the helm, but I assure you that it will be the proudest moment of my life when I shall turn that responsibility over to the man elected by the Mexican people, and then take up the sword again as a good soldier for the honor of my country. We are all sons of the people, sons of a great people, and one that may yet be greater in the future. As the American statesman, Roose- velt, has said, this is not a Caucasian race. I am not a Caucasian, I am an Indian; but Roose- velt was right when he said that this nation has CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 151 produced great men and would some day be one of the greatest nations in the world. My boys, I call on you to put aside all personal am- bitions and grievances to work for the pacifica- tion of the country, and amid the dangers be- setting the ship of state I swear to you on my honor as a man and soldier that there is to be peace in this land even if bought at the cost of my life. WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN. William Lemke The rise and fall of William Jennings Bryan is unique in American history. A generation ago, Mr. Bryan conceived a cause — "a cause as holy as the cause of liberty — the cause of humanity." He lost himself in this cause, and thrice narrowly escaped being President. "The humblest citizen in all the land when clad in armour of a righteous cause is stronger than all the hosts of error" — than all the hosts of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company with their tainted and entrenched wealth and subsidized press. Unfortunately for Mr. Bryan, unfortu- nately for the American people, and unfortu- nately for that cause — the cause of humanity, Mr. Bryan became Secretary of State under the Wilson Administration. Where, sur- rounded by entrenched wealth and insidious influences he attempted to appropriate that cause — the cause of humanity — for his own political aggrandizement and personal gain, and Bryan's star began to descend. What a miserable figure he has been as Sec- retary of State. He not only brought dishonor to himself and disgrace to his party, but shamed the nation by his amateurish and boor- CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 153 ish performance. Bryan, the commoner, no longer was able to live on twelve thousand a year. He forgot that he was but the servant of the people, left his post of duty, and while American men were being murdered, and American women and children ravished in Mexico, he peddled the prestige of the high office of Secretary of State about on the Chautauqua platform at so much per day. As Champ Clark, an admirer of the former, but not of the latter day Bryan, has justly said: "It seems to me to be dishonest for a person to receive money from the government for per- forming his official duties, and then leave his post of duty to make money on the lecture platform." To cover up the administration's Mexican blunders, William Jennings Bryan deliberately, for political purposes, concealed the blood of the five hundred American citizens who were murdered and tortured to death by Villa and his kind — men, women and children, who had gone to Mexico to make their homes there upon the advice that Mr. Bryan publicly gave just a few short years ago. The concealing of the murder of these our fellow men, can never be justified. It is the first time in the history of nations that those in charge of a govern- ment — charged with the sacred duty of pro- 154 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO tecting its subjects, deliberately concealed the murder of its people in a foreign land, thus compounding an international felony. Forced to defend his position, Mr. Bryan raised his voice and joined the chorus of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company and its subsid- ized press, and shouted exploiters into the face of the unhappy Americans, who were unfor- tunate enough to have taken his advice to go into Mexico and find a home. Oh, what a change of the mighty Bryan, what a disap- pointment to the cause of humanity! ''The hardy pioneers, who 'had' braved all the dan- gers of the wilderness, who 'had' made the desert to blossom as the rose — the pioneers away 'down there in Mexico,' who reared their children near to nature's heart, where they 'could' mingle their voices with the voices of the birds, — 'down' there where they 'had' erected schoolhouses for the education of their young, churches where they praised their creator, cemeteries where rest the ashes of their dead" — murdered with the arms and am- munition furnished by the Wilson administra- tion to Villa and his followers. "These people we say are as deserving of the consideration of our 'nation' as any people in this country. It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of con- CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 155 quest; we are fighting in defense of our homes, our families and posterity. We have pe- titioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have begged, and *y^^> Mr. Bryan* have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy *you.' " We, the seventy-five thousand Americans, who have been wronged by you, will expose you. We will drag this whole Mexican scandal into the light of day. Former President Cleveland said: "The ad- ministration should act behind glass doors." Following this suggestion, Mr. Bryan repeat- edly demanded that President Taft make pub- lic the recommendations he had received to appoint Mr. White Chief Justice. Recently two thousand Americans in Mexico City sent a protest to Secretary Bryan, demanding that he make it public. Bryan refused, stating "that the matter was of such a character that he did not think the Department of State could take the responsibility of giving it publicity." Can Mr. Bryan answer why he felt it his duty to keep from the American public the fact that their citizens were being murdered in Mexico? The only reason he can give is that he con- sidered the political welfare of President Wil- 156 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO son and himself of greater moment than the lives of thousands of our citizens. He and the President actually rendered the nation instru- mental in ruining and destroying their fellow men. The author of "The Prince of Peace" feared the righteous wrath and the just indig- nation of the American people if they ever ob- tained the facts. Under fire, Mr. Bryan resigned and deserted his chief, after he had helped him to bring this nation to the very verge of war. No one ad- mires the particular kind of courage it takes to run rather than to stand by your guns, yet Mr. Bryan's resignation meets with universal approval. The public long ago realized that as Secretary of State he was a detriment to the nation. As Macaulay said of King Charles the First, so the friends of Mr. Bryan, like the friends of other wrongdoers against whom overwhelm- ing evidence is produced, decline all contro- versy about the facts, and content themselves with calling testimony to character. He has so many private virtues. He is a believer in peace at any price. Ample apologies for con- cealing the persecution and murder of Amer- ican citizens in Mexico. The man who stands idly by and sees his neighbor murdered and mutilated and shouts CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 157 peace is in a moral sense an accomplice of the crime. There is no peace while those of our own flesh and blood are being destroyed. We have had enough of this ignorance. If Mr. Bryan had lived in 1776, he would have as- sailed Patrick Henry for his speech on the "Resistance to Oppression." He would have been willing, for the sake of harmony, to sub- mit to taxation without representation. He would have insisted upon peace at any price. He would have been a Tory. He lacks the courage to stand for the eternal right, and to fight for it if necessary. Let us answer him by saying: "You shall not press down upon the brow of 'American women and children' this crown of 'disgrace.' You shall not crucify 'American women and children upon the Villa cross of shame.' "