the loss of nineteen of our brave sailors and marines, and if aggression and intervention had been our aim we could have easily seized the railroad to Mexico City and occupied the capital.

"The menacing attitude of the Mexican troops surrounding our force of occupation at Vera Cruz made hostilities appear imminent, and again the strongest kind of pressure was brought to bear upon the President to intervene, that we should go into Mexico and take matters into our own hands. This is the one thing that the President has set his face against from the first. It is the thing to which this administration is opposed so long as any other hope holds out."

"But, Mr. Secretary," I asked, "could not the United States have done in Mexico what it did in Cuba?"

"No," said Mr. Lane, "we could not. That is a very common delusion, but the Mexican situation is not at all that which we met in Cuba. We went in there at the request of the revolutionists and after the Maine had been sunk in Havana harbor, and such authority as there was in Cuba had thus evidenced its hostility. We could go in and did go in there with some heart, fighting alongside of the revolutionists against a monarchy, but we could not go in with any heart to fight against the Mexicans who are struggling to find a way to popular government. But to return to the facts:

"We had sought to bring to our sympathetic support all of the South American countries. They also were anxious for a settlement of this trouble upon some basis that would safeguard the interests of Mexico and conserve that unity which is the soul of the great Pan American movement. Some of them thought that they saw a greedy hand from the north reaching down with no benevolent purpose, and if it laid hold of Mexico none of them knew but that it might be their turn next.

"This fear of the big brother is a very real one in Latin America. They do not know us intimately; they are suspicious of our motives. They think of the Mexican War of 1846 as an unjustifiable aggression on our part; they think of the Panama incident as a robbery; they misconstrue our purpose in Santo Domingo, and in Nicaragua, and they do not trust us. They fear that the spirit of imperialism is upon the American people and that the Monroe Doctrine may be construed some day as a doctrine that will give the whole Western Hemisphere to the United States; that it is a doctrine of selfishness and not a doctrine of altruism.

"Those who are familiar with the feeling of the South and Central American countries toward the United States know that just at that time, when our forces occupied Vera Cruz, a very intense fear had

seized upon Latin America. They believed in their hearts that we were on our march southward and that the President's Mobile speech and other generous utterances of the same sort were to be taken in a Pickwickian sense.

"When they presented a plan of mediation, the United States had no choice but to accept it. Indeed, if we had refused to accept it, Latin America would have been justified in doubting our good faith. No one that I am aware of, either Republican or Democrat, has ever criticized the President for accepting the mediation of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, and abiding strictly by the agreement reached at Niagara Falls.

"By the protocols there signed on June 23, 1914, the United States agreed that the selection of a provisional and constitutional President be left wholly to the Mexicans, and we guaranteed our recognition of them when chosen. This made clear our desire not to interfere in any way in the settlement of Mexico's domestic troubles, and as a further proof of our disinterested friendship for the Mexican people the United States agreed not to claim any war indemnity or other international satisfaction from Mexico. We had gone to Vera Cruz 'to serve mankind.' Our only quarrel was with Huerta, and Huerta got out on July 16, 1914. Our forces were withdrawn from Vera Cruz on November 23 following.

"Three days after Huerta left Mexico Villa began levying taxes on his own authority, and it was plain that the successful revolutionists would soon be fighting between themselves. Both Carranza and Villa agreed to a conference at Aguascalientes, and it was stipulated that no soldiers were to be there; but Villa turned up with an armed force that terrorized the convention and prevented it from recognizing Carranza, and in a short while open warfare began between the two factions.

"Villa and Carranza had broken, and there was a double sovereignty claimed even on our border in northern Mexico. Things were going from bad to worse, and it was suggested in the Cabinet that there should be some determination by the United States as to which of the rival claimants to power in Mexico as leader of a successful revolution should be recognized as a de facto government.

"Secretary of State Lansing thereupon called a conference of the representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Guatemala and asked them, from their knowledge of the situation-for a considerable portion of the information in the hands of the United. States came through the representatives of these countries in Mexicoto co-operate with him in the determination of the claimant to be

recognized. These six Latin-American Catholic countries unanimously recommended the recognition of Carranza, and in furtherance of our Pan American policy this recognition was at once given by the United States and Latin America.

"Since Carranza's recognition we have seen Americans who have gone into Mexico on peaceful errands murdered; we have seen our own towns upon the border raided and Americans slain on American soil. These outrages prompted President Wilson to send our troops into Mexico, and this course cannot be otherwise construed than as a recognition of the fact that the de facto Government of Mexico, recognized by ourselves and by other nations, is not fulfilling the duty which one Government owes to another.

"We are in Mexico to-day, and how long we shall stay and how far we shall go depends upon the policy and the power to keep the peace of the Carranza Government, but we shall go no further than we have gone until every effort to secure effective Mexican co-operation fails."

Then Mr. Lane proceeded to an examination of the principles governing the policy of the United States toward Mexico and of the needs of the Mexican people. He said:

"There are things that a democracy must always be willing to fight for. But what thing is there that any American can say we ought to be willing to fight for in Mexico? Is it because railroads built with American capital have been damaged, that mines have been shut down, or even that American citizens have been killed by outlaws and bandits?

"All those things we can and do very much regret, but who will say they are great principles for which a democracy should be willing to sacrifice the blood of its sons? Who can formulate out of the whole history of the past six years any other determination than this: That we should resist the temptation to fight where pride and interest move us in that direction, and that we should and will fight when we are attacked and when we find no other means by which our interests can be safeguarded and Mexico be given any hope of itself?

"We have been on the edge of war with Mexico several times in the last three years, but each time, before the determination was made that we should discard our hopes, there has opened some way by which reasonable men might expect that Mexico could prove herself able to take care of her own problems. The one man who can justifiably criticize President Wilson for his Mexican policy is the man who honestly believes that Mexico cannot be brought to stability of government and responsibility except through the exercise of outside force. That

man is consistent, and the only criticism I have to make of him is a criticism of his judgment.

"There is no question that we could easily overrun Mexico. I believe we could do it with a comparatively few men, although we would have a united Mexico against us. There would be no glory in such a war, and there is not one man in ten thousand in this country who really wants such a war. It would be repugnant to every American tradition and would discourage the friendship of every other American nation. Of course we could conquer Mexico, and after a good deal of guerrilla warfare we could bring Mexico to a state of quiet.

"Then we could hold her while we administered to her the medicine that we believe she needs. We could have what we call a general cleaning up, the rebuilding of her railroads, of her wagon roads, the construction of sewers for her cities, the enforcement of health regulations, and all the other things that go to make up the outward and visible signs of order and good government.

"But don't you see that the peace we would bring would be a peace imposed by force, the government we would give to Mexico would be the kind of government that we have and which makes life tolerable to us in our communities? Its standards would not be Mexican standards, its ideals would not be Mexican ideals, its genius would not be Mexican genius. The moment we withdrew from Mexico there would be a return after a very short time to Mexican standards.

"What Mexico really needs and must be allowed to do is to raise her own standards; it is to give herself a cleaning up by herself. That is bound to take time, but in no other way can Mexico get a government that will be expressive of her own ideals, that will be expressive of some aspiration of her own as to what her civilization should be, and in this we want to be of help to Mexico if she will allow us to do so.

"The Mexican problem, as a problem, depends upon your attitude toward other peoples. Mexico is a land to conquer, and the Mexican people are a people to be conquered and subordinated and the country and its resources made ours, if you look upon a smaller and less highly civilized country as a proper object of exploitation. On the other hand, Mexico is a country out of which something greater can be made, and the Mexican people are a people who have possibilities and can be helped to become a self-governing nation, and if you take that attitude toward Mexico you are bound to sympathize with their struggle upward.

"In other words, where we find that conditions justify revolution, if we think it our business to go in and work the revolution to our profit, we must condemn the President's policy; but if, where we find conditions justify revolution, we want to give that revolution a chance to work out from the inside, we must hold up his hands.”

"What are the things that Mexico needs, Mr. Secretary?" I asked. "What is necessary for a return to peace and order?" Mr. Lane said:

"The things that Mexico needs are few, but they are fundamental. A land-tax system which will make it impossible to hold great bodies of idle land for selfish reasons and which will make it unnecessary for the Government to sell concessions in order to support itself. A school system by which popular education may be given to all the people as it is given in the United States. If Diaz had done this, as he promised, he would have created an active public opinion in Mexico which would have made present conditions impossible.

"Along with the primary schools should go agricultural schools in which modern methods of agriculture should be taught. The army might well be used as a sanitation corps, so as to insure against the recurrence of those plagues which so affect trade relations with Mexico and the health of her people. With these things, Mexico would be well started on her way toward that better era which her more intelligent revolutionists thought she had reached in the early days of the Diaz administration, some forty years ago.

"Everyone in Mexico is united upon the proposition that the present land system is based upon privilege and is unjust. I have talked with twenty of the wealthiest and most intelligent men who belonged to the Diaz régime. All have admitted the fact. Some have even volunteered the statement that Mexico is in a feudal state, and that the land belongs to great proprietors, who work the peons and keep them in a semi-slave condition. If the facts were better realized, the people of the United States would not stand for the labor conditions that exist in Mexico, and for the peonage, which is only a form of slavery. I have some personal knowledge of these conditions.

"One morning ten years ago I was on a coffee finca-a great estate high up in the Sierra Madre-and I asked a peasant who labored from sunrise to sunset what he was getting for his day's work. His answer was 60 cents in Guatemalan money, which was equal to 10 cents gold. Here was a strong, able-bodied agricultural laborer earning $3 a month. I asked him why he did not go down to the railroad, where the American contractors would pay him 50 cents or more a day. His answer was, 'I would not be from here one mile before Don