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often monotonous single register of utter

ance.

The conflict between the critic for the "Times" and this theatrical producing firm has started another discussion of that timehonored subject, "The Rights of the Press."

THE MEXICAN THORN

Mr. Caspar Whitney's series of articles. which begins in this number deals with a country which the people of the United States seem for the time being to have forgotten. Mexico is next door to us; but just now she seems farther away than Belgium or even Servia. Less than a year ago we were hearing about Huerta and Carranza and Villa. These figures stood well in the foreground. To-day they have receded and their places have been taken by Albert of Belgium, Hindenburg, Bernhardi, Joffre, French, Kitchener, and the rest. Absorbing as the European war is, however, we have no business to forget Mexico—we have no right to ignore our nearest neighbor on the south.

And it is certain that if we do forget we shall have later a reminder that we may not relish. To forget Mexico is to forget our own people there. We have no right to do that. To forget Mexico is to forget the rights of Europeans there. We have entered into obligations to those Europeans so direct that we have no right to forget them. When the European war is over, we shall still find Mexico at our door. And what has been happening in Mexico in the meantime will have more and more closely involved us. Just now Americans are inclined to a feeling of self-satisfaction that this country has avoided entanglement in the European conflict.

But if we let matters go on in Mexico as they have been going on, we may find ourselves entangled with European countries because of our own heedlessness. Just at present the nations of Europe have all they can do.

When the war is ended, however, they will be freer to think of what has been happening to their people in Mexico. They will have a chance to think what it means for the United States to deny to these countries the right to interfere with Mexico and at the same time for the United States to decline to interfere herself.

This is why we are publishing these articles by Mr. Whitney. It is not because

Americans are thinking about Mexico; it is rather because Americans ought to be thinking about Mexico.

For over two years Mexico has been in a state of, not civil war, but anarchy. The right of revolution is an inalienable right, and no lover of liberty would wish to deny to the Mexican people the right of securing liberty through the means of revolution if necessary; but it is no longer revolution that is wasting the people of Mexico, endangering the lives of Americans there and of other foreign residents, to say nothing of the damage to property; it is a factional struggle between contentious and jealous leaders that bears no sign of promise for the Mexican people or for the future of the Mexican Government. It is anarchy-the opposite of government, the destruction of government. A state of real revolution is preferable to a state of unresisted despotism; but a state of anarchy is not only worse than revolution, it is worse than despotism itself.

In this state of affairs the United States has a real interest. In it are involved the United States' rights.

First, there is involved the right of this country to protect its own citizens wherever they are. This is a right which no civilized country can afford to forego. If Americans in any case have justly incurred the antagonism of Mexicans, the matter ought to be investigated; but the fact that an American goes to Mexico to better his own conditions, to make money by legitimate industry or legitimate enterprise, does not deprive him of his rights as an American citizen to the protection of the American Government.

Second, there is involved the right of this country to protect those Europeans who have residence and property in Mexico. The United States has this right because it has the obligation to do so. By the Monroe Doctrine the United States has served notice to other countries that they are not to interfere in the internal affairs of the republics on this hemisphere. They cannot protect their citizens under such circumstances as exist in Mexico without interfering in the internal affairs of Mexico. Since we have denied these European countries this right, we have placed upon ourselves a corresponding obligation. And wherever an obligation exists. there exists also the right to meet it.

There

is therefore involved in this situation the right of this country to protect Europeans.

Third, there is involved in this situation the

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1915

THE MEXICAN THORN

right of the United States to stamp out in its neighborhood what may be calied contagious anarchy. The man whose next-door neighbor allows conditions to exist which breed pestilence has a right to insist that his neighbor clean up. There is no pestilence more perilous than anarchy. We cannot, in justice to ourselves and to our children, permit that menace to remain near at hand.

Fourth, there is involved in the Mexican situation the right of a strong people to rescue a weak people. The United States exercised that right when it interfered with the despotic rule of Weyler in Cuba, and by intervention and war rescued Cuba, and, to our own astonishment, the Philippines. The Mexican people have always been a peculiarly defenseless people against all forms of greed, rapacity, and tyranny. Temperamentally peaceable, they have never been able to overcome those who have lived upon them. As is always the case with a weak but rebellious people, their only recourse has been to futile violence and the chance rewards of banditry. They have been by their oppressors educated into a state of ignorance. They are predominantly illiterate. They are easily made the dupes of ambitious and unscrupulous political agitators, from whom they have taken refuge by yielding themselves to the of an occasional and equally unscrupumercy lous despot. If ever a weak people needed the services of a strong people, the Mexicans need the services of the people of the United States.

And with such plain rights there are three courses which the United States may pursue.

In the first place, the United States may waive her rights (which means that she must repudiate her obligations) and consistently decline to interfere. The justification for such a course can be based only upon the theory that the Mexicans should fight it out This is the course which, among themselves. strange to say, is advocated by both President Wilson and General Huerta. In his Indianapolis speech President Wilson said :

Until this recent revolution in Mexico, until the end of the Diaz régime, eighty per cent of the people of Mexico never had a "look-in" in determining who should be their governors, or what their government should be. Now, I am for the eighty per cent. It is none of my business and it is none of your business how long they take in determining it. It is none of my business and it is none of your business how they go about the business. The country is

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theirs. The government is theirs. The liberty, if they can get it-and God speed them in getting it is theirs. And so far as my influence goes, while I am President nobody shall interfere with them. . ..

Have not 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 to Mexico because she is weak? No, I say.

This definite policy of non-interference is agreed to by the man whom President Wilson declined to recognize and finally ousted from the Mexican presidential chair-General Victoriano Huerta. In an article printed

in the New York "Times" of April 25, General Huerta says: "The thing for every one outside of Mexico to do is to stand aside, as everybody stood aside at the time of your Civil War, and let Mexico fight her battle out as best she can in her own way."

This policy of non-interference, which might equally well be called either the Huerta policy or the Wilson policy, is one which has in fact never been followed, but it is nevertheless logical and intelligible.

In the second place, the United States might conceivably undertake to invade Mexico and conquer the Mexican people. In order to do that, the United States would have to create a great army and face a long and bitter guerrilla warfare. General Huerta says that it would take millions of men to do it. Though it would take no such force, this point need not be debated, as the people of the United States, we believe, will never be willing to form an army for any such purpose. This is not a policy which is advocated by any leader of public opinion in America, and is quite out of the question. It is, however, a perfectly logical and intelligible policy.

In the third place, the United States might undertake to occupy Mexico with a force that might be called a police force, and to perform there the essential functions of government, including education, until the people found themselves and became able to carry on a free and orderly government of their own. This would not be invasion and conquest, although it might and probably would involve the sending of trained and seasoned troops to certain strategic points and gradual extension of military occupancy that would incidentally involve unquestionably some fighting and bloodshed. How different this is, however, from conquest may be seen by com

paring what the Germans have done in Belgium with what our American sailors and soldiers did in Vera Cruz. In the one case there was military conquest; in the other, military occupation. In the one case a resisting people were overcome and put down; in the other case such resistance as was offered was put down as a riot would be put down, but the people themselves found the occupation beneficial and welcomed it. The experience that we had in Vera Cruz is proof sufficient for us that such occupation of Mexico would not be impracticable. We believe, and what happened in Vera Cruz confirms the belief, that the Mexican people want order rather than anarchy, welcome cleanliness rather than disorder and filth, prefer liberty under law to the enchaining slavery of fear that is the only semblance of order which now obtains in Mexico. Wherever our soldiers and sailors have gone they have made, not enemies, but friends. In return for the resistance that they have met they have given good government. There is no question that when our forces voluntarily left Vera Cruz they left behind them no love in the hearts of ambitious Mexican politicians, but friendliness in the hearts of those Mexican people who knew them. What we succeeded in doing in Vera Cruz on a small scale is what we mean by the policy of intervention and occupation in Mexico on a large scale. This is a perfectly logical and intelligible policy.

These three courses-non-interference, invasion, and occupation-are mutually inconsistent. Any one of them could be conceivably followed. The United States has followed none. Rather, under the present Administration, it has been attempting to follow each one by turns. We have preached non-interference, and have interfered by ousting Huerta and by occupying Vera Cruz. We have made what could only be understood by the Mexicans as a threat of invasion and conquest by mobilizing on the Mexican border and by sending warnings to men supposedly in authority in Mexico, but we have not followed up our warnings, and our threats have proved futile and empty. We tried friendly and firm occupation, and our attempt succeeded; and then at a critical moment, when occupation was most needed for the protection of our own citizens, for the protection of Europeans, and for the protection of the Mexicans themselves, we withdrew. We have followed no course con

sistently. We have dallied with one policy after another. We have been vacillating, and we have plumed ourselves that we have kept out of war.

Some day the United States will have to adopt the third policy of occupation. The larger part of wisdom, it has been said, con sists in being wise in time. It is too late for us to be as wise as we ought to have been. Our withdrawal from Vera Cruz was a blunder of the first magnitude. But it is never too late to do what ought to be done, although tardiness may be costly in treasure and even in life.

Some day the United States will have to take the lead in seeing that government replaces anarchy in Mexico and that the people have a chance against both the anarchy of political factionists and the despotism of greed and might. It would have been better if our occupation had been undertaken after consultation with such stable countries in this hemisphere as Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. That we might have had their co-operation is proved by the fact that these three countries did offer themselves as mediators when we allowed ourselves to enter into altercation with a single Mexican general. It is perhaps now too late to gain the co-operation of those countries, for the seeking of their co-operation might easily be misinterpreted as a request that they help us out of difficulties. It would have been simpler and easier if we had sought their cooperation before we had created those difficulties. Perhaps we can have their cooperation still. With their co-operation or without it, we must some time make it our business to meet our obligations and exercise our rights by doing for Mexico what we have done for Cuba and for the Philippines.

Frankly, we see little hope for the adoption of this policy by the present Administration. Committed to theoretical nonintervention by the words of President Wilson, committed to a policy of interference without effectiveness by what President Wilson has done in the case of Huerta and Vera Cruz, this Administration is not likely, we fear, to adopt any consistent and continuous course. We address ourselves here, not to the Administration, but to those of the American people whom we can reach, that they may make up their minds as to what policy they shall pursue, and that they may decide definitely how that policy shall be carried out.

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Ideath of the soul. Wherever the spirit of materialism has established itself music has become hard, brilliant, soulless; it has made women temptresses and men the creatures of passion; it has dethroned romance, put moral anarchy in place of the idealism which has made art the refuge and joy of humanity since the beginning of time; it has dramatized lust and exalted selfishness as the supreme law of society.

To art, painting, and sculpture it has brought discord, agitation, eccentricity, a pervading sense of the futility of life; it has reveled, not in nudity which is innocence and purity, but in nakedness which is self-consciousness, lustful, and destructive of that reverence for men and women which preserves society from corruption. Art without idealism, reverence, faith, love, is a body without a soul; it breeds corruption.

The super-man is an ominous figure; but he will not survive the spirit of brotherhood and the passion for the religious spirit in social organization which is coming into the world; the deflection of the progress of women from the unfolding of the Christian ideals to the development of material efficiency, if it could be accomplished, would be a reversion to the age of iron. Humanity has no more deadly enemy than the super-man who is the incarnation of materialism; the birth of the superwoman would be the death of religion, beauty, love, purity, happiness.

AN IMPERIAL MYSTERY

For years past it has been the habit of many foreigners and not a few Englishmen to talk about the decline of English power, the slow subsidence of a national energy which has been one of the great forces for civilization in every quarter of the globe; and so late as July last civil war seemed to many to threaten the stability of the Empire. To-day that Empire is a far-flung battle line" that circles the globe. Great Britain has often been short-sighted and selfish in her foreign policies, illogical and haphazard in her home legislation; her national manner has often been arrogant, and her attitude toward other nations ungenerous and unsympathetic.

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But she has been a leader in the fight for democracy. Wherever she has gone she has opened doors instead of closing them, she has shouldered great responsibilities, and has shown herself capable of dealing justly with

great populations subject to her rule. Above all, she has learned from her mistakes and has responded to the growing urgency of the moral sentiment of her people. Faulty, illogical, politically loose-jointed, she has been and is a great force for human betterment in the world.

We have seen no more forcible statement of the mechanical weakness and inward power of the British nation than the following editorial published some time ago in the St. Louis "Republic;" by the courtesy of its editor we reprint it here as a real contribution to the literature which interprets present conditions in England as related to Europe:

"Whenever Germany and France, with their highly centralized and logically wrought out governments, have contemplated the fabric known as the British Empire, they have smiled smiles of disdain.

"If ever there was an instance of 'muddling along' through decades and even centuries, taking things for granted, avoiding issues, extemporizing expedients, and working always for the object immediately in view, with scant reference to any principle of outward consistency, it is supplied by the history of the making of the British Empire. This is a strange gathering together of Crown colonies, dominions, protectorates, a commonwealth, dependencies-and India. India is directly ruled by the Crown. Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man are governed under their own laws, but certain officials are appointed by the Crown. Canada and Australia are both self-governing, but the Senators in Canada are appointed by the GovernorGeneral, while those of Australia are elected. There is a Secretary of State for India in the King's Cabinet. And all gradations of selfgovernment may be found in the more than ninety units of the British Empire.

"This fearful and wonderful fabric has no central body. There is no Bundesrath or Imperial Council. No collective action of its units is possible.

The relation to them of the mother country is illogical, ill defined. To the foreigner, accustomed to the federation of the American States or of the units of the German Empire, the government looks planless and ineffective.

"All of which is preliminary to the observation that there is not at the present moment any more effective institution in the whole world of political fabric than the British Empire. Whatever its machinery lacks ap

pears to be supplied by its spirit. The defects of its body are made up for by the unity of its soul.

"The fact cannot be gainsaid that England, which does not begin to be as logical as Germany or as systematic as France in matters of government, has nevertheless the knack of making men step out of their own free will to die in her defense. She has the gift of keeping alive, across tumbling seas, round half a world, the undying bond that unites the heart to home. She has shown herself indifferent to the possession of the taxing power over her colonies; but what matters it? Those colonies willingly tax themselves to send her war-ships and their sons seize their rifles in time of strife to go to her aid. She has the wisdom so to train and guide the swarthy children of alien races, and even the foes of yesteryear, that they put their living bodies between England and England's enemies.

"As we contemplate this wonder of an Empire which is an empire of the spirit, an Empire whose philosophy of politics is all wrong, but for which the costliest things within the gift of man are poured out without stint, we are moved to wonder whether this is a prophecy of the future.

"We do not want to seem to degrade a high theme; but English plum pudding holds the key to the mystery.

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English plum pudding never saw the day when it was worth the eating. It is soggy; it is greasy; it is flavorless; it tastes like the roller composition, compact of glue and molasses, which every country printer knows. It is unworthy of the good fruit spoiled in its making and the good spirit burned beneath it when it is brought to the Christmas board. It will not compare with the dark suet pudding of Missouri. Yet English plum pudding is eaten on Christmas not only from Land's End to John o' Groat's House, but in Manitoba, in Khartum, on the sides of the Himalayas, under the orange groves of New Zealand, where December is June, and in the blistering humidity of the Straits Settlements. Why? We cannot tell. But eaten it is. And English hearts, from London to Melbourne and back again, answer to the strains of "God rest you, merry gentlemen," and English eyes grow dim with happy tears.

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