senting obstacles to our labor; and if it is an enemy and is bent on creating constant difficulties for us, should at once proceed to declare open war on us and force us to accept a painful, prolonged; and bloody struggle in which you will suffer nearly as much as we. National dignity does not permit us to accept foreign commissions to manage our finances, and, on the other hand, we have enough capable men and enough natural resources to work out our own salvation if we can only devote ourselves exclusively to it, without losing any more time and strength in combating difficulties artificially piled up in our way by foreign Powers. The Constitutionalist army has captured in battle with rebels arms and ammunition straight from American factories, and it is well known that the enemies of the Mexican Government plot and connive and distribute their propaganda in American cities with the absolute toleration of the American authorities."

The last question was frankly political. "What do you expect, or what does Mexico expect, would result from the election of Hughes in the United States ?"

"It is well known," was the reply, "especially since the Presidency of Mr. Roosevelt, that the Republican party in the United States is imperialistic-that is to say, it is aggressive, and is given-to invading weak countries in pursuance of its international policies, while the Democratic party is more moderate and restrained in this respect. Nevertheless, the downright acts of the Democratic party do not seem to confirm this theory. But, indeed, I cannot say whether Mexico can expect from the Republican candidate any better treatment than she has had from the Democratic President.

"I can say, however, that in case the imperialistic reputation of the Republican party should be confirmed, I would prefer frank aggression from Mr. Hughes to the doubtful friendship of Mr. Wilson."

SOLDIER ON ACTS AND
WORDS

With the typewritten copy of General Gon. zales's replies to my questionnaire I sought the most influential men in the de facto Government to get their approval or condemnation of Don Pablo's opinions. Of course either approval or condemnation of such radical remarks would be news.

General Alvaro Obregon, Secretary of War, the untutored soldier who drove Huerta

from Mexico City, and who later broke the power of the Conventionist party and the boastful Villa-Zapata alliance, was taking his siesta in the courtyard of Chapultepec Castle. Aroused from his doze, he came forward to greet me, clad in what he called his "undress uniform. It was very undress indeed, consisting of tan leather slippers, white silk socks, tan military trousers, and a gray coat sweater. Even handicapped by that garb, he was a fine figure of a man, strong, erect, commanding. A frequent twinkle in his clear hazel eyes, something about the angle of his nose, and the way he squared his elbows when he talked seemed to suggest the Irish blood which he is said to have.

The enemies of Obregon say that his chief fault is a swaggering impetuosity, but on this occasion he was modest, contained, and very diplomatic. He said that he had not seen the newspaper publications of the remarks of the man who is supposed to be his closest rival for succession to the power that is now Carranza's, and he apologized because "I don't get time to read the newspapers." When asked for his opinion on political affairs, he continually protested that he was a soldier, not a politician, and would veer the discussion to machine guns or the question of the best salve for horses' feet. But when pressed for a statement of his approval or disapproval of the essential criticisms of President Wilson uttered by Gonzales, he hesitated a moment, and then said, quickly :

"Wilson made a grave mistake when he sent General Pershing's expedition across the border. He should have held back his force long enough to have permitted us to arrange to co-operate with Pershing.

"Another complaint we have to make about Wilson is that his Government tolerates the secret shipment of munitions to Villa, Zapata, and other Mexican bandits.

"But the greatest failing of President Wilson is that his acts so seldom coincide with his words. Wilson makes too many declarations which have no facts behind them. You need not examine his Mexican policy for substantiation of this; just look at the record of his dealings with Germany."

THE PISTOL AT MEXICO'S HEAD

Candido Aguilar, who holds the office of Secretario de Relaciones, an office equivalent to Secretary of State in our Government, is a self-made man. Because of this fact he is often the butt of the wit of a certain class of

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Americans in Mexico, who, it must be admitted with shame, seem to lose in a foreign country all admiration for such democratic principles and traditions as they profess to cherish as a priceless heritage when they are at home.

Aguilar is not one of the most brilliant thinkers in Mexico, but he is a representative member of a small group of surprisingly intelligent and creditable men whom Carranza has gathered about him as his immediate advisers. It is the presence in office of Aguilar and others like him which gives foundation for the silly taunt of some Americans that the Mexican revolution "is a revolution of mozos." The word mozo covers a multitude of unskilled occupations described by a number of words in English. In general, though, it means a man-servant engaged to do all kinds of menial work about a house. Mr. Aguilar was indeed a mozo in the State of Vera Cruz before the revolution. The more credit to him therefor! The revolution is indeed a revolution of mozos. That is to say, for all its plans gone astray, for all its many false leaders, for all its unthinking adherents and its engrafted motives of loot and banditry, the Mexican revolution was, and still is, the expression of a genuine and widespread need of social reform.

But to come back to Aguilar. Even the Americans who one moment refer with pride to a certain rail-splitter who became President of the United States, and the next moment taunt Aguilar with his mozo past-even these Americans admit that Aguilar wears his evening clothes as well as any European diplomat. And better than the average diplomat he talks. He is polite, engaging, and very frank.

For instance, in regard to the Pershing expedition he admitted, what General Gonzales would not admit, that our invasion of Mexico had greatly injured the Carranza Government in the eyes of the Mexican people.

"The effect of the Pershing expedition has been not only to foster the very sort of banditry which it was intended to stamp out," he said, "but at the same time it has hurt the Mexican Government with the masses of the population, who have asked why the Government has not driven out the invaders. And it has also greatly increased popular enmity towards Americans, so that in total its effect has been that of a boomerang. It has hurt the very governments and parties which it was calculated to help, and assisted

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the very factions which it was intended to injure.

"The invasion of Vera Cruz by the Americans had the same sort of effect," Secretary Aguilar continued. "The Mexican people naturally felt that the invasion was an infraction of their national rights and was not part of a mere private quarrel between the United States and Huerta, as President Wilson declared."

The Secretary stopped and looked at me keenly. "I am talking to you pretty frankly, and I have a reputation for taciturnity among the reporters," he said; "but the First Chief knows The Outlook well and he believes it intends to be fair and is ready to tell both sides of any question. Much of the trouble between the United States and Mexico has been due to misunderstandings. All that honest and intelligent Mexicans want is that the truth shall be told."

He paused again, as if to get his direction, and then continued, more rapidly :

"The Mexican people are grateful to President Wilson for understanding, as President Taft did not, that the revolution in Mexico is a genuine social movement. They are grateful to Wilson for his intelligence and his courage in refusing to recognize Huerta. But they feel that Wilson's policy has at times been marked by vacillation and double dealing, or, at least, that his words and his deeds have not always been reconcilable with each other. What Mexico wants from the American President, whatever his name may be, is a policy that is firm, frank, consistent, and constructive. Mexico would even prefer open and honest hostility to false friendship.

"Wilson's policy has made Mexico feel like a man at whom is pointed a loaded and cocked pistol and who is kept in this uncomfortable and uncertain position for a long and nerve-racking period. If the trigger is to be pulled, the man would prefer to have it done at once, so that the worst would be over quickly. But, naturally, he would prefer to have his enemy put away the gun and become an honest friend."

This interview with Secretary Aguilar took place in his office in the Relaciones building in Mexico City on the morning of October 17. I was given to understand that I was receiving an authorized interview with carte blanche to quote the Secretary's remarks, for, he said, as above recorded, "I am talking to you pretty frankly, .. but the First Chief knows The Outlook well and he believes

it intends to be fair and is ready to tell both sides of any question.' On the evening of October 18, three hours before I left Mexico City for the United States, a friend of Mr. Aguilar's came to me with the message that "the Secretary hoped " I would not use much of the interview" until after the election in the United States, for he feared that his remarks might be considered indiscreet if published before November 7." But if I would promise not to publish this interview until after election the Secretary would send me a statement much stronger and much more startling to be used later." I replied that the news value of the interview would lie in its immediate use, and that I would have to use my own judgment about holding it.

A despatch published in the New York "World" of October 18 seems to contain the explanation for Secretary Aguilar's change of mind. Speaking of the interview which General Gonzales gave me as published above, and which, as already explained, leaked out in part, and was fragmentarily published in the "World," the despatch, dated "Atlantic City, October 17," says:

"After reading the interview, in which General Gonzales, purporting to speak for the Carranza Government, virtually declared that President Wilson is a hypocrite and that he would prefer direct aggression from Hughes to the doubtful friendship of President Wilson, Dr. Cabrera (the head of the Mexican Commission at Atlantic City) sent a long cable to Secretary of War (it should be Secretary of Foreign Relations) Aguilar, asking an explanation." The parentheses are my own.

So doubtless it was the realization of the full extent of the commotion which the remarks of Gonzales had caused which made Aguilar desire the recall of his own state

ments.

General Venustiano Carranza, however, up to the time that this article goes to press, has made no effort to recall his statements of the same tenor as those of Gonzales, Obregon, and Aguilar, nor, so far as I am aware, has he given duplicate interviews to other periodicals or papers than The Outlook. this very consistency and self-restraint the First Chief proves that he is an unusual Mexican.

And, speaking seriously, the First Chief is an unusual Mexican. I am frank. to confess that when I saw him guiding the young

revolution in Chihuahua two and a half years ago I doubted that he would ever reach the eminence which to-day he occupies. But Carranza has much more force than his somewhat unmagnetic exterior suggests. What his enemies call his "stubbornness and unreasonableness" is really his greatest asset. He is tremendously determined and almost preternaturally cool about pursuing his end. Men who were with him when his cause and his life seemed not worth a fiddlestick's end say that he never lost his quiet, smiling confi-. dence in himself. He is hard to fluster. And he has developed a great deal in two years and a half, he is less stiff, more affable, more at ease, and more worldly-wise. And he seems to have a rare ability in picking men, in playing one man off against another, and in gradually getting rid of the undesirables without fuss, but by a process which is safer, if slower, than the usual" off with his head" tactics of Mexican rulers.

Getting at Carranza in the National Palace is a graduated process, like getting at the center of a ball of twine. First you are ushered through a little anteroom, where you leave behind your mozo, if you have one. Then you advance to the waiting-room for all persons of less distinction than foreign ambassadors or gen erals. The next step takes you into the exalted atmosphere of the room where dignitaries of these ranks cool their heels. Then, leaving behind the generals and ambassadors, you pass through a sort of office for the undersecretaries of the First Chief, from which you are ushered into the Green Room, where the Mexican Presidents give public audi

Here, under a ceiling at least twenty-five feet above a soft green carpet two inches thick, Carranza was standing with his back to the tall windows which let in a dim light. He sat down with his back still to the windows, yet did not remove his smoked, spectacles, which he wears almost constantly. In response to a question in regard to his opinion of the recent Mexican policy of the United States, he said:

"Let us begin at the beginning. Wilson has made many mistakes in his treatment of Mexico, but he inherited a handicap from Taft.

"In 1913, after my refusal to recognize Huerta following his foul murder of Madero, I got a message from Henry Lane Wilson, who was then the Ambassador of the United

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States to Mexico. In this message Lane Wilson urged me to abandon my revolution and recognize Huerta, saying that the United States and all European Powers had recognized him, and that it would be idle for me to revolt. This, of course, we now know to be false. Later, Mr. Silliman, the American Vice-Consul at Saltillo, approached me, saying that Ambassador Wilson wanted to know what I would name as my conditions for suppressing the revolution. The conditions I ́named were: first, the exile of Huerta, Blanquet, and others who had taken a leading part in the coup d'état against Madero; second, the deliverance of the capital into the hands of men from the three revolutionary States of Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Sonora ; third, the convening of Congress for the legitimate election of a President."

He stopped and smiled, remarking, "Most of these things have been accomplished since I sent that message to Ambassador Wilson. Yet when he and Huerta received it they laughed with delicious scorn."

"I sup

Carranza chuckled reminiscently. pose they thought I would name as my conditions a million dollars and a free passage to Paris, or more probably, perhaps, a life job as Governor of Coahuila."

"But how do you blame Mr. Taft?" I asked the First Chief.

"Not so much for any sins of commission as for tolerating the course of his subordinate, Ambassador Wilson."

"Do you blame in any degree Taft, Knox, or Ambassador Wilson for the death of Madero ?"

"To this extent: that any one of them could have prevented the assassination, for they knew the danger of it (especially Lane Wilson), yet raised not a finger for Madero's protection."

"You are sure that Ambassador Wilson knew of the peril threatening the martyred President?"

"I am sure of it, yet he did nothing." Carranza was talking steadily and with much conviction in an even bass. Unlike most Mexicans, he talks almost entirely with his voice. His large hands lay idle on his knees during the whole interview. This conversation with him lasted for an hour and a half, and he gave me his own defense against the principal criticisms that his enemies have made against him, particularly in relation to his financial policy. Space

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"But lately," Carranza went on, we have had to complain of very serious interference in our affairs by your Government. We consider the invasion of our country by the forces of General Pershing very wrong and very unfair. We would not have complained much if the American army had made a quick dash across the border and then withdrawn. But maintaining the expedition in Mexico, like a thorn in our side, is very unjust and has hurt our Government.

"We cannot make such acts of your President accord with his words of sympathy for us. It is this inconsistent policy from your Government which is responsible for the disfavor in which Americans find themselves held in Mexico to-day. It seems to us that your President has not kept faith with Mexico."

"Can the remarks of General Gonzales in

criticism of President Wilson be considered as official?" the First Chief was asked.

"No," was the reply. "General Gonzales's remarks were very interesting, but he spoke only for himself. Nevertheless we would prefer a firm, frank, consistent policy from the United States to such a policy as Wilson's. But, as I said before, we are grateful to Wilson for understanding that this is a social revolution and for the sympathy which he expressed in his stand against Huerta. And we believe that your Republican Presidents are sometimes inclined to be too over. bearing toward weaker nations. On the other hand, their foreign policies usually have the virtue of consistency. What we would like from the next American President, whatever his name may be, is a Mexican policy which will combine sympathy with firmness and consistency."

In that last sentence Carranza spoke right to the point. It is unfortunate that the Mexican situation should be the football of politics in the United States. Political partisans inevitably fly to extremes, and there is neither truth nor justice in ascribing all the ills of Mexico to any one man. The ideal course would be to have our policy toward Mexico based on public knowledge of facts perhaps best ascertained by a disinterested commission of experts. But as the millennium is not here, it is to be hoped that whatever party is in power after the election will study the Mexican situation in a scientific spirit, and will try to combine in its policy the sympathy that the Mexican leaders think they have found in one of the great American parties with the firmness and consistency which they profess to have seen in the other.

Y

EARS ago there was a lonely student in Germany, the home of Christmas festivities. From the deserted street he saw candles glittering on many family trees. But everything for Christmas was inside.

That lonely holiday season the American never forgot; years later, describing it to a friend, he added: "I know now-do something for some one, and you'll be less lonely yourself."

"There must be many lonely people here in New York at Christmas," said the friend; "wouldn't it be wonderful to have a tree for them?"

A tree for the community, excluding no lonely or friendless soul-the idea took hold of them both and grew into tangible form. To the question of place, there was only one answer-Madison Square, in the very heart of Manhattan, the park that is peculiarly the people's own, the poor men's club-house, as it is named by the old men who spend the night on its benches.

It's the loneliest spot at night in all New York," said one of them. Why, there ain't nothin' but loneliness here!"

So this unique Christmas party was determined on, and invitations were sent to every person through the press. The reporters were