Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1915-07-19
A anew Mexican Policy?


A new policy toward Mexico is one
Of the widely advertised offerings of
the administration, and it is being ex-
plotted in friendly newspapers as Wig
orously as though ii were mld-sum-
mer nark-down of white goods in
department store. Unlike the later.
however no details are given. and no
body knows when the new policy will
be put into operation-if ever; wheth-
er it signalizes A new form of watch
full waiting" with some more fine rhet-
ORIG about the passion for humanity"
or whether it means that, with Bryan
gone from the cabinet, there is at
last to be a definite policy toward
Mexico. designed really to help the
hapless people of that feud-rent land
and to give some assurance of safety
and governmental protection to the
many Americans whose capital and
toll are wrapped UP in property in our
neisnboring republic.
There is one point on which all agree.
namely. that the new policy what
ever else it contains, should have none
OF the concealment which has hitherto
cloaked everything connected with our
Mexican relations.
For instance. if the new policy"
means intervention, it should be &C
companied by a complete recital of
the arson, pillage, outrage and murder
which the rival cutthroats in Mexico
have for so long visited upon our fell
loW-citiZens without remonstrance
from the State Department. If it
means a policing Of certain districts,
to the end that Red Cross supplies,
contributed by generous Americans,
may reach the destitute poems for
whom they are intended, the admins
tration should make known how these
food-trains have heretofore been stol-
en- by one or another of the marauding
bandits who call themselves First
Chief" or whatnot, and who have dis
.tributed to their bands of land-pirates
1.-THE necessaries of life which warm
hearted Yankees have intended for
starving Greasers. Or. if it means a
punitive expedition against Villaistas,
,Carranzistas, Zapatistas and all the
others Of that kind. the administration
should not hesitate to say so, and it's
cloaked beneath and sanctimonious
pretence.
The fact is that the whole country
is not only shocked by the bloody deeds
that have been done in Mexico, and
irritated beyond expression by the dis
turbance which the bowling hordes
have been kicking up in our very door,
yards, SO to say; but the people are
angered as they rarely have been by
the contempt which the policy of
!. "watchful waiting" has engendered for
US throughout all Mexico.
The Mexicans, for the most part,
are densely ignorant people, unable
to read and believing whatever is told
to them by those possessing temper
AIRY authority. Thus, when Villas gen.
ierals refused to admit to Mexican soil
Ia trainload Of Red Cross supplies, the
people were told that the United States
had been defed by Villa-and all
through the Villaista zone of influence,
Pancho Villa is believed to be a greater
and better man than Woodrow Will
son. Again, when our troops were
withdrawn from the costly and futile
occupation of Vera Cruz, Carranza cir
culated the word that he had given
General Funston "a hours in which to
get out and that Funston got" The
poems of the Carranzista zone believed
this. they believe it today: and sim
liar yarns, no doubt, fire the Mexican
heart in Zapatista territory.
q Thus it happens that a humilitated
American spirit hopes against hope
that new Mexican policy" is really
forthcoming at last. The people of
the United States believe that no pol
icy could be worse than the one which
has been pursued. For two years the
Presidents mind has been closed
and locked-against any suggestion
regarding Mexico which has emanated
from those who know anything about
Mexico: and it may be that it is now
too Iate for anything to be done eff
fectively at any cost which the coun-
try is willing to pay.