New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-05-30
Mexico-and Our Greater Duty.

MeXlCO-dnd Our Greater Duty.
President Wilson's hint that he may
intervene in Mexico 10 secure the delivery
of food supplies 10 starving women and
children must be taken with some reserve.
1t is natural that he should insist that the
various existing military administrations
in Mexico cease Communicating foodstuffs
forwarded by the American Red Cross for
the relief Of non-combatants. The main
route of relief Is through Vera Cruz,
which the Carranzs government holds, and
Don Venustiano's capital is 50 exposed TO
naval demonstration that moral pressure
brought to bear on him from Washington
may easily result IN guarantees Of non
interference with Red Cross workers car
rying provisions to Mexico City and other
interior points.
But in view Of the critical state Of our
relations with Germany It would be most
imprudent for the administration TO COM
nit itself to demands which may compel
a partial military occupation Of Mexico.
Mr.. Wilson's Mexican policy has been ex-
tremely vacillating. He declared q moral
boycott on General Huerta. Yet he avoided
doing anything which savored of interven-
ton for the purpose Of protecting the lives
and property Of Americans in Mexico, or
the lives and property Of Europeans there
whose governments were debarred from
intervening by the unwritten implications
of the Monroe Doctrine.
The administration seized Vera Cruz in
April 1914, as a means Of obtaining repa-
ration for an insult to the American flag.
It evacuated Vera Cruz eventually without
getting the salute which it had demanded.
At one time Mr.. Wilson talked Of going
into Mexico to do "a service to humanity"
to restore to the submerged So per cent
of the peon population the possession of
the land which had passed into the hands
Of the hacienda magnates. But that was
only platform eloquence. The Presidents
desire to serve mankind across the Rio
Grande simmered down, and when last
heard from, prior to Friday night, he was
declaring that no one could force him
into interfering with the people of Mexico
while they were engaged in determining
their own form Of government-a pleasant
euphemism for the savage fight for power
conducted by the Nilla-Carranza-Zapata
factions.
Anarchy has existed in Mexico for more
than year. Famine has been threatened
and devastation has been uninterrupted.
There was as much reason six months ago
for intervening to save the unfortunate
civil population from its plundcrers as
there is to-day But Mexico was left TO
its fate on the ground that its people had
consented to revolution and anarchy and
must work out their own hard salvation.
Now. obviously. il is too late to think
of intervention in all that that term i'm
plies. The United States faces stua-
tion in which it must keep all its energies
in reserve. Until IT is clear that we shall
have no quarrel with Germany we shall
have no leisure to compose conditions of
anarchy and misery in Mexico. What we
could have done last year with IMMUNITY
we cannot afford to DO now.
The United States has set itself the high
and honorable task of defending the rights
of neutralS on the seas at a moment
when those rights are as harshy chal-
lenged as they ever were by Barbary
piracy or by the confscatory DEGREES of
the Napoleonic wars. We are fighting not
our own battle alone, but also the battle Of
civilization and international order. We
have our hands full. However distressing
the condition Of Mexico may be, we are not
at present in a position to quell anarchy
there by force.
II would. therefore. be bunder for the
administration 10 allow any possible mis-
sion in Mexico to interfere with the far
greater mission which the United States
has assumed as the defender of interna-
tional compacts which, even in condition
Of worldwide warfare, guarantee TO neu-
trails the freedom of the seas