The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-29
(By Hon. Franklin K. Lane. Secretary
 of the Interior.)

of the Interior.)
 There is no truth in the oft repeated
 allegation that all the trouble with
 Mexico would have been avoided if President Wilson had recognized Huerta. I ask anyone wbo wishes to be fair to this administration to look
 back three years and read the newspa-
 pers of that day and the debates in Congress, in which the murder of Ma dero and Suarez was denounced.
 Had we recognized Huerta or had we not taken a positive stand against hifn the criticism this administration has received for the policy we have pursued would be as nothing to what would now overwhelm us. Who were the American statesmen who demand ed, Huert&'s recognition? What one of ohr leaders of either party set forth the principles upon which a better feeling between this country and all our sister republics of the South could be stimulated by taking position that was abhorrent to our American con- science?
 We know what We have suffered in the past three years. and it is too easy now to say that all this would have been avoided if Huerta had been re- cognized, but the only demand made at that time by the more solid of our men of affairs who were antagonistic to the administrations policy was that we should intervene, that we should bring order out of Mexico by force.
 No one then believed and no one really believes now that the recogni- ton of Huerta would have solved the Mexican problem. We do know, how ever, one thing that we were not con- scious of then, that Huerta himself had so slight hold upon Mexico that
 he did not dare to leave tke Capital and that he was to all intents and puf-
 poses a prisoner of the reactionartes, able only to reach the sea at it's nearest point
 Although it is self-evident. that this country, as the champion of copstitu- tional government in America, can never recognize a military despotism based upon assAssipation, it is not nec- essary to call Huerta an assassin in order to justify our refusal to recog-
 nize him. His attempted dictatorship was but a fiction of government. With
 the elected President and Vice Presi- dent murdered and the Minister of
 State, who was their lawful successor,
 cowed into submission, Huerta took
 the reins of power at the best as temporary stop-gap.
 The revolution against Huerta broke out immediately upon the news of Madero's death. The correspondence
 between Huerta and Carranza recently published shows that every practical inducement was held out to Carranza to put an end to his revolutionary movement. To Carranza's credit be it said, he refused to come to terms with those whom he believed had been the
 cause of the Presidents death and who had set to one side the laws of his country It is not to be forgotten tha Huer- ta did not pretend even to be a con- stitutional ruler. He send word to the
 United States that he had taken the
 government of Mexico into his own hands and that he was all the law
 there was to be found in Mevico. His statement was so bold that even the Supreme Court of Mexico uttered a
 feeble protest, which was somewhat
 more loudly echoed in the Mexican Senate.
 In the face of this Huerta asked for
 recognition from the United States, but
 President Taft felt that he could not ! conscientiously grant it. and he left the problem to be dealt with by his successor, who had already been elect ed That was the situation when President Wilson took office. Could President Wilson have recognized Huerta? Surely there can be but one answer to that question.-No!
 To have recognized Huerta would have been a two-fold injustice, First, to the people of Mexico, and secondly,
 to all the people of Central and South America. To give the Commander-in-
 Chief of an army recognition as Presi- dent under such circumstances would