The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1916-10-23
HUGHES AND HUERTA.


authorized to make this statement to min
lister representing foreign power IN
Mexico: Huerta will be put out II he does
not get out That it is the preference OF
the President that it be accomplished by
domestic means if possible, but II 1t can not
be done by domestic means, other means
adequate to the purpose will be resorted to.
Wilson may or may not deny the instruc-
tions to John Lind It is not important. But
if Hughes thinks he is embarrassing the ad
ministration by accusing the president OF
doing all he could to unseat the usurping
Huerta, he has shown himself strangely
ignorant of American history in general
and recent Developments in particular. Far
from denying it, Wilson should make his
best bow to the 100 per cent candidate and
thank him for giving him that word.
It saves the president trouble He does
not have to ask the people if he has dis
charged his stewardship according to the
promise in his speech of acceptance in 1912
in which he promised that the government
of the United States would refuse to extend
the hand OF welcome to anyone who obtains
power by treachery and violence.
He does not need to invite attention to
his Interpretation of democratic principles
and the sacred right of everybody to achieve
freedom, as outlined in his speech of &C
ceptance this year when he said, s'The men
who overcame him (Huerta) and drove him
out, represent at least the fierce passion of
reconstruction which lies at the very heart
OF liberty; and SO long as they represent
however irnperfeetly such a struggle for
deliverance, am ready to serve their ends
when I cam
Serving their ends when he can" is Just
about as strong as "Huerta will be put out
if he does not get out" and besides has the
charm of originality, antedating as it does
the Hughes statement by several weeks.
Anybody who is acquainted with our
splendid past knows that this country has
always been on the side of the liberty lover
| Opposition to tyranny was the reason for
the Monroe doctrine, for instance OPPOSE
ton only few years ago threw our sym
| pathies with the Beers, for instance
Taft himself, although in the Yale Re-
view for October, says: Had the Republi-
can administration continued it would have
recognized Huerta," because mo matter
who he was, it was not for us to prescribe
| who should not become the head of that
| independent state'-Taft did the same
thing in the Zelaya case as he now censures
the administration for
It will be recalled that eight months after
the Inauguration of Taft. the word went
out from Washington that Zelaya must
quit Our marines landed in Nicaragua or
! December l, 1909, and an ultimatum was
handed the Washington charge d'affaires
ad interim that Zelaya must get out. 81
is equally matter of common knowledge,
wrote Secretary of State Knox, that under
the regime of President Ze1aya republican
institutions have ceased in Nicaragua tc
exist except in name; that public opinion
and the press have been throttled. and tina
prison has been the reward of any real ten
dency to patriotism. Zelaya got out
Said Taft in his Pittsburg speech on Ma,
2, 1910, speaking of the event
The great disturber of Central America in
recent years has been Zelaya the tyrannical and
unprincpled President of the Republic of Mica
ragua.. 1t is undoubtedly true that the at
ttude of the United States toward Zelaya so in
jured his prestige and brought him so clearly to
the bar of public opinion of the world as an in
ternational criminal that he was obliged to abdi-
cate and leave the Government to a better man.
The action of Taft then was in accor,
with the proudest traditions of our history
: had Wilson not broken Huerta, Hughe
might we'll call him an inhrm American
one who had been weighed and found want
| i0cr hy ibertv-lovino 1iherty-enro,1rn Or; r,