American Falls press. [volume] (American Falls, Idaho) 1907-1937, 1916-02-17

ed by Mexico towards the United States and It's citizens.
His duty was, second, as the head of a foreign power to
respect the independence of Mexico, to refrain from all in
reference with her internal affairs, from all attempt at
domination, except as ne was justified by the law OF ma
tons for the protection Of American rights.
"The president of the United States failed to observe
either of these duties. He deliberately abandoned them
both and followed an entirely different and inconsistent
He interviewed in Mexico to aid one faction in
civil strife against another. He undertook to pull down
Huerta and set Carranza up in his place:
why? The president himself has told us. 1t was be-
cause he adjudged Huerta to be a usurper; because ne
deemed that the common people of Mexico ought to have
greater participation in government and share in the land;
and he believed that Carranza and Villa would give them
these things.
1--WE must all sympathize with these sentiments but
there is nothing more angerous than misplaced sentiment.
"Of all men in this world the man who had vested in
him the executive power of the United States was least at
liberty to sit in judgment of his own motion upon the title
of a claimant to the Mexican presidency or to reform the
land laws of Mexico.
"When our army landed at Vera Cruz, Carranza him
self, who was to be the chief beneficiary of the act, public
.y protested against it. So strong was the resentment that
he could not have kept his followers otherwise. When
had succeeded to his place peremptorily demanded the
withdrawal of the American troops. The universal senti-
ment of Mexicans required that peremptory demand and
the troops were withdrawn. Still worse than that, the
taking of Vera Cruz destroyed confidence in the sincerity
of the American government in Mexico because every in
~telligent man, in Mexico believed that the avowed reason
for the act was not the real reason.
"The avowed purpose was to compel a salute to the Am
|erican flag.
"Is there one here who doubts that the alleged cause
was but a pretext and that the real cause was to turn
Huerta out of office? The people of Mexico who saw
their unoffending city captured by force of arms, three
hundred of it's people slain, their soil violated, a foreign
flag floating over their great seaport, upon which they
felt to be a false pretense, were misled into imputing a
more sinister purpose still-to secure control of Mexico
for the United States; and they believed that when Amer
lean troops departed, that purpose was abandoned
through fear.
End of Our Moral Power.
with the occupation of Vera Cruz the moral power
of the United States in Mexico ended. We were then and
we are now hated for what we did to Mexico and we were
then and we are now despised for our feeble and irreso-
lutte failure to protect the lives and rights of our citizens.
No flag is so dishonored and no citizenship so little worth
the claiming in Mexico as ours. And that is why we have
failed in Mexico"
His arraignment of the administrations European pol
icy was equally vigorous; The address of the senator Gre
ated a profound impression.