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AN OLD DEAL
It has been said, and only recently so by the Secretary of State of the United States, that the Government of the United States can do nothing officially to remove or lessen or even notice the persecution of humanity in Mexico. Since when has the United States been so forgetful of the rights of humanity that it cannot, through diplomatic channels, protest against this tyranny and persecution. The United States was not so delicate and bashful in the case of Cuba during Spanish rule prior to the Spanish‑American War. The United States was not so delicate and bashful in the case of China immediately after the Spanish‑American War. When an association of Chinese in their own country, known as the "Boxers", gained control of the country around Peking in 1900, and cut off the foreign legations and murdered the German minister, and forced the remaining foreign diplomats to take refuge in the British legation, five thousand American troops were rushed to rescue the legations at Peking and to punish China for the Boxer Rebellion. The United States was not so delicate and bashful when in 1916 American marines were landed in Haiti and a military government proclaimed.
Nor has the United States always been so delicate and bashful in her dealings with Mexico herself. The tiniest school boy knows that it was Woodrow Wilson who interfered in the struggle between Victoriano Huerta, accused of the murder of Francisco Madero who had overthrown Porfirio Diaz, and Venustiano Carranza, whose supporters later gave to Mexico the iniquitous constitution of 1917. By forbidding the shipment of arms to one rebel general and by permitting the shipment of arms to another rebel general the United States has interfered in the internal policies of Mexico again and again during the past twenty‑five years.
It is unhistorical then for any member of the present government in Washington to hold up hands in holy horror when lovers of humanity propose that an official or an unofficial protest be sent to the Mexican government against the latter's brutal tyranny and disregard of the spiritual and educational and human rights of the Mexican people. The American government has always been quick to interfere for the sake of American business. The American government should be ready to interfere, unofficially and diplomatically at least, for the sake of liberty and humanity. Money has been spent, special ambassadors picked, arms have been shipped, troops have been embarked, ultimatums delivered, official and unofficial pressure exerted, for the sake of material gain in Mexico. Yet the government, according to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, must now be silent in the face of a denial of human rights by a military tyranny whose bloody deeds against the rights of humanity make the deeds of Huerta and Carranza pale into lilywhite insignificance by comparison.
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