threatened both sides with war purely on behalf of American rights to trade upon the high seas.
After Wall Street began making great loans to the Entente Governments, and so became financially interested in an Entente victory, the expediency of avoiding war with Mexico became apparent. Although there were those who advocated a war upon our neighbor, as a means to building an army in preparation for Germany, others pointed out that such a war would necessarily turn aside the flow of American munitions from Europe, and so jeopardize the interests of the Entente.
Nevertheless, following the Columbus raid, the "punitive expedition" took the field, resulting in the most dangerous Mexican crisis to date. But even during the "punitive expedition" the aggressive spirit of the American people was strangely lukewarm. One irritating newspaper hoax after another was pulled off, with the evident purpose of stirring the people into a frenzy against Mexico. After the Carrizal clash, it is probable that there would have been war with Carranza, had not the report of an American Captain, written when in the expectation of death, come to light in time to prove the Americans the aggressors. Even then, an ultimatum was sent to Carranza, who avoided war only by surrendering his American prisoners, while not raising an issue over Mexican prisoners held by the American forces.
An examination of the RESULTS of the Wilson Mexican policy will show that, in holding off insofar as he has held off, the President has proved himself a better friend of the interventionists than they themselves are.
For the final answer to the interventionist philosophy is that we ourselves are decisively responsible for the so-called Mexican problem. In this answer is wrapped up the remedy. We created the conditions which we are now asked to end by intervention—we meaning, primarily, the financial interests which demand intervention, and the Wilson Administration, acting in cooperation with them.
If an American Ambassador had not lent his active support to the plot against Madero, it is improbable that the latter would have been killed, and more improbable that there would have been a Huerta problem. The Huerta problem, of course, was inherited from the Taft Administration.
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