Woodrow Wilson's Mexican Policy, 1913–15 | Kendrick Clements

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Woodrow Wilson’s Mexican Policy, 1913-15 KENDRICK A. CLEMENTS In developing a policy to deal with the Mexican Revolution, Woodrow Wilson confronted a crucial problem of American foreign policy in the twentieth century: can the United States help smaller,weaker nations to escape various forms of foreign imperialism or indirect dominationwithout substituting a dependency on America for the old relationship? As it gradually evolved, Wilson’s policy sought to use American power to break the hold of foreign economic interests over Mexico, and at the same time to avoid dictating to the Mexican people what form of government they should adopt and what that government should do. Both foreign and American domination were real dangers, and steering a course between them required delicate adjustments and subtle compromises that were condemned by contemporaries and historians alike as hypocritical or unrealistic. Yet Wilson persisted despite mistakes and misunderstandings, and the result was a policy vastly more practical and successful than most historians have realized.’ ‘The prevailingview among historians has been that Wilson intervened and interfered in Mexico incessantly in order to push the Mexican Revolution into a “liberal-capitalist” mold, and that he failed in that effort. My argument is that although he would have liked Mexico to follow such a course, he gave up any effort to force it in that direction after early 19 14, and that the invariable aim of his policy after that time was to assure the Mexican people of the freedom to choose whatever course they desired. Among the many fine studies of Wilson’s Mexican policy that express variations of the familiar point of view are: P. Edward Haley, Revolution and Intervention: m e Diplomacy of Tqf?and Wilson with Mexico, 1910-1917 (Cambridge, MA, 1970); Larry D. Hill, Emissaries to a Revolutiox Woodrow Wilson’sExecutive Agents in Mexico (Baton Rouge, 1973); Mark T. Gilderhus, Diplomacy and Revolution: US.-Mexican Relations under Wilson and Carranza (Tucson, 1977); N. Gordon Levin, Woodrow Wilson and World Politics: America’s Response to War and Revolution (New York, 1968); Berta Ulloa, La Revolucion inter venida: relaciones diplomatica entre MpXico y Estados Unidas, 1910-1914 (Mexico, DF, 1971); and Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917 (New York, 1954). In more recent work, such as the later volumes of his biography, Wilson, 5 vols. to date (Princeton, 1947-65), and the new second edition of Wilson the Diplomatist: 113 114 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY To describe all the details of this complex policy within the scope of an article is impossible. No foreign problem occupied more of the president’s and his advisors’ time during the first year of Wilson’s term, and thereafter it receded only slightly in importance. I will concentrate here on the first two and a half years of Wilson’s term, during which he learned about the Mexican situation and gradually formulated a consistent and fixed policy. During the first six months, Wilson’s policy was dictated more by instinct than by knowledge. Finding that a military coup had overthrown Mexico’s democratic government and installed Victoriano Huerta as provisional president, Wilson issued a statement on 11 March 1913, denouncing “disorder, personal intrigues, and defiance of constitutional rights,” and declaring that “we can have no sympathy with those who seek to seize the power of government to advance their own personal interests or ambition.”2The statement did not say that Wilson opposed all revolutions, and, even in the case of Mexico, the president explained that he Would merely withhold formal recognition until the situation became clearer-a reasonable precaution since armed rebels calling themselves Constitutionalists were already in the field against Huerta in northern and southern Mexico. Privately, Wilson was highly critical of Huerta, whom he regarded as a murderer, but his public statements committed the administration only to a wait-and-see attitude.) At this early stage Wilson felt repugnance for Huerta and also a general distaste for revolution that made him skeptical of the Constitutionalists as well. He had. as Harley Notter points out, “a reasoned antagonism to violence, disorder, instability, and speculative doctrine,” and a deepseated conviction that progress came more reliably through evolution than revolution. Strongly influenced by Edmund Burke, he thought that the French Revolution had given a permanently turbulent cast to continental politics, and he justified even the American Revolution mainly as a single violent stroke terminating a long period of gradual He could not foresee that the great revolutions of the twentieth century would be radically different from those with which he was familiar, and that the lessons of the past were largely irrelevant to his problems while president. __ - ._ .~ _ A Look at His Major Foreign Policies (Arlington Heights, IL, 1979), Link has taken a position much more like that I am advancing here. AAer reading an earlier version of this essay, he gave me invaluable encouragement, advice, and assistance, for which I am very much indebted. ’U.S., Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, I913 (Washington, 1920): 7 (hereafter cited as FRUS, followed by the appropriate Year). ’Link, Wilsox The New Freedom, pp. 349,35 1-54. ‘Harley Notter, Origins of the Foreign Policy of Woodrow Wilson (1937; reprinted., New York, 1965), pp. 18-20,6243, 8 2 , 8 8 , 118, and passim; Edward M. House Diary, 7 November 1914, House Papers, Yale University Library, New Haven, CT. MEXICAN POLICY, 1913-1 5 115 Taking economic and social opportunity for granted, Wilson felt little initial sympathy for revolutionaries whose struggles with entrenched privilege produced violence instead of legal, gradual change. Just as he defined the Democratic party’s domestic role as “conservative reform,’’ so he assumed that reasonable men everywhere could achieve just goals by orderly means.5 Insofar as he had a conscious foreign policy in 1913, Wilson favored a sort of “Pax Americana” in which the United States would promote the application of democratic methods and values to the problems of all nations everywhere.6 Wilson assumed that all issues troubling nations were essentially political in nature. At the same time his own domestic policy was based on a belief that certain economicinterests had gotten out of hand, and he found it easy to believe the situation might be worse elsewhere. Between his conscious analysis of world problems as exclusively political and his practical recognition of the reality of economic and social issues there was a contradiction that was soon apparent in the administration’s foreign policy. Thus in dealing with China, the administration not only sought to encourage democracy by recognizing the feeble republic but also to admit tacitly that foreign economicdominationwas a major problem for China by discouraging the participation of American bankers in a new loan that Wilson thought would “touch very nearly the administrativeindependence of China itself.” In Mexico, Wilson believed that constitutionalismwas the major issue but when his friend Cleveland Dodge wrote that the “large interests in Mexico” supported Huerta and dominated the government, Wilson accepted the analysis.’ It was imperative, agreed Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, not “to put property rights above human rights[not] to put the dollar above the man.”8 In Mexico, as in China, the administration found a discrepancy between what it expected issues to be and what they actually were. At first Wilson attributed this gap to inadequate information about the Mexican situation. “The trouble is,” he told a press conference, “that we don’t know what is going on in M e x i c ~ . ”When ~ Dodge and a group of ’Arthur S. Link et al., eds., The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 27 vols. to date (Princeton, 1966-78), 15:54549 (hereafter cited as Wilson Papers). I am indebted to the editors for permission to examine vols. 28-34 of the Wilson Papers in page proofs or typescript,.as well as for their generous advice. I will cite pages in references to vols. 28 and 29, which I used in page proof, but there is little value in giving page numbers for vols. 30-34, which were in typescript when I saw them. The value of these volumes to a new understanding of Wilson’s foreign policy is brilliantly set forth by John Milton Cooper,Jr., “ ‘An Irony of Fate’: Woodrow Wilson’s Pre-World War I Diplomacy,” Diplomatic History 3 (Fall 1979):425-37. Qoyd E. Arnbrosius, “The Orthodoxy of Revisionism: Woodrow Wilson and the New Le!l,”DiplornaticHistov 1 (Summer 1977): 209-10,213. “‘A Statement on the Pending Chinese b a n , ” 18 March 1913, Wilson Papers, 27:193; ClevelandH. DodgetoWilson, 18 July 1913,ibid., 2841. ‘Bryan to Wilson, ca. 20 July 1913, ibid., p. 5 1. 917July 1913, ibid.,p. 37. DIPLOMATIC HISTORY 116 American businessmen with interests in Mexico proposed a mediation plan, Wilson was interested but, despite his preconceptions, turned it down because he was not sure it fitted the actual situation.’O Late in May Wilson sent a former student,journalist William Bayard Hale, to investigate and report from Mexico. Hale’s reports, which began to arrive in mid-June, resolved Wilson’s doubts but unfortunately the reports were wrong. Writing from Mexico City, Hale argued that the issue in Mexico was indeed political-Huerta’s usurpation of power-and that the rebels, whom he characterized as “brigands” and “bandits,” were concerned only with loot and power, A similar interpretation came from another agent in the north, who suggested that everything could be settled by holding an honest election.” In July, Wilson, who concluded from these reports that most Mexicans rejected both Huerta and the revolutionaries, dispatched to Mexico another agent, John Lind, with a proposal for an armistice to be followed by a general election in which Huerta would agree not to be a candidate. Huerta, who was not as weak as Hale thought, scornfully rejected the American offer, and the Constitutionalists were equally vehement in declaring that they would never consent to an election until Huerta and his supporters were eliminated. Choosing to believe that such defiance was empty bluster, on 27 August Wilson, in his first major public statement about Mexico, assured Congress that the Mexicans eventually would accept American recommendations.l2 Secure in that illusion, he made no further effort for the next month to discover the Constitutionalists’ attitudes, naively assuming that they and Huerta would agree to settle their differences in a general election. At the end of September, Hale at last warned the president that without a general armistice, which Huerta had never declared, the rebels surely would refuse to take part in the presidential election then scheduled for late October. Goaded into belated action, Wilson hastily instructed Lind to ask Huerta for an immediate cease-fire. Huerta refused and Lind observed sardonically that the invalidation of the elections, because of Constitutionalist refusal to take part in them, would have the effect of forcing Huerta to stay on “against his will.” There seemed to be no alternative, the agent reported pessimistically, to recognition of the belligerency of the rebels or outright American interventi~n.’~ On 10 October, ~_____ - “Link, Wilson: The New Freedom, pp. 35 1-5 3. “Hill, Emissaries, pp. 21-62; Hale to Wilson, 19 July 191 3, Wilson Papers, 28:27. ”Ray Stannard Baker and William E. Dodd, eds., The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 6 vols. (New York, 1925-27). 3:45-5 1; memorandumby Francisco Escudero, chief of the Department of Finance of the Constitutionalists, 24 July 1913, Wilson Pupers, 28:70-8 1. During the summer of 19 13 there was some congressional criticism of Wilson’s seeming inaction, but the administration had no trouble blocking a resolution intended to embarrass the president. See Wilson to Senator Augustus 0.Bacon, 24 July 1913; Bacon to Wilson 25 July 1913; Wilson toEllen Axson Wilson, 3 August 1913, ibid.,pp. 68,82,105. I3Haleto Wilson, 28 September 191 3; Wilson to Bryan, 1 October 1913; Lind to Bryan, 3,8,9, 10 October 1913, ibid., pp. 339-41,34748,356,378,382-83,387. MEXICAN POLICY, 1913-1 5 117 Lind’s gloomy predictions seemed to be confirmed when Huerta arrested 110 opposition members of the Chamber of Deputies and shortly thereafter assumed dictatorial powers. Wilson now confronted the ruin of his well-intentioned but inept policy. He had bungled in a variety of ways: in misreading Huerta; in failing to find out what the Constitutionalistswanted; and in assuming that an election would be a panacea for Mexico’s troubles. All of his assumptions were now revealed as wrong, and the president was forced to a painful reexamination of his policy. In speeches on 25 and 27 October he reaffirmed his opposition to any government “stained by blood or supported by anything but the consent of the governed” and declared that his aim was to promote “the development of true constitutional liberty,” but he gave the public no glimpse of how he meant to achieve those broad g0als.14 Only to his closest advisors did he reveal his loss of faith in the policy of mediation, his growing doubts about elections as solutions to Mexican problems, and his willingness to consider new and drastic measures. On 24 October, Wilson drafted a circular note to the powers of Europe that, although never sent, reveals his developing conviction that the central problem in Mexico was foreign imperialism. “If the influences at work in Mexico were entirely domestic,” he wrote, “this government would be willing to trust the people to protect themselves against any ambitious leader who might arise, but since such a leader relies for his strength, not upon the sympathy of his own people, but upon the influence of foreign people, this Government, whether that foreign capital is from the United States or from other countries, would be derelict in its duty if by silence or inaction it seemed to sympathize with such an interference in the rights and welfare of Mexico.”15 What Wilson was groping toward in this statement was the enunciation of a central dilemma of American foreignpolicy. One major objective of that policy was self-determinationfor the small nations of the developing world, and Wilson realized that a major obstacle was the quasi-colonial, dependent status forced on such nations by their need of foreign capital that in turn often brings varying degrees of foreign control. He saw that this neoimperialismmight, as in the Mexican case, obstruct free development, and he had begun to feel that the United States might have a benevolent role of counterimperialistic intervention that would break the power of foreign capitalists in nations like Mexico and restore self-determination. Confident of American rectitude and secure in the altruism of his own motives, he did not yet realize that virtuous American intervention might “At Swathmore College, 25 October 1913, and at the Southern Commercial Congress, Mobile, 27 October 1913, ibid.,pp. 441,451. ISToAmembassy, Mexico City, 24 October 1913, William Jennings Bryan Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress. DIPLOMATIC HISTORY 118 be just as destructive of self-determination and just as likely to create a dependency relationship as more traditional imperialism. Wilson and Bryan were not such fools as to ignore completely the dangers and unpredictability of a policy of protective intervention, but in the late autumn of 1913 the appeal of intervention seemed to outweigh its risks.16 At the end of October, Wilson instructed Hale to visit the Constitutionalists to learn more about them and their intentions. In the meantime, he made preliminary plans for military action, telling his friend Colonel House that he was considering declaring war in order to blockade Mexican ports and force Huerta out of office. On about 31 October he actually drafted a message to Congress and a joint resolution authorizing him to use the armed forces of the United States to force Huerta out and to return power to the Mexican Congress.” “All indications,” he wrote to an old friend, pointed to “a crisis in Mexico. Many fatehl possibilities are involved in that perplexing situation. I lie awake at night praying that the most temble of them may be averted.”’* Wilson’s prayers were answered in a somewhat unexpected fashion. On 4 November Senator Augustus Bacon, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, informed the president that there was very little support in Congress for any program of armed intervention. The members he had talked to, he added, thought it would be wiser to recognize the belligerence of the Constitutionalists or to lift the embargo that prohibited the sale of arms to the rebel^.'^ Bacon’s report had a sobering effect on the president, and he hastily abandoned his half-formulated plans. He sent a vaguely menacing note to Huerta, threatening to “employ such means as may be necessary” to compel the dictator’s retirement. But on 10 November he told a press conference that he had no intention of asking Congress for any action at the moment, and in his annual message to Congress on 2 December he recommitted himself to the nonintervention policy popularly known as ‘‘watchful waiting.’720A second effort to devise a Mexican policy thus seemed to have ended as ruinously albeit not as publicly as the first. In fact, Wilson was only in search of appropriate tactics to achieve his objectives. The November visit of Sir William Tyrrell, private secretary to British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, reassured Wilson that British recognition of Huerta’s government did not imply a desire to _ _ _ _ ~ - ~ “Bryan to Wilson, ca. 20 July, 1 September 1913, Wilson Papers, 2851, 246-47; William Jennings Bryan and Mary Baird Bryan, The Memoirs of William Jennings Bryan (Chicago, 1925), p. 361. “Hale to Wilson, 22 October 191 3; Wilson to Hale, 24 October 191 3; draft of joint resolution and of message to Congress, ca. 3 1 October 191 3, Wilson Papers, 28:423,47881; House Diary, 30 October 1913, House Papers. ”Wilson toMary Allen Hulbert, 2 November 191 3, Wilson Papers, 28:483-84. I9Baconto Wilson, 4 November 1913, ibid., pp. 488,501, n. 1. 2oFRUS, 1913: 856; Wilson Papers, 28516; Baker and Dodd, Public Papers, 1:71-72. MEXICAN POLICY, 1913-1 5 119 obstruct American policy. However, Tyrrell did not shake the president’s conviction that foreign capitalists, including Americans, were major props of the Huerta regime.21“The time has come,” he told an interviewer soon &er the Tyrrell visit, “when Mexico and all Latin-American countries must be allowed to manage their own affairs and be free of the domination of foreign business interests.”22The question was how to achieve that goal. Then in mid-November reports from Hale, who was conferring with Constitutionalist leaders in Nogales, began to reveal the possibility of a new path. Perhaps, Hale’s dispatches seemed to suggest, a little help to the rebels might enable the Mexicans to solve their own problems. Hopeful as the new approach seemed, however, Wilson, having failed twice with seemingly simple solutions to the Mexican problem, was much more cautious in committing himself this time. Providing Hale with a series of questions, the president sought to make up for lost time in discovering the characters and purposes of the Constitutionalistleaders. For the first time he seemed to be turning from the idea of an American-imposed formula to the possibility that the best thing to do might be to let events take their course in Mexico. The Constitutionalist leaders were delighted with the apparent change in the president’s attitude and welcomed the opportunity to explain their conviction that the socioeconomic issues of the revolution made acceptance of foreign intervention or an election impo~sible.~~ They bluntly informed Hale that the reactionaries were so deeply entrenched in Mexico City that only total military defeat could break their power. Even if Huerta resigned at once, they said, they would not agree to elections until fundamental economic and political reforms had been enacted by decree.24 Reading Hale’s reports, Wilson was shocked by this rejection of democratic methods. Could the rebels really mean, he asked, that they 21Forthe Tyrrell mission, see Link, Wilson: The New Freedom, pp. 374-77. Link concludes that the mission produced “an Anglo-American accord on Mexico.” This is true insofar as Wilson was concerned about official British policy, but the Tyrrell mission did not allay his more general concern about the tendency of foreign investors in Mexico to use their enormous influence to support authoritarian governments like that of Huerta-an unofficial but nonetheless important form of imperialism. The fight to curb “the power of the fmancial world in our politics,” Wilson told House as they chatted about the Tyrrell visit, “is the greatest fight we all have ontoday,” Wilson Papers, 28:533. In a statementdictated to his wife at about the same time, Bryan lamented that the Monroe Doctrine did not shield the Latin American states from the actions of individual foreigners,even though it was “obvious that foreign influence exerted through private individuals and private corporations can as effectively overthrow popular government in the Latin American republics as when that influenceis exerted directly by foreign governments.” Bryan,Mernoirs, p. 364. 22EdwardG. Lowry, “What the PresidentIs Tryingto Do for Mexico,” World’s Work (January 1914); WilsonPapers, 29:94-95. 231sidr0Fabela, Historia diplomatica de la Revolucion Mexicana, 1912-191 7, 2 vols. (Mexico, DF, 1958-59), 1:245. 24Haleto Bryan, 14, 15, 16, 17 November 1913,812.00/9735,9759,9769,9789, Decimal Files, Department of State, National Archives, Washington (hereafter cited as DF, DSNA). 120 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY would not accept the results of “a free and fair election?”That would show, he exclaimed, “that they do not understand Constitutionalprocesses,” and he refused to support such people “even indire~tly.”~~ Constitutionalist leader Venustiano Carranza replied that of course the rebels would call free elections eventually and abide by their results, but this concession was too little, too late.26When Hale left the rebel leaders a few days later, he had made no promise to lift the arms embargo, and the rebel leaders had refused to guarantee the safety of foreigners and their property, or to promise early elections. Yet the Hale mission was by no means a failure. It provided Wilson with his first full and authentic information on Constitutionalistobjectives; it reinforced Bryan’s frequent warnings that any intervention was likely to unite all Mexican factions against the United States; and it gave the president a generally favorable portrait of Constitutionalistleaders from an agent whose judgment he tru~ted.~’ Even if Wilson was unwilling at this point to give the Constitutionalists a blank check in the form of unconditional American support, he did not question the accuracy of their analysis of the Mexican situation. Their methods made him uncomfortable, but he agreed about what needed to be done and slowly the logic of that agreement pushed him toward acceptance of their methods as well. By December, Lind had joined the growing number of advisors who were urging the president to move away from ‘‘watchful waiting” toward direct support of the Constitutionalists. The rebel leaders, Lind argued, were dedicated, honest men genuinely committed to the interests of the Mexican people, and -an important practical consideration-they were on the verge of military victory. The issue in Mexico, declared Lind in an echo of what Hale was reporting and Wilson thinking, was “political only on the surface; it is essentially economic and social.” What was at stake was whether Mexico would continue to be “a European annex, industrially, financially, politically.”28 Such arguments had an effect on Wilson, and shortly before Christmas he told House with no appearance of concern that if the Constitutionalistscaptured Mexico City they would probably kill Huerta and his cabinet and then redistribute land among the peasants. He coolly speculated on whether he should expedite these bloody events by raising the arms embargo. The only alternative to that, he added in mid-January, 25BryantoHale, 16 November 1913,812.00/9759, DF, DSNA. 26HaletoBryan, 16,17November1913,812.00/9768,9789,DF,DSNA. ”See esp. Hale to Bryan, 14 November 1913, 2 P.M., 6 P.M., 8 P.M., Wilson Papers, 2T541-43. 28L.indto Bryan, 15 November 1913, 812.00/9760,DF, DSNA; Lind to Bryan, 5,9 December 1913;Lind to Wilson, 10 January 1914,WilsonPapers, 29:14-19,30-31, 120-27.Lind apparently stressed these same points in a conversation with Wilson aboard the U.S.S.Chester near Gulfport,Mississippi, on 2 January 19 14.See Wilson’s memorandum of the conversation, ca. 8 January 1914,ibid., p. 110. MEXICAN POLICY, 1913-15 121 seemed to be actual American military intervention in Mexico to depose H~erta.~~ While Wilson was still considering these possibilities, a vigorous young Mexican lawyer, Luis Cabrera, arrived in Washington bearing a commission from Carranza to lay the rebel case before the president.’O His instructions were to get the arms embargo lifted, but to offer no concessions in For his part, the president was eager to learn what Cabrera had to say but unwilling to meet with him or to have members of his administration do so, so he appointed a young friend of Colonel House, William Phillips, as an intermediary. On this basis conversations began in late January but made little progress until Cabrera decided to exceed his instructions and assure Wilson that the Constitutionalists were indeed committed to democracy and to social and economic reforms, especially the redistribution of land. That step earned the agent a sharp rebuke from Carranza, but it seemed to have a favorable effect on Wilson.’* “The Constitutionalists have been acting very satisfactorily in recent negotiations,” Bryan told Lind, and the president was “pleased with the pro~pect.”’~Somewhat more cynically, two British diplomats in the United States reported that the president had “cast his lot with the Constitutionalist party” and that he was “caught in the toils of the Constitutionalists and Seiior Luis C a b r e ~ a . ”However ~~ one chose to interpret the reasons for the decision, on 3 1 January Wilson announced the lifting of the arms embarg~.’~ Z9HouseDiary, 23 December 1913, 16 January 1914, House Papers. Military setbacks suffered by the Constitutionalists at this time probably helped encourage Wilson to think about intervention to help them. On 13 December the vital railroad center of Torreon was recaptured by Huertista troops. Another different danger lay in the possibility that the rebels might cut the railroad between Mexico City and Veracruz, thus isolatingthe capital and leading to demands for intervention to protect foreigners living in the city. See ibid., 21 January 1914. No one in the Carranza faction had spoken out for land redistribution as of December 19 13. Conceivably, Wilson was confusing Carranza with Zapata, or assuming a greater unity between the rebel leaders than actually existed. ’OFor a fuller account of the Cabrera mission, see Kendrick A. Clements, “Emissary from a Revolution: Luis Cabrera and Woodrow Wilson,” The Americas 35 (January 1979): 353-71. Eugenia Meyer, Luis Cabrera: teorico y critic0 de la Revolucion (Mexico, DF, 1972), contains a selection of Cabrera’s voluminous writings and a brief biographical sketch-the best available. 3’Ulloa,La Revolucion intervenida, p. 93. ”William Phillips, Ventures in Diplomacy (Boston, 1952), pp. 3, 5-6, 58-63; Cabrera to Phillips, 27, 28, 30 January 1914; Phillips to Wilson, 28 January 1914, all in Woodrow Wilson Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress (hereafter cited as Wilson MS); Ulloa, La Revolucion intervenida, p. 316, n. 18 1. ’)Bryan to Lind, 5 February 1914, Wilson MS. “Cecil Spring-Riceto Sir Edward Grey, 14 February 1914, enclosingmemorandum of conversation among T. B. Hohler (new British charge en route to Mexico City), Woodrow Wilson,andWilliamJenningsBryan,11 February 1914,ForeignOfice414/239,pp. 71,79, Public Record Ofice, London (hereafter references to the Foreign Office records at the PRO will be cited by the document file number and FO volume); Spring-Rice to Grey, 17 February 1914, Wilson Papers, 29:266. 35FRUS,1914 (Washington, 1922): 466-48. 122 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY The termination of the arms embargo is an important milestone in the development of Wilson’s Mexican policy. It marks the point when the president gave up hope of using American influence to mediate among the factions in Mexico with the aim of settling all issues through a general election and turned instead to overt support of the revolution. Although Wilson would continue to urge moderation, restraint, and the employment of legal means on the Constitutionalists at every opportunity, he realized, as he told House in December, that support of the rebels meant endorsement of murder and dictatorship, and that ultimately the direction of the revolution was uncontrollable by any outside influence. “My ideal,” .he told an interviewer in April 19 14, “is an orderly and righteous government in Mexico, but mypassion is for the submerged 85 per cent of the people of that Republic who are now strugglingtoward liberty.”16 Wilson was fully aware of the implications of his policy change. He had been “obliged to alter” his policy, he told the British ambassador on 6 February, because he had become convinced that great land owners and foreign investors in Mexico were so strong that they would control any provisional or elected government, and therefore that no such government “could be safely trusted to solve that great question which was the prime cause of all political difficulties,” namely the redistribution of land. “Such were the reasons,” the ambassador reported, that Wilson had come “to believe that Mexico had best be left to find her own salvation in a fight to the finish.” The effect of his new policy, the president admitted, would be an increase of violence and destruction, but he seemed “to regard with indifference the loss of property and (so far, at least) the loss of life. . . .”17 Many people at home and abroad thought the president’s attitude was grossly irresponsible. From their point of view, he had stripped away the last illusion of safety in Mexico and left foreigners exposed to all sorts of rebel atrocitie~.~~ Both in Europe and in the United States most people regarded the Constitutionalists as bandits and demanded American intervention to end the revolution and restore order.39Wilson professed not to be affected by this growing pressure for intervention. Any effort by outsidersto impose order, he told a reporter, would merely “invite a repetition of ’ 6 S ~ u e lG. Blythe, “A Conversation with President Wilson,” The Saturday EveningPost, 23 May 1914. inBakerandDodd,PublicPapers,3:11 I-I2(emphasisadded), ”Spring-Rice to Grey, I, 8 February 1914, FO4141239, pp. 64-65,53-54. ’*The shooting of William Benton, a British subject, by Pancho Villa was the most notorious (but not the only) case. SeeFRUS, 1913: 838-66. 39For studies of interventionism, see Justin L. Kestenbaum, “The Question of Intervention in Mexico, 1913-1917” (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1963); 0.Zeller Robertson, “Mexico and Non-IntenZention, 1910-1919: The Policy, the Practice, and the Law” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1969); Wanick R Edwards 111, “United StatesMexican Relations, 1913-1916: Revolution, Oil, and Intervention” (Ph.D. diss., Louisiana State university, 1963). MEXICAN POLICY, 19 13-15 123 conflict similar to that which is in progress now. . . .”40 But as time passed and the revolution seemed to make no progress, he began to heed the siren song of temptation. From Mexico, Lind played on the president’s sense of frustration at Constitutionalist disunity and lack of military progress and insisted that it would be easy to send an expedition to Mexico City to oust Huerta. There probably would be no Huertista opposition to such a force until it reached Mexico City, Lind thought, and even there the resistance would be minor. Carranza, he argued, would give tacit if not open consent. Without some such bold move, the agent urged, there would never be a resolution to the Mexican mess.41 Wilson was tempted. As early as August the War and Navy Departments had made tentative plans to raise and transport 40,000 troops for such an expedition, and the military side of the plan seemed to pose no great difficultie~.~~ What was needed was an incident that would give a plausiblejustification for sendingthe expeditionary force. The excuse the president sought came on 9 April 19 14, when sailors from an American warship were arrested by Mexican authorities as they landed in a restricted area of the port of Tampico. The sailors were soon released with apologies, but Admiral Henry T. Mayo, without radioing Washington for orders, rejected the informal apology and demanded a formal apology and salute to the American flag.43Wilson subsequently confrmed the admiral‘s ultimatum, and after ten days of fruitless negotiations with Huerta over it, on 20 April he went before Congress to ask authority to use American armed forces to uphold the honor and dignity of the United States. The House acted quickly but while the Senate was still debating the issue, the State Department learned in the early morning hours of 21 April that a German merchant vessel, the Ypiranga, loaded with arms for Huerta, was due to dock that morning at Veracruz. Without waiting for Senate action, Wilson ordered the seizure of the port of Veracruz and during the morning of 21 April a thousand American marines and sailors (soon reinforcedto 3,000) went ashore and seized the city. Then everything began to go wrong. Wilson’s aim, as he later admitted in off-the-record remarks to reporters, was to take a “decisive step” that would mean “the end of Huerta,” and the seizure of Veracruz was intended to be that ~ t e p . He 4 ~ had believed that there would be little or 40Blythe,“A Conversation,” in Baker and Dodd, Public Papers, 3:118. 41Lindto Bryan, 24 February 1914, 1 1 P.M.; 12 March 1914,4 P.M.; 19 March 1914, midnight, Wilson Papers, 29~286-81,338,35760. 4ZSecretaryof the Navy Josephus Daniels to Wilson, ca. 8 August 1913, enclosing memorandumfrom Assistant Secretary of War Henry S. Breckenridge,ibid., 28: 130-3 1. 43F0rthe details of the Tampico incident and subsequent developments, see Robert E. Quirk,An @air of Honor Woodrow Wilson and the Occupation of Vera Cnu (Lexington, KY, 1962). 44Transcriptof press conference, 24 November 19 14, Wilson Papers 3 1. 124 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY no military opposition to the invasion, and he had been so confident that the Constitutionalists would welcome his action that he had not even bothered to check Lind’s assurances on that point!’ He found he was wrong on both points. The Huertistu garrison in Veracruz,joined by cadets of the Mexican Naval Academy, conducted a tragically futile resistance to the American landings that left 126 Mexicans and 19 Americans dead, and 195 Mexicans and 71 Americans wounded. At the same time Carranza denounced the American action and it appeared for a time that the rebels and Huertistus might make common cause against the Yankees. Shocked and alarmed by the dangerous situation, Wilson hastily vetoed War Department plans for a march on Mexico City and a general blockade of Mexican ports, and instead gratefully accepted an offer to mediate the dispute by the ambassadors of the ABC Powers-Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.46 Wilson had been warned repeatedly and forcibly against military intervention by Secretary of State Bryan, by Carranza through William Bayard Hale, and by Carranza’s representatives in the United States, Francisco Escudero and Luis Cabrera, but he had not really believed the warnings. By April of 1914 he had learned to take the revolutionary commitment of the Constitutionalists seriously, and he now realized that he had to take their nationalism equally seriously. From the Mexican point of view all foreign interference, whatever its motives, was intolerable. The president would never forget the painful lesson he received at Veracruz. Wilson did not, however, retreat precipitously from Mexico. Having taken the dangerous step of military intervention, he was determined to see Huerta forced out-if that could be accomplished without full-scale war. Although he accepted the ABC mediation offer, he flatly rejected the idea of withdrawing American troops during the mediation and insisted that the conference must go beyond the immediate dispute to discuss the elimination of Huerta and the establishment of a provisional government committed to reforms that would “reasonably assure the ultimate removal of the present causes of discontent.”” On the other hand, he rejected plans by Secretary of War Lindley M. Garrison for a large-scale reinforcement of the troops at Veracruz in order to prepare for a possible march on Mexico City because, he argued, such reinforcements would stimulate bellicosity in the United States and jeopardize the mediation c~nference.~~ ~ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ~_ _ _ _ _ ~ - ‘5Transcriptof press conference, 20 April 1914, ibid., 29:468,470. 46Link,Wilson.The New Freedom, pp. 400-2. “Confidential memorandum, Wilson to the ABC ambassadors, 25 April 1914, Wilson Papers, 29507; “Wilson Tells US.Envoys Army Will Stay in Mexicountil Peace Is Guaranteed,”New York World 19 May 1914, ibid. 30. 4*Lindley M. Garrison to Wilson, 8 May 1914; memorandum by Garrison of conversationwith Wilson, 9 May 19 14, ibid. Note, however,that Wilsondid instruct Daniels to prepare limited reinforcements in the event of an attack on American troops in Veracruz. See Daniels to Wilson, 12 May 19 14; Wilson to Daniels, 12 May 19 14, ibid. MEXICAN POLICY, 1913-1 5 125 A third alternative, to turn Veracruz over to the Constitutionalists,he ruled out because of Carranza’s hostility, which made any dealings with the In short, although Wilson Constitutionalist chief almost impo~sible.~~ came to feel that the Tampico incident was mishandled and the Veracruz invasion unwise, and although he was careful not to allow the intervention to escalate, he was not prepared to retreat totally either.5oInsofar as circumstances allowed him to do so, he attempted to confirne intervention to the single goal of forcing Huerta out, leaving to the Mexicans themselves complete freedom to shape the course and nature of the successor government. Wilson’s policy did mean limited intervention and a violation of Mexican rights of Self-determination. In the president’s mind these steps were justified because he believed that foreign imperialism, in the shape of powerful foreign economic interests, had become so entrenched within the Mexican government that no administration that incorporated any elements of the old regime would give the people of Mexico any voice in their own flairs. His compromise with ideological purity was forced on Wilson by the realities of the situation, which were that Mexico was an economic colony dominated by a small oligarchy of domestic and foreign and that therefore the ideals of nonintervention and selfdeterminationwere to some extent in conflict in this case. Given the degree of intervention by economic interests in Mexico, political and military nonintervention actually would have the effect of thwarting genuine selfdetermination rather than of promoting it. This paradox, which historians and contemporary critics of Wilson alike have evaded, must be dealt with in reaching a reasonablejudgment of Wilsonian policy. Wilson’s course during the Niagara Falls mediation conference of May-June 1914 clearly showed his determination to eliminate Huerta and foreign imperialism in Mexico, and to leave the Mexicans a free hand thereafter. “I wish that we were going to have a more intimate part in the settlement of this land question in Mexico than it is possible for us to have,” he confessed to a friend. But, he added, “the principle that I am going on is that we ought studiously to seek to leave the settlement in their hands and that our only part is to see that they get a chance to make it.”S2Setting aside his own wishes, Wilson tried to follow Constitutionalist 49WilliamKent to Wilson, 24 April 1914; Wilson to Kent, 27 April 1914, ibid., 29~499-500,512. ’OWilson never expressed his view in public that the April crisis had been bungled. See Wilson to Edith Bolling Galt, 10 August 19 15, ibid. 34. ”Wilson may have underestimated the degree to which Mexico had become an Americun economic colony, but he was certainly right about its dependent status. See, for example, Gilderhus, Diplomacy and Revolution, p. 1; Howard F. Cline, The United Stutes and Mexico, rev. ed. (New York, 1963), p. 54. For examples of the high-handed behavior of foreign oil men and other wealthy investors in Mexico, see Grey to Colville Barclay, 2 July 1914; Wilsonto Bryan, 14 July 1914, WilsonPapers 30. J*Wilsonto George Lawrence Record, 1 June 1914, ibid. DIPLOMATIC HISTORY 126 policy as closely as possible. Convinced that the rebels would win, he insisted that outsiders could only advance or retard their victory. He rejected the premise of the mediators-that the issues between Huerta and the United States could be negotiated-because any settlement with the dictator would relieve pressure on him and might thus prolong the bloodshed.53Hence the Americans followed the peculiar policy of refusing to talk about the ostensible issues of the mediation, the Tampico and Veracruz incidents, and insisted that the conference consider the seemingly irrelevant matter of a provisional government to take over after Huerta’s departure. Even more, Wilson rejected the mediators’ call for a cease-fire because it might slow a Constitutionalistvictory, and he insisted that even a provisional government must be firmly committed to the enactment of basic reforms by decree.54 Despite the rehsal of rebel delegates to attend the Niagara Falls meetings, Wilson tried hard to present their case. In so doing he ironically opened himself to the charge that he was trying to destroy the conference and control the direction of the revolution. A moment’s reflection, however, should reveal the weakness of this charge. Had Wilson sought control in Mexico, the mediators’ proposal of a cease-fire and a “neutral” provisional government offered a far surer route than encouraging the rebels to fight on to total victory. In fact, the president was remarkably sensitive to Constitutionalist interests at Niagara Falls, even refusing to sign the conference’s final protocol because, he argued, its suggestion of a provisional government to be established by agreement between Huerta and the Constitutionalistswas interference in a Mexican domestic issue.55 Wilson’s acceptance of the rebels’ goals and methods was, by the time the mediation conference ended on 2 July, complete and irrevocable. On another level the conference had important results. It destroyed Huerta’s last hope of eliminating Wilson’s implacable hostility and, together with his almost hopeless military situation, persuaded him that he should give up, as he did on 15 July. Most importantly, it served as a sort of catalyst for Wilson’s Mexican policy, forcing him to think about and renounce once and for all the mistaken idea of controlling Mexican events from outside that had led to the Veracruz intervention in the first place. Ironically, although the mediation did not explicitly settle the Tampico incident or end the Veracruz occupation, in the course of it Wilson committed himself so firmly and deliberately to a nonintervention policy that such incidents became much less likely in the future. This is not to say -~ - - _ ~ ~ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ~ ~ - J3WilsontoBryan,14 July 1914, ibid. J‘Bryan to Charles A. Dou as (a Constitutionalistagent in Washin n), ca. 28 April 1914; memorandum from Lmd, YO April 1914, ibid, 29:525, 53!%40;!!&an to Wilson, 19 May 1914; Wilson to Bryan, 19 Ma) 1914; Bryan to the Special Commissioners, 20 May 19 14; Wilson to the Special Comrmssioners, 21 May 1914; an outline of a telegram to the Special Commissioners, 24 May 1914; Wilson to the Special Commissioners, 26 May 1914; Bryan to the Special Commissioners, 3,24 June 19 14, ibid. 30. ”Bryan to the Special Commissioners, 30 June 1914, ibid. MEXICAN POLICY, 1913-15 127 that the president gave up all effortsto influence the direction of events in Mexico, but in the fbture he was scrupulously carehl to keep his activities within the limits of normal diplomatic persuasion and pressure. Restraint was never easy for Wilson. Finding the Constitutionalists invariably obstinate and difficult to deal with, he exploded in frustrationto Robert Lansing, “I thing [think] I have never known of a man more impossible to deal with on human principles that [than] this man C a r r a n ~ a . ”Yet ~ ~despite provocations and temptations of various sorts, the president henceforward objected to and resisted all plans for forcible interference in Mexican affairs that came to his attention. Intervention proposals that came from subordinates were the easiest to deal with, even when persistently advanced. When the always bellicose Secretary of War Garrison reported to the president that American troops at Veracruz had intercepted a telegram indicating a Curruncistu plot to deny arms to Villa and asked what to do about it, Wilson instructed the secretary not only to keep American troops passive but to act as if they “were not in Mexico at all. Events must take their come.” Garrison, unconvinced, replied that American forces needed to be reinforced because they were “inadequate in numbers to penetrate into the country.” Nettled at this obtuseness, Wilson closed the discussion with a polite rebuke: “There are in my judgment no conceivable circumstances which would make it right for us to direct by force or by threat of force the internal processes of what is a profound revolution, a revolution as profound as that which occurred in France.”57 Hints of interventionism from businessmen received an especially cold reception from Wilson. A committee of American businessmen in Mexico City, who asked for military protection, were coolly dismissed as the causes of the very problem of which they complained. When some of them suggested that they might take matters into their own hands by arming themselves and attempting to take over Mexico City, the president instructed Bryan to tell them that any such action would “outlaw them and put them at the mercy of the Mexicans outside the pale either of domestic or of international law.”s8A rumor that the National City Bank of New York was offering financial support to Carranza in return for mining and banking concessions also angered Wilson. “It is . . . extremely important that we should prevent private agencies of this order from guiding and 56Wilsonto Robert Lansing, 2 July 1915, ibid. 33. Wilson rarely made typographical errors;two in one short sentence suggest unusual agitation. 57Garrisonto Joseph P. Tumulty, 7 August 1914; Tumulty to Garrison, 8 August 1914; Garrison to Wilson, 8 August 1914; Wilson to Garrison, 8 August 1914, ibid. 30. J8Wilsonto Bryan, 10 March, 5 April 1915; Bryan to Wilson, 5 April 1915, ibid. 32; Wilson to Bryan, 2 June 1915, enclosing J. W. Belt (assistant to Special Agent John R Silliman)toBryan, 21 May 1915, ibid. 33. 128 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY determining affairs in Mexico,” he told Lansing. “The country ought to be made to realize and accept the fact that this Government is in charge.”59 Those whose standing or personal relationship with the president precluded outright rebuffs had their suggestionsbrushed off with replies that were politely fmn or evasive. A suggestion from the Argentine ambassador for a pan-American appeal for unity among the Mexican factions was courteously discouraged. The incessant pressure of the Catholic Church for protection of church property, priests, and nuns in Mexico was met with the polite evasion that guarantees of religious liberty would be a factor in determining the eventual recognition of a Mexican government. Wilson remarked privately to Bryan that anticlericalism had “too much Mexican history” behind it for there to be much hope of stopping it.60A suggestion from Charles W. Eliot of Harvard for multinational military intervention “to set Mexico in order” drew a cordial reply from the president, in the course of which he firmly rejected “the use of force” even as he thanked Eliot for his advice!’ Most difficult to deal with were well-intentioned suggestions for interference from Wilson’s friend, Colonel House. These the president generally dealt with by a sort of indirection. A suggestion from House, for example, to join with the AJ3C powers in offering mediation among the revolutionary factions in Mexico was enthusiasticallyendorsed by Wilson in principle, but he posed all sorts of practical dficulties that prevented the Texan from even attemptingthe project. Likewise, when some months later House (apparently with the agreement of Lansing) proposed a scheme involvinglong-term American financial control of Mexican af‘fairs,Wilson, without actually rejecting the idea, posed so many obstacles in terms of treaties required and congressional authorizationneeded that House simply dropped the whole idea.62With friends like House and Eliot, Wilson was tactful and undoctrinaire but nonetheless firm. He seldom mounted a soapbox to proclaim his aversion to intervention, but he never lacked reasons to oppose particular suggestions. It was an effective method of dealing with a difficult situation. For the most part Wilson could simply dismiss the intervention schemes that crossed his desk, but there were some that had to be taken seriously and countered actively. Most notable of this category were a 59LansingtoWilson, 31 August 1915; WilsontoLansing, 31 August 1915;Lansingto Frank A. Vanderlip (presidentofNationa1City Bank), 1 September 1915, ibid. 34. Vanderlip flatly denied the rumor. Wilson may have reacted especially strongly in this case because a somewhat similar scheme had been proposed earlier by Samuel Untennyer. See Untermyer to W. G. McAdoo, 19 June 1915, ibid. 33. WBryanto Wilson, 1 1 March 19 15 (two letters); Wilson to Bryan, 1 1 March (two letters), 17 March 1915, ibid. 32. 61EliottoWilson, 19 February 1915; WilsontoEliot, 23 February 1915, ibid. 6ZHouseDiary, 24 Jan~ary~l915, House Papers; House to Wilson, 3 August 1915; Wilson to House, 4August 1915, WilsonPapers 34. MEXICAN POLICY, 1913-15 129 series of emigre plots by various Mexican generals and politicos. One of the most dangerous of these plotters seemed to be Victoriano Huerta himself, who came to the United States early in 19 15 and made himself a nuisance by contacting bankers in New York and then going to Texas to organize a counter-revolution. Wilson worried a good deal about Huerta, but the danger was eliminated in June 1915 when the exdictator was In fact, Huerta, in failing health and closely arrested and impris~ned.~~ watched by federal agents, was never as great a threat as Eduardo Iturbide, former governor of the Federal District of Mexico. Iturbide’s cause was strongly championed by Leon J. Canova, sometime special agent in Mexico and later assistant chief of the Latin American Affairs Division and chief of the Mexican Affairs Division of the State Department. Through Canova, Iturbide was introduced to others in the State Department, including Bryan and Lansing, and to Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, who fancied himself an expert on Mexico and became Iturbide’s most ardent champion. Supported at the highest levels of the administration, Iturbide’s cause seemed to flourish for a time, but in fact Bryan was hostile to it from the beginning and by July 19 15 Wilson had concluded that Iturbide was only another Huerta in slightly more attractive guise. He would support neither Iturbide nor Huerta.‘j4 As David Lawrence, a newspaperman for whose judgment Wilson had great respect, pointed out, all of the various counter-revolutionary plots that hatched so rapidly in this conhsed period had in common one thing-all of them depended for their success on American support.65 They were symptomatic of the troubled situation in Mexico and of the conspirators’ ambitions, not of Wilsonian policy. Had Wilson genuinely sought to control Mexico, some of them at least offered a possible method for doing so, but he remained steadfastly opposed to all of them. He was determined, despite the difficulty of dealing with the Constitutionalists,to let Mexico’s government and governmental policies reflect the will of the Mexican people, not the interests of the United States. For that reason the other side of his nonintervention policy was deliberate restraint and moderation in his dealings with the Constitutionalists. Through a variety of agents the president and secretary of state deluged rebel leaders with recommendations of moderation, patience, and caution and reminded them that the administration could continue to withhold recognition and discourage American investments in Mexico if 63GeorgeJ. Rausch, Jr., “The Exile and Death of Victoriano Huerta,” Hispanic American HistoricalReview 42 (May 1962): 133-5 1. 6‘Link, Wilson: The struggle for Neutrality, pp. 4 7 6 7 8 ; Wilson to House, 3 July 19 15, Wilson Papers 33. 65DavidLawrence to Wilson, 27 May 1915. ibid. 130 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY the revolutionaries did not follow a prudent, reasonable course.66But these admonitions were only advice, not orders. Even more importantly, an examination of the correspondence reveals that the president’s concern was with the methods the revolutionaries used and not with their objectives. This is an important distinction because it means that Wilson did not question the Mexicans’ right to do as they wanted. His only concern-a wise one-was that they proceed to their goals by means likely to antagonize both Mexicans and foreigners as little as possible. During the autumn of 1914, after Huerta’s flight, Wilson was optimistic that the Aguascalientes Conference, which began in October, would produce agreement among rebel leaders. Failing that, he felt sure that the seemingly friendly Pancho Villa would defeat the others and emerge supreme. When the conference failed, the president’s optimism continued until Villa’s military supremacy began to crumble early in 1915, and it became clear that the civil war would be longer and bloodier than American leaders had anti~ipated.~’ Thereafter, the chaos in Mexico became catastrophic and Wilson found himself under intense pressure to intervene. Early in 1915 Mexico City, with its large foreign community, was besieged by contesting rebel bands. Further complicating the situation was the expansion of the civil war to remote Yucatan, where most of the sisal hemp grew that was used in the manufacture of binder-twine for American farmers, thus arousing the ire of a group normally outside the foreign policy-making process. Under great pressure from foreign governments with citizens in Mexico Cit , from Americans with friends and relatives there, and from farmers andy binder-twine manufacturers, Wilson remained calm and moved cautiously. Although Carranza’s armies were major contenders in the fights for Mexico City and Yucatan, Wilson did not link the two issues, which would have made the crisis more serious and hence more difficult to resolve peacefully. Instead, he sent a nebulously worded ultimatum to Carranza on 6 March that threatened to hold the First Chief “personally responsible” for injuries to foreigners in Mexico City and then delayed almost a week before instructing special agent John R Silliman to demand _ _ _ _ ____ __-__ &For example, Bryan to Leon J. Canova, 16 July 1914 , 6 P.M.; Bryan to Villa and Carranza, 20 July 1914; Bryan to Silliman, 3 1 July 1914, 12 noon; Paul Fuller’s memorandum for the president, 20 August 1914; Wilson to James Cardinal Gibbons, 21 August 1914; Wilson to Villa, ca. 25 August 1914, ibid. 3 0 Fuller to Wilson, 21 September 1914; Wilson to Bryan, 3 December 1914, ibid. 31; Wilson to Duval West, 9 February 1915;reportsofinterviewsofVillabyWest,4,6 March 1915,ibid. 32. 6’Despitethe continued turmoil in Mexico, Wilson told Secretary of War Garrison on 15 September 1914, that the American troops at Veracruz were “no longer necessary” and directed him to prepare to remove them, which was done at the end of November. Ibid. 3 1. In part, Wilson intended the withdrawal to show his approval of the Aguascalientes Conference’s effort to settle factional differences, and his determination not to interfere with the Convention’s decisions. See Robert Quirk, The Mexican Revolution, 19141915: The Convention of Aguascalientes (Bloomington, IA,1960); Link, Wilson. The Struggle for Neutrality, pp. 25266. MEXICAN POLICY, 1913-1 5 131 the reopening of Yucatecan ports. This delay, in fact, was sufficient for Carranza to discover that the blockade of Yucatan was ineffectual, and he had ordered the withdrawal of his gunboats before Silliman saw him, so the agent decided not to deliver the second message at all. Since Carranza’s forces were withdrawn from Mexico City on 10 March, Wilson’s procrastination had the effect of reducing a dangerous situation to manageable size.68The nonintervention policy was severely tested but partly through good luck it survived intact. During April 1915 the Mexican situation seemed to improve substantially. Two battles at Celaya shattered Villa’s military strength permanently and established Carranza as the First Chief in fact as well as in name. In addition, at the end of the month the Constitutionalists issued their first public statement affirming their commitment to such principles as protection of foreigners and foreign property rights, freedom of religion, land redistribution by legal means, and prompt electi0ns.6~Wilson was delighted with the statement, but a warning from agent Duval West that Carranza’s victory was not yet complete made him decide on a continued policy of watchful waiting.’O Throughout the late spring and summer of 1915 Wilson watched the Mexican situation closely, from time to time urging the factional leaders to work together and to try to agree on a single leader for the country. In June, as the grim spectre of famine again threatened the much fought over capital, Wilson sent a new note to Mexican leaders,urgingthemto unite and threatening that if they did not, the United States would “lend its active moral support to some man or group of men, if such may be found, who can rally the suffering people of Mexico to their support in an effort to ignore, if they cannot unite, the warring factions of the country. . . .’”l The statement sounded very impressive, but in fact, like the earlier threat to hold Carranza “personally responsible” for injuries to foreigners in Mexico City, it meant less than it seemed to say. That became clear in August when David Lawrence went to talk to Carr.ulza. Lawrence, eager 6*For more detailed discussions of these events, see Clements, “ ‘A Kindness to Carranza’: William Jennings Bryan, International Harvester, and Intervention in Yucatan,” Nebraska History 57 (Winter 1976): 479-90. The events of early 1915 seem to support an hypothesis recently advanced by John Womack that the Mexican economy functionedfairly well throughout the disorder, and that injuries to American interests in Mexico were always more prospectivethan actual. See Womack, “The Mexican Economy During the Revolution, 1910-1920 Historiography and Analysis,” Mamist Perspectives 1 (Winter 1978): 80-122. 69Bryanto Wilson, 17 April 1915, enclosingLind to Bryan, 16 April 1915; Wilson to Bryan, 18 April 1915; Bryan to Wilson, 19,20,26 April 1915, WilsonPapers 33. ’owikon to Bryan, 21, 26 April 1915; Bryan to Wilson, 23 April 1915, enclosing report from West, ibid. 71Wilson to Bryan, 2 June 1915, FRUS: The Lansing Papers, 1914-1920, 2 vols. (Washington, 1939-40), 2534. See also Wilson to Bryan, 13 May 1915; Bryan to Wilson, 18 May 1915; memorandum of Cabinet meeting of 1 June 1915, by Ganison, WilsonPapers 33. 132 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY to be helpful, had volunteered his services to press on Carranza the desirability of a general conference of revolutionary leaders. The First Chief rejected the idea flatly, whereupon Lawrence abandoned it and urged Wilson to extend full recognition to Carranza alone. Although that proposal seemed in complete conformity with Wilson’s June note, in August he said, “I do not think any part of this advice good. The usual thing has happened a man is sent down there to explain our exact position and purpose and within a day or two sends us a comprehensive plan of his own entirely inconsistent with what he was to say.”72 Wilson’s policy shifts were more apparent than real. He had never been eager to interfere in Mexico to the extent of choosing one faction over others, and the frustrations of dealing with Carranza made him especially reluctant to endorse the First Chief. He was, however, willing to take even that step if, as seemed likely, Carranza scrambled to the top of the heap.73 A little plaintively, the president urged Lansing to suggest something other than sending more ineffectual messages to Mexico, but it turned out there were limits to what he was willing to consider. When the secretary of state organized an August conference of six Latin American ambassadors (the ABC ambassadors plus those whom Wilson referred to privately as the “BUG” ambassadors-Bolivia, Uruguay, and Guatemala), Wilson followed every twist and turn of the discussions with the closest attention, and, when it appeared that Lansing was siding with the conservative ambassadors’ desire to eliminate Carranza and find a more pliable replacement, the president drew him up short. “I think it would be unwise for the conferenceto take for granted or insist on the elimination of Carranza,” he telegraphed the secretary. Lansing hastily reversed himself at the next session of the conference, now arguing that Carranza was likely to be the one to form a government in Mexico.” Although delighted to draw the mantle of pan-Americanism over his policy, Wilson was not interested in a cooperative policy if its tendency was counter-revolutionary. Though he might complain about the dfficulty of dealing with Carranza, he recognized that Carranza was emerging as the dominant revolutionary leader. During August, Lawrence, Lincoln Steffens, and Samuel Gompers all reported, from different points of view, and basing their judgment on different sources of information, that Carranza was indeed coming out on ___. ”Lawrence to Wilson, 16 June 1915; Wilson to Lansing, 17 June 1915, ibid.; Laguirre (Lawrence’s pseudonym while in Mexico) to Lansing, 29 August 1915; Wilson to Lansing, 3 1 August 19 15 (two letters; the quoted passage is in the second); Laguirre to Lansing, 30 August, 1 September 1915, ibid 34. ”Wilson to Lansing, 2 , 7 , 8 July 1915; Lansing to Wilson, 5 , 8 July 1915, ibid. 33; Garrison’smemorandumof Cabinetmeeting, 20 July 19 15; Wilson to Lansing, 29 July 19 15, ibid. 34. “Wilson to Lansing, 1 1 August 1915, received 10:23 A.M., ibid. See also Wilson to Lansing, 29 July, 1 , 8 August 1915; Lansing to Wilson, 31 July, 5, 6, 14 August 1915; WilsontoGalt, 12August 1915,8P.M.,ibid. MEXICAN POLICY, 1913-1 5 133 top in Mexico. Their reports were confirmed by others from more official channels, and together they pointed to a rapid, internal resolution of the Mexican pr~blem.’~ Increasingly, the six ambassadors’ call for a conference of all revolutionary leaders in Mexico seemed pointless, and Wilson observed wryly that it was only the losers who were accepting the invitation. “Foxy Carranza” found plausible excuses for delay and every day brought his armies closer to victory.76 Wilson was not happy about Carranza’s approaching triumph. The Mexican leader, he thought, was “trying and pig-headed,” but difficult though he was, he was the leader of the revolution and the United States would have to deal with him.Tempting as it might be to try to overthrow him and to find another who would be easier to get along with, the president would not hear of such a thing. When he learned that Secretary Lansing had sent warships to Veracruz because of reports that Carranza was allowing mob violence against foreigners, Wilson broke off a New Hampshire vacation to hurry back to Washington. Remembering that he had been away from the capital at the time of the Tampico incident, he was determined to watch this situation “very carefully” lest it disrupt the already delicate situation. Instead of seeking an excuse to intervene, Wilson hoped to avoid any conflict, and he was greatly relieved on his arrival at the White House to find that only two ships had been sent from Newport, Rhode Island, and that they could be turned back before they ever got near Mexi~o.’~The president had learned his lesson. Selfdetermination for Mexico meant the right of the Mexican people to choose a government committed to revolutionary reforms disruptive of American economic interests and headed by a man whom Wilson had described in July as “impossible to deal with on human principle^."^^ To describe such a policy as either impractical idealism or imperialism is to distort the facts to fit the argument. By mid-September Wilson had decided to extend de facto recognition to the Carranza government but a difficulty delayed the step. It now appeared that the Latin American ambassadors’ call for a conference, which had seemed constructive in early August, might be an obstacle to a final settlement in September. Lansing was concerned that the United ”For Lawrence’s reports, see note 72, supra. House to Wilson, 9 August 1915, enclosing Lincoln Steffens to House, 7 August 1915; Samuel Gompers to Wilson, 9 August 1915; Wilson to Gompers, 1 1 August 1915; Edmundo Martinez (Mexican Federation of Labor) to Wilson, 12 August 1915; Daniels to Wilson, 14 August 1915, enclosing Richard Lee Metcalfe (Nebraska journalist currently employed by Carranza but endorsed by Daniels as reliable and honest) to Wilson, ca. 14 August 1915; Wilson to Galt, 18 August 1915,8:15 P.M., ibid. 76Wilson to Galt, 20, 22, 25 August 1915; Lawrence to Wilson, 20 S e p tember 1915; Lansing to Wilson, 12 September 1915, ibid. ”Wilson to Galt, 18 Aagust, 8:15 P.M., 10 August, 15 August 1915, 8:30 A.M., ibid. 78WilsontoLansing, 2 July 1915, ibid. 33. 134 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY States, having endorsed the conference, might seem faithless if it simply abandoned the meeting that had been agreed to by the weaker Mexican factions. Wilson, however, saw no difficulty and instructed the secretary to confer with the ambassadors about simultaneous recognition while at the same time going ahead with the Mexican conference, using it primarily to discover on what terms the other leaders would submit to Carranza. The secretary did as he was told, but he found the ambassadors, especially the Brazilian, suspicious and hostile about this sudden American insistence on recognition. Only after several tense and difficult conferences was he finally able to announce on 9 October that agreement had been rea~hed.’~ The announcement triggered a massive campaign by American Catholic spokesmen to prevent recognition. The anticlericalism of the Mexican revolutionaries had always posed a problem for Wilson, believing as he did in the importance of religious freedom, and, from a purely practical point of view, realizing the importance of Roman Catholics to the Democratic party in the United States. Nevertheless, the president had come to believe that the Mexican Catholic Church was a chief prop of the reactionary regime and must have its power sharply reduced. “Every revolution in Mexico which has had popular support,” he wrote in August, “has had as part of its programme the curbing and subordination of the church.yy80 He was not happy with the prospect, but Wilson realized and accepted as necessary the fact that the success of the revolution meant a measure of religious persecution and expropriation. The October church campaign, involving denunciations of recognition by nearly every bishop, Catholic organization, and church newspaper across the country, brought heavier pressure to bear on the president than he had ever felt before from this particular source, but it raised no new issues and Wilson did not waver. On 19 October the United States extended de facto recognition to the Carranza govement.*l De facto recognition did not mean the end of Wilson’s troubles with Mexico, but it does mark the close of the period of evolutionary development of policy that has been the subject of this article. The president now felt confident that he knew what the Mexican people wanted and that he understood the men with whom he must deal. More importantly, he believed that the power of the old regime was broken and that the main task now for the United States was to avoid the temptation either to reimpose the old regime or to impose a new one while the Mexican people worked out for themselvesjust what they wanted to do. The United States had done what it could. For the future the only proper policy was patience and restraint. 19Link,Wilson:The Strugglefor Neutrality, pp. 631-39. *oWilsontoGalt, 18August 1915,8:15 P.M.,WilsonPapers 34. *‘Link,Wilson:The Strugglefor Neutralit); pp. 64043. MEXICAN POLICY, 1913-15 135 It had not always been so. In a tweand-a-half-year period, Wilson’s policy went through four quite distinct phases. The first, early in 1913, was characterized by Wilson’s intuitive distaste for Huerta that might have led to intervention had he not been made cautious by his lack of information about Mexican conditions. The second phase, during the summer and autumn of 1913, was an activist period in which the president, acting on faulty information and mistaken assumptions, tried to mediate between Huerta and the Constitutionalistsin the belief that the conflict was merely a struggle for ofice that both sides would consent to settle by means of a general election. Rudely disabused of that notion in the fall of 1913, Wilson entered a third phase in which he sought out the Constitutionalists, and, becoming a convert to their cause, he set out to help them with all the zeal of the newly converted, despite their protests that they did not want his help. This third phase came to a sudden end with the tragedy at Veracruz in April 1914, which made clear the limits of intervention. Thereafter, Wilson’s policy reached its fmal form, which was to support the revolution, avoid intervention, and attempt to influence the rebel leaders into the path of justice and moderation by means of diple matic influence. The ugly reality that Wilson always faced in Mexico was that if he adhered rigidly to the noble ideals of nonintervention and selfdetermination, others, powerful and unscrupulous, would serve their own ends by maintaining a repressive but friendly regime in power. They had done so for a generation before Wilson came to office, and it seemed probable to the president that they would do so for another generation unless the United States opposed them. In essence, Wilson saw the Mexican issue as a conflict between the people and the interests. He did not hesitate to side with the people, but he also came to realize that there were other principles involved in the problem. Anti-imperialism, selfdetermination, and noninterventionwere all important to him, and he was disconcerted and upset to find that some of them seemed to conflict with each other, or with other deeply held values. Wilson’s policy was, therefore, idealistic in its base, but it was not “simply” idealistic. Rather it required a ranking of ideals and compromises between idealism and practical necessity. Surprisingly,a workable policy gradually emerged from this process. Wilson’s analysis of the Mexican conflict as being between the interests and the people was essentially correct, and it led him to understand that the one crucial role the United States Could play was to help to clear the old regime out of the way of the revolution. At the same time, however, Wilson’s commitment to self-determination and nonintervention placed definite limits on what he was willing to try to do within Mexico, thus leaving the Mexican people a reasonably free hand in determining their own goals and setting their methods for achievingthem. This is not to say that Wilson’s policy was perfect. It was developed in a hit and miss fashion, and, especially during the first year, was often 136 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY characterized by grotesque blunders and changes of direction. Moreover, the president never could resist offering the Mexicans well-intended advice on how best to pursue their goals. Not surprisingly, Mexican leaders resented being told how to conduct their affairs and constantly feared that what was offered as advice might become pressure or coercion. The defects of Wilson’s policy, which was a highly personal creation, were those of his personality and of his view of the world. The policy, like the president, was sometimes self-righteous, overbearing, and intuitive rather than logical but, like Wilson, sympathetic to the desires of the Mexican people, willing to learn from experience, and consistent despite political pressure and opposition. At bottom, the core of Wilson’s policy was the assumption, taken from his view of domestic politics, that the great issue before the world was the struggle between the people and the special interests.In this case, that assumption conformed reasonably well to reality and produced a fairly successhl policy. Would it always be so? Would Wilson be able to deal equally effectively with a situation where the information he received did not so neatly fit with his preconceptions? Confident of his own rectitude, Wilson was oversanguine about the understandinghe could expect from Mexicans and Americans. He thought his benevolent motives and purposes would be recognized and accepted at face value. He was wrong. Both his motives and the necessity of his actions were questioned by the Mexicans, his fellow Americans, foreign governments, and subsequent interpreters, most of whom regarded him as either naive or as a devious imperialist. It is time to challenge that interpretation. What Wilson achieved in his Mexican policy was a balance between a policy of intervention, which might have thrown the scoundrels out only to impose a new set of Americanized villains for the old ones, and a policy of nonintervention that would have left the old guard of foreign interests, the great landowners, and the army, to pile up power and profit at the expense of the Mexican people. To deal fairly with a weaker neighbor, to help without smothering, and to act without excess are notable achievements for any statesman. Woodrow Wilson’s Mexican policy was hardly perfect, but it met a standard rare in human affairs.