sary to obtain from General Huerta and his adherents the fullest recognition of the rights and dignity of the United States, even amid the distressing conditions now unhappily obtaining ia Mexico.

There can in what we do be no thought of aggression or of selfish aggrandizement. We seek to maintain the dignity and authority of the United States only because we wish always to keep our great influence unimpaired for the ases of liberty, both in the United States and wherever else it may be employed for the benefit of mankind.

He had already explained the wording of the request by saying of Huerta :

Only part of the country is under his control. If armed conflict should unhappily come as a result of his attitude of personal resentment toward this Government, we should be fighting only General Huerta and those who adhere to him and give him their support, and our object would be only to restore to the people of the distracted republic the opportunity to set up again their own laws and their own government.

The House of Representatives on the same day (April 20) passed, after an animated debate, by a vote of 337 to 37, a resolution stating, in effect, that the President is justified in the employment of armed forces to enforce his demands upon Huerta for affronts committed by him.

THE WAR IN MEXICO:

THE DEBATE IN THE SENATE

But it was in the Senate that the most illuminating discussion on the Mexican situation took place. A substitute for the resolution passed in the lower house was offered. It reads as follows:

Whereas, In view of the fact presented by the President of the United States in his address delivered to the Congress at the joint session on the twentieth day of April, 1914, with regard to certain affronts and indignities committed against the United States in Mexico:

Resolved, That the President is justified in the employment of the armed forces of the United States to enforce his demand for unequivocal amends for affronts and indignities committed against the United States.

Be it further resolved, That the United States disclaims any hostility to the Mexican people or any purpose to make war on them.

Senator Lodge, believing that the preamble was inadequate and incomplete, urged that it be changed so as to include all the causes that justify intervention. In the debate that followed this contention was

maintained in speeches of intense earnestness and the highest order of ability by Senator Lodge and Senator Root. We select from each address a single passage, urging our readers, however, to procure and read the entire debate, which bids fair to be one of the most memorable in American legislative history. Senator Lodge said:

We think not only that the honor of the flag should be maintained, that due atonement should be demanded and enforced from Mexico, but we think that something should be done and said about that which the flag covers. The flag covers the citizens of the United States.

They look to it as the emblem of the great Government and the great Nation to which they avow allegiance and from which they expect protection. More than 150 American citizensinnocent, helpless people-have been murdered upon Mexican soil.

I, for one, when I demand atonement for the insults to the flag at Tampico, cannot put aside those people who have perished in Mexico and whose deaths have gone unnoticed and unavenged.

I, for one, speaking only for myself as a single Senator of this body, cannot consent at this great crisis to pass by in silence the wrongs which have been done to innocent people unlawfully in another country without declaring that there is another wrong besides the insult to the flag to be atoned, a wrong which must not be and shall not be repeated. . . . I will not, without a protest at least, join in any resolution which can by any construction put the United States in the attitude of selecting one murderer and cutthroat in preference to another murderer and cutthroat.

If we intervene in Mexico, it must be for the protection of American citizens; it must be in the hope that by our intervention we shall try at least to bring back peace and order to that distracted country, for which we have no feeling but one of friendship. It must not be that we go there to take down one man and set up another.

Senator Root agreed with Senator Lodge, and laid repeated emphasis on the statement that it was folly to go before the world basing our right to intervene in Mexico on a dispute as to how and how far formal amends should be made for the Tampico incident. Senator Root said;

It is a story of violence and anarchy in Mexico. Lying behind it are hundreds of American lives sacrificed, hundreds of millions of American property destroyed, and thousands of Americans reduced to poverty to-day through the destruction of their property. Lying behind it is the condition of anarchy in Mexico which makes it impossible to secure protection for

American life and property in that country by diplomatic means.

Lying behind it is a condition of affairs in Mexico which makes that country incapable of performing its international obligations. The insult to the flag is but a part-the culmination of a long series of violations of American rights, a long series of violations of those rights which it is the duty of our country to protect.

Lying back of this incident is a condition of affairs in Mexico which absolutely prevents the protection of American life and property except through respect for the American flag. .

The real object to be attained by the course which we are asked to approve is not gratification of personal pride. . . . It is the preservation of the power of the United States to protect its citizens under those conditions.

If we omit from the resolution that shall be passed to-night all reference to the matters that are enumerated in this substitute, we omit the real object that forms the justification for our action. Otherwise we would be everlastingly

wrong.

In the end the two houses concurred in passing the Senate substitute resolution as printed above, rejecting Senator Lodge's substitute.

THE WAR IN MEXICO:

THE SITUATION IN NORTH MEXICO

So much is public interest the world over centered in the situation at Vera Cruz and Tampico that not enough attention has been given to Villa's victory over the Federal troops at San Pedro, east of Torreon, and between that place and Saltillo. At the same time insurgents moving northwest from Victoria, where there has long been a little army of Constitutionalists (the same that has twice attacked Tampico), have threatened and even attacked Monterey. It is said that the flower of the Federal army," apart from those trusted troops that guard the capital, was engaged at Torreon and San Pedro ; if this is so, the heavy loss by the Federals in both battles would bode ill for the safety of Saltillo and Monterey, and the fall of those places would put Mexico City in serious danger.

But will the Huerta-Villa war continue? There are many who think it quite conceivable that a bargain may be struck between them--say, for a conjecture, Huerta to recognize Carranza as President of North Mexico and Carranza to recognize Huerta as President of South Mexico-and that their two armies should combine to drive out the United States forces. If there is even a

possibility of this, it is no wonder that the people of our border States are protesting against the export from the United States to North Mexico of millions of dollars' worth of arms and ammunition, which in the case supposed might be used against our own armies.

Elsewhere in this issue will be found the first article from Mr. Gregory Mason, the Outlook's special correspondent in northern Mexico. It describes, in what seems to us an illuminating fashion, recent experiences with the Constitutionalists and with General Carranza in person.

FACTS AND CONDITIONS

IN MEXICO

There are, it is said, nearly a hundred thousand citizens of this country in Mexico. They have gone thither to engage in various industries-principally gold, silver, and copper mining, but also lumbering, live stock and hides, rubber, railways, oil, manufacturing, commercial, and agricultural enterprises. According to the statement of Mr. Letcher, our Consul at Chihuahua, American interests in Mexico exceed $1,050,000,000 according to other observers, the sum of our investments in Mexico reaches $1,200,000,000. This sum is several hundred million dollars greater than the investments of the Mexicans themselves in their own country. It is at least twice as great as the investments of Great Britain, the foreign Power coming next to us in material stake in that country. We also rank overwhelmingly first among the nations in trade with Mexico. Thousands of our citizens there have been reduced to a state of poverty owing to the chaos which has existed, as millions of dollars' worth of their property has been destroyed. They have repeatedly demanded some measure of protection from our Government, since they have been able to obtain none from the governments successively instituted in Mexico.

The citizens of other nations having interests in Mexico have petitioned their respective Governments for similar protection. Of these foreign peoples, the Spaniards are the most largely represented in Mexico. With a tacit observance of the Monroe Doctrine, by which we have practically undertaken to keep order in the Western Hemisphere, the foreign Governments have referred contested daims to the United States for settlement.

The interests of Mexicans themselves have also been gravely, threatened By an overwhelming majority (in the neighborhood

four-fifths) the inhabitants are Indians, and these remain in almost the same condition as that which has characterized them for centuries. The late President Madero announced that he would institute reforms in the system of labor, by which the Indians have been kept in a state of peonage; in the system of landholding, by which Mexico has been parceled out among a comparatively few great proprietors in education, so that the mass of the people might have a better chance; and, finally, in elections, so that elections would no longer be shams. These four reforms were rudely frustrated by the assassination of President Madero and by the accession to power of General Huerta.

Military intervention has begun its work at Vera Cruz. The task of occupation would be the harder but for the valuable experience acquired by the army during the past fifteen years in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines. Most of our officers now have some knowledge of the Spanish language, and, what is more. some understanding of the Spanish-American temperament and character. One unexpected and gratifying result of our experience in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines has been the finding of excellent material for a constabulary among the natives. In Mexico this experience will doubtless be repeated, and a native constabulary, under our officers, should eventually relieve our army of much of its task of stamping out banditry in the country districts, leaving to our forces chiefly the task of garrisoning the towns.

SWORDS AND PLOWSHARES

It is the habit in too many quarters to regard both the army and the navy in their purely military functions, if we may coin a paradoxical phrase, as superfluous necessities. The prevalence of this sentiment is well illustrated by a resolution recently passed by the United States Senate. In this the Secretary of the Navy is asked to report to Congress a plan for the use of war-ships to carry mail, passengers, and freight to South American ports. In view of this resolution, we suggest that the Secretary, of War be requested to report to Congress a plan for equipping our superfluous field artillery with heavy rollers instead of wheels, and of distributing it over the country to aid the Good Roads Movement. The Secretary of the Treasury might be asked to report

on a plan to make his printing-presses and designs for currency available for the manufacturers of wall-papers !

In relation to the particular desire for information expressed in this resolution of the Senate, it might be remarked that the United States Government, through its control of the Panama Railroad Company, is already in possession of steamships plying between this country and the Canal. It would seem to an unprejudiced observer who believes in the economy of using tools adapted to their purpose that the proper plan for meeting the want of transportation to South American ports-if the Government desires to attempt the solution of this problemwould be by the development of the Panama Railroad Company's fleet rather than by the remodeling of war-ships for a task for which they were never intended. Poetically speaking, it may be quite desirable to beat swords into plowshares, but as a matter of expediency. particularly where it will be necessary to beat the plowshares back into swords again whenever an emergency arises, we believe that our Government can afford to provide itself with suitable and special tools both for peace and for war.

MOBILIZING THE NAVY

An example of how perniciously such a project as is described in the previous paragraph would affect the efficiency of our navy may be seen if we can imagine the result had such a plan been in actual operation during the present mobilization of our battle-ships along the coast of Mexico. The suddenness with which the demand for ships came would have precluded all possibility of the refitting. of any ship for military service within any reasonable time limit.

As it was, the mobilization of our navy for service on the Mexican coast forms one of the distinctly creditable chapters in our military history. There is every reason to believe that the army is equally well prepared to handle such munitions of war as Congress has given into its charge. Rear-Admiral Victor Blue has recounted some of the incidents of the naval mobilization:

The department in all its branches moved like well-oiled machinery, every part co-ordinating. One giant ship took on 1,800 tons of coal, provisions for 1,000 men for six weeks, huge quantities of various supplies, rounded up officers and men ashore on leave, and was tug

ging at her anchor waiting only the signal to proceed, in a bare twelve hours.

In the Newport training station just fifteen minutes elapsed after orders arrived before 1,000 men were in complete readiness to embark.

Secretary Daniels wished to charter a large merchant steamer immediately as an auxiliary for the men-of-war off Tampico. Paymaster General Cowie, being instructed to that effect, reported in less than sixty minutes that he had secured the Ward liner Esperanza, then at Vera Cruz, and in only ninety minutes the wireless had notified Admiral Fletcher that the Esperanza was at his disposal.

It is no criticism of either our officers or of our enlisted men to wonder what would have happened if the navy had been called upon to prepare for battle with a foreign nation possessing fleets more powerful than our own. In the present case no need was felt for the fitting out of ships held in reserve, as would have certainly been the case if war had been declared upon a great naval power. For such an eventuality the United States has neither adequate matériel nor a sufficient reserve of trained men. Neither ammunition nor sailors can be created at an instant's notice even from the almost inexhaustible potential resources of the United States. The situation which would have confronted us in the case of a war with a great naval power has been recently discussed in an able series of articles running in the "Scientific American," which we are glad to call to the attention of our readers.

We wonder if out of the hostilities in Mexico the Nation at large will learn the lesson which it has failed to absorb from any of our previous wars, that the time to prepare for battle is during the days of peace.

THE WAR IN COLORADO

"Four Americans killed and twenty wounded," said the despatches from Vera Cruz one morning last week; "Forty-five dead, twenty hurt," said despatches from Colorado in the newspapers of the same morning. War with Mexico must not distract attention from the atrocious war within the limits of the United States—and it is one of the evils of foreign war that its news does make other matters of immense importance seem to receive far less attention than they deserve.

It was literally war in Colorado, not rioting nor street fighting. The reports correctly describe the fighting as a battle. On one

side were ranged two hundred of the State militia; on the other perhaps double that number of the striking miners. The fight was near or on the property of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Sheltered by rocks. plentifully armed and supplied with ammuni

tion, these miners of several races—Italians, Greeks, Austrians, and others-received the assault of the militia and returned their fire. Reports state that fighting continued through day and intermittently through a night. The worst horror of this battle is that two-thirds of the killed were women and children, if the reports referred to above are correct. These non-combatants had been gathered for safety in pits dug for the purpose at the Ludlow Camp. The reports say:

The Ludlow Camp is a mass of charred débris, and buried beneath it is a story of horror unparalleled in the history of industrial warfare. In the holes which had been dug for their protection against the rifles' fire the women and children died like trapped rats when the flames swept over them. One pit, uncovered this afternoon, disclosed the bodies of ten children and two women.

What is the cause of this war? One may ask this question in vain, so far as we have observed, from newspapers that give a detailed account of the fighting. Three months ago, when The Outlook published an article from a well-informed and fair-minded special correspondent about the Colorado coal strike, we noted that it had been going on for over three months, that fourteen thousand men were said to be on strike, that the district was under martial law, and that twelve hundred State troops had been called out. A Congressional investigation is now going on.

Briefly stated, this vicious, long-continued, and injurious strike has been waged chiefly upon the issue of unionism and non-unionism. Other demands, to be sure, are made by the men, and some of them, we believe, have been recognized by the mine-owners as just. Probably peace could have been established long ago if it were not that the owners of the mines insist upon the "open shop" principle, and that the miners themselves declare that this means, not neutrality between owners and union men, but an anti-union policy on the part of the owners. We do not now discuss the merits of this controversy. It existed in the West Virginia mining war, and it exists in a large majority of all the serious labor troubles of the country. That such a question should be left for its decision to an

industrial war is disgraceful. We cannot do better than to quote upon this point what the correspondent above referred to said as to the conditions in Colorado three months ago -conditions which have evidently grown worse instead of better:

Our State Government sat powerless for weeks watching these forces gather for conflict; and now that the conflict is on, all that we can do is to suppress violence while twelve thousand men and their families suffer, a great industry is almost paralyzed, many related industries are seriously crippled, and the public caused much inconvenience and additional expense in securing one of the necessities of life. We provide for the protection of every property right except that of the capacity to labor. . . . The real bone of contention is recognition of the unions. By far the most conspicuous lesson of this strike

can be drawn from the failure of the State and the whole Nation as well to make the securing of industrial and social justice a function of government.

THE NEW

PHILIPPINE COMMISSION

As the picture printed on another page graphically shows, the majority on the present Philippine Commission consists of Filipinos. The Outlook has already pointed out the significance of this fact. Heretofore, when Filipino legislators have shown unwisdom, there has been in the islands a safeguard against serious mistakes. For until now the majority of the Philippine Commission, which is the upper branch of the Philippine Legislature, has consisted of Americans who have brought to Philippine problems experience in self-government. Now the whole Legislature is in control of Filipinos. The safeguard, therefore, has been transferred from the islands to Washington, because now the only restraint upon Filipino action is the veto power that rests in Congress and the President.

Moreover, even the American members of the Commission are all inexperienced in Philippine matters. The Governor, the Hon. Francis Burton Harrison, was appointed because the President wanted a Democrat in that office. The selection of a Democrat was due to the present Administration's distrust of those who have heretofore had charge of Philippine affairs. One of the three Americans, however, is not a Democrat. Mr. Winfred T. Denison, a Progressive, who is the present Secretary of the Department of the Interior, succeeding Mr. Dean C. Worcester,

has had the distinction of serving in the Department of Justice at Washington under both a Republican and a Democratic Administration. By selecting him the President was enabled to make a non-partisan appointment without having recourse to a Republican. He has not only a wide and thorough knowledge of the law, but has a broad conception of judicial and administrative functions. He brings to his new and unaccustomed duties an unusual measure of disinterested public spirit. No office in the Philippine Government calls for greater breadth of mind than the one he occupies, for it deals with the complex and difficult land question.

It is too soon to say what effect the grant of the control of the Commission to the Filipinos will have upon the islands; but the Manila Times," which is not favorably inclined to the Administration and is a severe critic of Governor-General Harrison, testifies that by the responsibility which has been put upon them the Filipino members have been made serious and realize with new force the difficulties and complexities that they face.

A TRAGEDY AVERTED

The attempted assassination of Mayor Mitchel, of New York City, ought to serve as a reminder to the people of this country what they owe to the public servants whom they elect to office.

It was at the luncheon hour of April 17 that Mayor Mitchel, accompanied by the Police Commissioner, Mr. Arthur Woods, and the Corporation Counsel, Mr. Polk, was about to leave the City Hall Park in an automobile, when a shot was fired at the Mayor at close range. Before there was time for another shot there was a brief scuffle and the assailant was thrown to the ground: Commissioner Woods, who seized him, had started forward as soon as he had seen the pistol raised. Partly because of the suddenness of the resistance and partly because the assailant was infirm, the shot missed the Mayor, but it struck and wounded the Corporation Counsel in the face. Fortunately the wound has not so far proved serious.

The would-be assassin, an old man, apparently mentally deficient, had some rambling, incoherent, misspelled letters of his own composition, which indicated that he had some fancied grievances against the Mayor on account of the effort to amend the police laws