This Declaration has been criticized as being too altruistic for a world in which diplomacy has been occupied with selfish aims.

On the same day that the above Declaration was made public, President Wilson delivered a notable address before the Second Pan American Scientific Conference then in session at Washington. In the course of this address he said:

The Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed by the United States on her own authority. It has always been maintained, and always will be maintained, upon her own responsibility. But the Monroe Doctrine demanded merely that European governments should not attempt to extend their political systems to this side of the Atlantic. It did not disclose the use which the United States intended to make of her power on this side of the Atlantic. It was a hand held up in warning, but there was no promise in it of what America was going to do with the implied and partial protectorate which she apparently was trying to set up on this side of the water, and I believe you will sustain me in the statement that it has been fears and suspicions on this score which have hitherto prevented the greater intimacy and confidence and trust between the Americas. The states of America have not been certain what the United States would do with her power. That doubt must be removed. And latterly there has been a very frank interchange of views between the authorities in Washington and those who represent the other states of this hemisphere, an interchange of views charming and hopeful, because based upon an increasingly sure appreciation of the spirit in which they were undertaken. These gentlemen have seen that, if America is to come into her own, into her legitimate own, in a world of peace and order, she must establish the foundations of amity, so that no one will hereafter doubt them. I hope and I believe that this can be accomplished. These conferences have enabled me to foresee how it will be accomplished. It will be accomplished, in the

first place, by the states of America uniting in guaranteeing to each other absolute political independence and territorial integrity. In the second place, and as a necessary corollary to that, guaranteeing the agreement to settle all pending boundary disputes as soon as possible and by amicable process; by agreeing that all disputes among themselves, should they unhappily arise, will be handled by patient, impartial investigation and settled by arbitration; and the agreement necessary to the peace of the Americas, that no state of either continent will permit revolutionary expeditions against another state to be fitted out in its territory, and that they will prohibit the exportation of the munitions of war for the purpose of supplying revolutionists against neighboring governments.

President Wilson's Pan Americanism went further than some of the Latin-American states were willing to go. A treaty embodying the above proposals was actually drafted, but some of the states held back through the fear that, though equal in terms, it would in fact give the United States a plausible pretext for supervising the affairs of weaker states.11

President Wilson has not hesitated to depart from many of the fundamental ideas which have hitherto guided so-called practical statesmen. His handling of the Mexican situation, although denounced as weak and vacillating, has been in full accord with his new Latin-American policy. On February 18, 1913, Francisco Madero was seized and imprisoned as the result of a conspiracy formed by one of his generals, Victoriano Huerta, who forthwith proclaimed himself dictator. Four days later Madero was murdered while in the custody of Huerta's troops. Henry Lane Wilson, the American ambassador, promptly urged his

11 John Bassett Moore, "Principles of American Diplomacy," pp. 407-408.

government to recognize Huerta, but President Taft, whose term was rapidly drawing to a close, took no action and left the question to his successor.

President Wilson thus had a very disagreeable situation to face when he assumed control of affairs at Washington. He refused to recognize Huerta whose authority was contested by insurrectionary chiefs in various parts of the country. It was claimed by the critics of the administration that the refusal to recognize Huerta was a direct violation of the well known American policy of recognizing de facto governments without undertaking to pass upon the rights involved. It is perfectly true that the United States has consistently followed the policy of recognizing de facto governments as soon as it is evident in each case that the new government rests on popular approval and is likely to be permanent. This doctrine of recognition is distinctively an American doctrine. It was first laid down by Thomas Jefferson when he was secretary of state as an offset to the European doctrine of divine right, and it was the natural outgrowth of that other Jeffersonian doctrine that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Huerta could lay no claim to authority derived from a majority or anything like a majority of the Mexican people. He was a self-constituted dictator, whose authority rested solely on military force. President Wilson and Secretary Bryan were fully justified in refusing to recognize his usurpation of power, though they probably made a mistake in announcing that they would never recognize him and in demanding his elimination from the presidential contest. This announcement made him deaf to advice from Washington and

utterly indifferent to the destruction of American life

and property.

The next step in the President's course with reference to Mexico was the occupation of Vera Cruz. On April 20, 1914, the President asked Congress for authority to employ the armed forces of the United States in demanding redress for the arbitrary arrest of American marines at Vera Cruz, and the next day Admiral Fletcher was ordered to seize the custom house at that port. This he did after a sharp fight with Huerta's troops in which nineteen Americans were killed and seventy wounded. The American chargé d'affaires, Nelson O'Shaughnessy, was at once handed his passports, and all diplomatic relations between the United States and Mexico were severed.

A few days later the representatives of the so-called A B C powers, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, tendered their good offices for a peaceful settlement of the conflict and President Wilson promptly accepted their mediation. The resulting conference at Niagara, May 20, was not successful in its immediate object, but it resulted in the elimination of Huerta who resigned July 15, 1914. On August 20, General Venustiano Carranza, head of one of the revolutionary factions, assumed control of affairs at the capital, but his authority was disputed by General Francisco Villa, another insurrectionary chief. On Carranza's promise to respect the lives and property of American citizens the United States forces were withdrawn from Vera Cruz in November, 1914.

In August, 1915, at the request of President Wilson the six ranking representatives of Latin America at Washington made an unsuccessful effort to reconcile

the contending factions of Mexico. On their advice, however, President Wilson decided in October to recognize the government of Carranza, who now controlled three-fourths of the territory of Mexico. As a result of this action Villa began a series of attacks on American citizens and raids across the border, which in March, 1916, compelled the President to send a punitive expedition into Mexico and later to dispatch most of the regular army and large bodies of militia to the border.12

The raids of Villa created a very awkward situation. Carranza not only made no real effort to suppress Villa, but he vigorously opposed the steps taken by the United States to protect its own citizens along the border, and even assumed a threatening attitude. There was a loud and persistent demand in the United States for war against Mexico. American investments in land, mines, rubber plantations, and other enterprises were very large, and these financial interests were particularly outraged at the President's policy of "watchful waiting." The President remained deaf to this clamor. No country had been so shamelessly exploited by foreign capital as Mexico. Furthermore it was suspected and very generally believed that the recent revolutions had been financed by American capital. President Wilson was determined to give the Mexican people an opportunity to reorganize their national life on a better basis and to lend them every assistance in the task. War with Mexico would have been a very serious undertaking and even a successful war would

12" Affairs in Mexico," Sixty-fourth Cong., First Sess., Sen. Doc. No. 324. The World Peace Foundation has issued two pamphlets containing documents on Mexico under the title of "The New Pan Americanism," Parts and II (February and April, 1916).