Paints Huerta Rule As Riot.

New York Times 100 years ago today, March 21, 1913:
Frenchman Asserts Civilized Mexicans Want Intervention.
    Dr. Paul d'Issoncourt, a young French physician who had been serving in the medical corps of the Mexican Army, arrived here yesterday, and said conditions in the Mexican capital were the worst imaginable. He asserted the better class of Mexican citizens would welcome the coming | of American troops. Dr. d'Issoncourt resigned from the army because of refusal by the Huerta Government to pay his salary to the amount of about $200. When he and another army doctor, a German, asked for their pay, Dr. d'Issoncourt related, the answer was to throw them into jail where they remained a few hours. They were released and received a hint that the time had come to quit the country. Two days afterward they sailed from Vera Cruz for Galveston.
    The situation in the City of Mexico when the Frenchman left there a week ago last Saturday he described as one of disorder and unrest. There were no police on duty. The soldiers were being paid in whisky instead of money. Incendiaries were at work every night in several parts of the city. All that was necessary to work murder was to say that your victim was plotting against the Government. The city was without light. Homeless men were stealing street cars in which to live. It was practically impossible to get staple foods at any price.

Army Drinks All the Time.
    "Whisky is the ruling spirit of the enlisted arm of the Mexican military service," said Dr. d'Issoncourt. "Although eggs and vegetables cannot be obtained there is plenty of whisky on tap, the soldiers dipping it out of barrels with their cups. There is no limit to the quantity they are permitted to drink. They simply drink until they are crazed and then proceed to do up the city.
    "Here is something I witnessed only a few nights before I left the city. I was dining with friends in the suburbs, my hosts being a young married couple. Seven drunken Mexican soldiers entered the house, maltreated the owner, and then insulted his wife. That kind of thing happened every night after the overthrow of the Madero Government. The Huerta Government admitted it was powerless to control the men. The army is without discipline, and in my opinion 2,000 seasoned American regulars could take the city and hold it as long as they wished."
    Dr. d'Issoncourt said he assisted at the autopsy on the body of the murdered President Francisco I Madero, Jr., and that it showed the body had been mutilated. The President, he said, died from two bullet wounds in the back of the head. The Frenchman did not see the body of Gustavo Madero so he could not say whether the story of the tortures inflicted on that brother of the President before death was true.
    "One of the worst features of the situation up to the time I left," the physician added, "was the absolute lack of police protection in the capital. Apparently the police force had been disbanded. If a man had an enemy all he had to do was to find him, put a bullet through his heart, and when asked why he murdered him, answer he had evidence that the victim was plotting against the Government.

Busy in Street Battles.
    "I was one of twenty-five foreign doctors, mostly from Germany and France," the physician continued, "who were taken to Mexico by the Madero Government to reorganize the medical staff of the army. A German physician and I bore the brunt of the surgical work during the battles that resulted in the overthrow of Madero. One day, I alone had forty-five amputations to perform. We had no antiseptic and had to use saline solutions for that purpose. The Government had drugs in plenty, but none was issued to the medical officers who had the care of the wounded in charge."
    "Do you think Huerta will establish peace?" he was asked.
    "I can't answer that question." he replied, "for I don't know what the finish will be. Sometimes it looked to me as if Huerta were not the real man in power, but simply was the soldier obeying the orders of an undisclosed superior. The outlook is dark. I don't know whether it will clear."
    "Are the Mexican soldiers any good?"
    "As far as Mexicans go, yes — but that doesn't mean much. One good regiment like the Eleventh United States Cavalry, I believe, could lick a whole division of Mexicans. The Mexicans mostly are ignorant men who don't know anything about law and order and who don't care to know."
    "What did Huerta say when you asked him for the $200 due to you?"
    "He said the Government did not have that much money. Then the German doctor and I resigned. They put us in jail on the charge that we were deserters. They said we might stay in the army if we would work for nothing."
    "What do you think would result from an American occupation of the City of Mexico?"
    "I think it would be the beginning of the end of trouble and soon would result in peace throughout the country. The best people among the Mexicans want the Americans to come in, for they realize it is about the only thing that can bring peace to their sorely distressed nation."
    Dr. d'Issoncourt will remain in New York a week. Then he will sail for France for an indefinite stay in Paris. He is not going back to Mexico soon.