Huerta Or Chaos, Says Envoy Wilson.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 31, 1913:
Before the Senate Committee He Urges a Policy of Recognition with Conditions.
HEARERS MUCH IMPRESSED
Resent Administration's Failure to Send Facts — Diaz to be Candidate for President.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, July 30.— A new complication that may have important bearing on future developments was added to the already tangled Mexican situation to-day when Henry Lane Wilson, American Ambassador to Mexico, laid before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations a detailed statement of Mexican conditions. Besides reciting to the committee the history of recant events in Mexico as he understood them, the Ambassador gave the Senators in response to their questions his conception of what the American policy toward Mexico should be. That policy Mr. Wilson has submitted to Secretary of State Bryan and President Wilson in writing. Neither the President nor the Secretary invited the Ambassador to discuss his plan for the solution of the Mexican difficulty but the Senators who heard it to-day were impressed deeply by it.
    The Committee on Foreign Relations heretofore has been guided entirely by the wishes ot the Administration, and it is not thought any course will be adopted to which the President does not give his approval. But after listening to Ambassador Wilson for over three hours arid questioning him closely as to conditions in Mexico, his part in internal Mexican affairs, and his plan for their improvement. Senators expressed amazement that this fund of information had not been put at their disposal by the Department, of State. There was some wonder, too, that after bringing the Ambassador all the way from Mexico to obtain his personal report his personal conference with the President and the Secretary of State had been limited to fifty minutes, while his recommendations were reduced to writing and were not referred to in conversation.

Resentment In Committee.
    A feeling of resentment on the part of the committee toward the Administration seemed to be sharpened by an impression certain Senators received that the President and Secretary Bryan had not wished the committee to hear the Ambassador. The committee, however, was eager for first-hand information and procured the Ambassador's attendance by a formal resolution. When the committee arose this afternoon after a continuous session of three hours and a half the Senators were so eager to hear more that they invited the Ambassador to appear before them again to-morrow. That invitation was accepted, but shortly afterward, in view of the pressure of other engagements, the committee decided to postpone the meeting for several days.
    The plan submitted to the committee by Ambassador Wilson seems to have undergone severe revision in the last few days. Mediation was scouted as much as ever as being entirely unacceptable to both Mexican factions, while intervention even in the limited form of the armed pacification of the northern States with the consent of the Mexican authorities was suggested only as a remote contingency. The Ambassador's plan, however, still hinges directly on the immediate recognition of Provisional President Huerta, ana that central feature has been absolutely rejected by the President and the Secretary of State.
    The plan put forward by the Ambassador involves recognition of Gen. Huerta with certain conditions precedent, which, in the Ambassador's view, would increase its value to Americans with Mexicans interests, would tend to restore the shattered prestige of the United States below the Rio Grande, and would insure a fair election in October of a constitutional successor to the provisional incumbent. It does not involve a stipulation that Gen. Huerta shall not be a candidate to succeed himself, though some Senators thought the plan might be modified to include that stipulation without nullifying its essential points.
    Ambassador Wilson proposes that in agreeing to recognize the Provisional President this Government shall demand the routine promises of satisfactory settlement of the Chamizal and Colorado River disputes and an adjustment of reasonable American claims for damages. His most important proviso, however, calls for the immediate resignation of the Mexican Minister of Gufernacion, to be succeeded by some one in sympathy with constitutional government. This Cabinet officer, Mr. Wilson points out, absolutely controls Mexican elections, and the fairness of the election would depend more on him than on the personal feelings of the President in power.

Election Plan Surprises Them.
    The committee was surprised to hear from the Ambassador that, in spite of continued disorder in many States, the election announced for October would be held at that time. That, in fact, was one of the points which he pressed as an urgent incentive for prompt action by the United States. Recognition of the existing Government, he said, with the stipulations he suggested, would give the United States a voice in directing the course of events. Demands could be made to the Provisional Government as a prerequisite to recognition which could not be presented otherwise, and the friendly interest of the successful candidate for the United States would be insured.
    Whether recognition is granted or not, Senators are inclined to think that after an election in which at least the forms of constitutional government are observed, recognition could not longer be withheld by the United States. Even if Huerta is re-elected, it is pointed out that it would be almost unprecedented to withhold recognition simply on the ground of Gen. Huerta's alleged ethical deficiencies or because of improper incidents associated with his first elevation to power. After an election, it is argued, regardless of the manner in which the late President Madero met his death, Huerta would be precisely in the position of King Peter of Servia, who owed his accession to the assassination of King Alexander and Queen Draga. Peter's rule was not recognized at first because of moral objections, but as soon as he set up a government in accord with local constitutional form, recognition was given.
    It was suggested that it might prove a calamity both to Mexico and to Americans with interests in the Latin republic for Gen. Huerta to be eliminated. Without discussing his moral qualifications. Ambassador Wilson said he was the strongest man in sight. Senators assented to that view and said that in the end it might be found necessary, in spite of his own known reluctance to stand for re-election, that he should retain control. According to Senators, though better men than Gen. Huerta might be discovered — such as Señor Calero, formerly Ambassador to the United States — a stronger man yet had to show himself.

Sticks to Huerta Theory.
    Ambassador Wilson was emphatic in asserting that unless the Provisional Presidency were recognized at once chaos far worse than anything yet known would result. He adhered to his original statement that Gen. Huerta's government was the only government worthy the name in Mexico; that a rebel government existed only in the northwestern State of Sonora, and that Gen. Huerta, with an army increased to 50,000 men, was doing real work toward the establishment of peace, but that unless the Provisional President could get large funds quickly his hold on the country would be lost.
    These funds, said the Ambassador, could be procured only after the United States should grant recognition. From a financial point of view, according to Mr. Wilson, in spite of important military successes in the last month or so, the Huerta Government is in desperate straits. The daily deficit is enormous, business is at a standstill, and further loans cannot be floated. All that would change, said the Ambassador, if recognition should be given. Loans would realize quickly, the army would be increased, the rebellion would be put down, and business would leap to its normal speed in developing the great natural resources of the country.
    In the detailed historical review of circumstances leading to the present situation, Mr. Wilson gave the committee an entirely new explanation of the death of President Madero and Vice-President Suarez. According to the Ambassador's theory — and he described it only as a theory — the two officials were slain, not by the followers of Gen. Huerta and Felix Diaz, but by the relatives and friends of prominent Mexicans, whom President Madero had ordered put to death in the last days of his Administration.

Revenge His Murder Theory.
    The Ambassador told the committee that he believed those men were on the lookout for any opportunity for revenge. They heard that the prisoners were about to be removed for greater safety from their first quarters in the National Palace to the military prison, and they gathered in various streets in the hope of getting a shot at them as they passed. In that effort they were successful, and both officials were killed in the street leading to the prison.
    After the arrest of President Madero and Vice President Suarez, the Ambassador, he said, called five times on Gen. Huerta in company with the German Minister, to demand that no violence be done. By Gen. Huerta, he related, every desired assurance was given. Mr. Wilson believes those assurances were sincere. In his opinion, there is no moral reason why President Huerta should not be recognized.
    The conditions which the Ambassador suggested as forming the basis of recognition would, he believed, have far greater chances of being accepted by President Huerta now than when conditions of a somewhat similar sort were proposed in the Administration of President Taft. This is the first direct information that has come to light of overtures by the Taft Administration looking to recognizing Huerta. It was explained at the time that Mr. Taft wished to leave his successor in Washington free to choose a course.
    The conditions which President Huerta rejected in the Taft Administration were somewhat more drastic than those now advocated by the Ambassador. The armed pacification of all Mexico north of the twenty-sixth parallel, it is thought, then was a more important stipulation, while guaranties of a kind to wound Mexican sensibilities were demanded.
    The possibility of pacification of the Northern States by American troops is still proposed vaguely, but it is pushed off to a more remote day. Under no circumstances, said the Ambassador, should it be attempted without the hearty accord of the Mexican authorities. He believed that recognition would so strengthen the hands of the central Government that the assistance of the United States in restoring order would not be necessary. In any event, the necessity could be disclosed only by the request from the City of Mexico that American troops co-operate with Mexican columns in running bandits to earth.

Committee's Course Uncertain.
    Although members of the Committee on Foreign Relations feel that conditions in Mexico have been presented to them in an entirely new light, which changes the whole aspect of affairs, it is not apparent just now how that conviction on their part will affect materially the course of American diplomacy. Recognition of a foreign Government is strictly an Executive act and outside the domain of control by Congress.
    The State Department received this afternoon a delayed dispatch from Mr. O'Shaughnessy, Chargé d'Affaires in the City of Mexico, saying that Biesel and McDonald, the Americans connected with the San Patricio Mining Company in Parral, who were arrested, taken to Chihuahua, and sentenced to be shot, had been released. The men were in an automobile, going to the rescue of some friends, when they were seized.
    A dispatch from Chihuahua reports the arrival there of E. E. Rawlins from Madera, who says that all Americans in Madera are perfectly safe and denies the reports that have been coming from El Paso for the last two weeks in regard to the colony there.

DOUGLAS, Ariz., July 30.— Saltillo, capital of Coahuila, is invested by insurgents, who plan to move from there against Monclova, recently taken by the Federals, according to the same advices.