Recognition Now Or Intervention.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 27, 1913:
That Is Said to be Ambassador Wilson's View of Our Only Alternatives in Mexico.
PRESENT COURSE PERILOUS
After Meeting Bryan, He Prepares Facts for President as Basis for Conference.
DEL VALLE ALSO REPORTS
Ambassador Quoted as Demanding Senate Inquiry Into Californian's Mission to Mexico.
    From sources exceptionally well informed with regard to what has been taking place in Mexico the information came last night that when Henry Lane Wilson, the American Ambassador, left the Mexican capital for Washington, in answer to the summons to make a report to the President and the Secretary, he was primed with facts and with what he thought were incontrovertible arguments that the United States should decide without delay what it was going to do with regard to Mexico.
    Mr. Wilson, it was said, had made careful investigations, which convinced him that the United States had almost lost the prestige it had enjoyed in Mexico, and that if a decisive step were not taken looking to recognition or something else, it would be impossible for Americans to remain south of the Rio Grande.
    According to The Times's informant, Ambassador Wilson has come here firmly convinced that one of two courses is possible for the United States. The first is recognition of the Huerta Government, under certain conditions. The other is intervention. It has been believed by those who know Mr. Wilson best that he would support the former course. If that found no support at Washington, he would advocate intervention by a big show of force at strategic points along the border and at seaports.
    As the first step preliminary to intervention it was thought that he would urge that steps be taken to remove every American citizen from Mexico, arguing that a show of force on the part of the United States without such a precaution would endanger every American south of the Rio Grande.
    Ambassador Wilson reached Washington yesterday, and in his preliminary talks with Secretary Bryan he was asked to prepare a historical résumé of recent events in Mexico. This he did, and the document, setting forth the facts of the southern republic's troubles as he saw them, was communicated to President Wilson last night. This will form the basis of the conference which the diplomat will hold with the President and the Secretary of State tomorrow.
    The Times's informant said yesterday that Mr. Wilson would be able to show that in the face of whatever support the Madero regime enjoyed, not a voice was raised in the whole of Mexico after President Madero was deposed, demanding that he be reinstated. On the contrary, his deposition was hailed with general acclamation.
    Some of the special acts of the Madero Administration cited by The Times's informant to show the President's despotic rule were these:
    Madero established a censorship of the press. He had persecuted many Americans in Mexico. He had deported nearly all the independent native newspaper editors, and bought or subsidized most of the newspapers that he did not suppress.
    He had bribed all the Generals of the army who held positions of command, beginning with Huerta at the front, and including Blanquet at the time he sent him to oppose Felix Diaz in his first revolution.
    He established a secret society, of which he made his wife and his brother the heads. It was called the Porra, and it terrorized the country, violating all principles of protection against arbitrary arrest.
    He had shot three Major Generals without any approach to the formality of a trial, of these being Reyes and Ruiz.
    During the fighting in Mexico City he maliciously and purposely trained his guns directly on the American quarters. While the revolution was going on which resulted in his overthrow he was meditating the use of dynamite guns to bombard the city, and was actually trying to plant the explosive in sewers and water pipes to blow them up and the city with them.
    While his administration was in power it spent 80,000,000 pesos ($40,000,000) that Diaz had left in the Treasury, and had involved the country in obligations that totaled 500,000,000 pesos ($250,000,000.)
    He put 114 members of his own family into public office, and these drew salaries that aggregated 300,000 pesos a month.

How Madero Really Died.
    The story of the death of Francisco Madero has been told with many variations, and the charge has often been made that Ambassador Wilson was culpable in the matter, if only by negligence. The actual circumstances, so far as an impartial investigation has been able to establish them, were stated thus by The Times's informant.
    Señora Madero had organized an attempt to rescue her husband after his imprisonment. It was the intention to send the deposed President to Vera Cruz in an armored train. Señora Madero telegraphed to the commandant at Vera Cruz to know whether he would recognize her husband as President when the latter reached the seaport. The commandant foolishly wired back that he would do so, and the order for Madero's dispatch by the train was revoked.
    It was at the instance of Ambassador Wilson that Huerta gave the order to transfer Madero from the cell in which he had been confined to more comfortable quarters. While this order was being carried out an attempt at rescue was made, and as nearly as can be established, according to the best information, the two officers in charge of the guard, through excessive or mistaken zeal, killed their prisoner rather than run the risk of having him taken from them.
    When the new Government came in after the revolution, there were two armies in Mexico City, and both were engaged in reckless bombardment. The city was being destroyed, and lives were in immediate peril. Anarchy threatened. It was then, according to The Times's informant, that Ambassador Wilson got Diaz and Huerta to come together. Representatives on both sides were called to the American Embassy. The Ambassador briefly reviewed the situation, and, in effect, said to them:
    "Now, if you don't get together and make every effort to preserve the peace, I will turn all the power and influence of the United States against you both."
    When they left the embassy building, the rival factions left behind a signed agreement.
    At the beginning of the Huerta regime, Mr. Wilson took the ground that if that Government could not live, none could live in Mexico. This, according to The Times's informant, was the view taken by American residents generally. The Ambassador's attempts to get Washington to strengthen the hands of the Huerta Government, so that it might be assured of a continued existence, failed, however.

Rebels Encouraged by Delay.
    This failure of President Wilson or Secretary Bryan to take action was interpreted in only one way by Mexicans. Every rebel in the country construed it to mean that the Washington Government was in sympathy with them, or at least not favorable to the Huerta Administration, and so did everybody else in Mexico. Had Washington recognized the de facto government at the beginning, it was believed, there would never have been any rebellion in the north.
    Thinking Americans in Mexico, according to The Times's informant say that if the present Government in Mexico, contrary to the opinion in Washington, proves strong enough to go on, the United States will be in the position of having made it difficult for that Administration to survive. If it falls, the United States will be in the position of having helped to compass its fall. As Germany has recognized the Huerta Government, the only two foreign countries besides the United States that have failed to follow the example of Great Britain are Chile and Brazil. Reports are current in Mexico City that Washington has been using its influence to prevent those countries taking action.
    The conditions in Mexico to-day are serious, says the informant of The Times. The exodus of Americans from the capital has been continuous. Of the 10,000 American residents who were there at the time of Madero's overthrow, fully 5,000 have left. From the surrounding country — and this does not take into account the number that have made their way home from the border States — there has been a tremendous inrush, and these refugees have been going recently at the rate of 1,000 a week. None, according to this information, can say anything good about his own Government. He despairs that anything will be done to make his life safe in the country, now that his Government has refused to protect his property.
    To such a stage had this feeling of despair come that only about ten days ago American residents in Mexico City got up a petition to the German Emperor asking him for protection, saying that they could not get it from their own Government. This petition had received many signatures, when it was suppressed, some say, by Ambassador Wilson's intervention.

Americans Want Intervention.
    The Americans in Mexico are generally for intervention, according to the informant. The only one of note who has been standing out for recognition of the Huerta Government is the Ambassador. Others at one time wanted the Huerta Government recognized, but say now it is too late, and that there will be no protection for Americans now unless intervention comes.
    The National Railways of Mexico, largely built with American capital, is seriously embarrassed. More than $10,000,000 worth of its property has been destroyed. The road is working as far as Saltillo, and the Federals control the line as far as Nueva Laredo, but reconstruction work is slow and difficult.
    Of the 160,000,000 pesos (about $80,000,000) borrowed by the Huerta Government, it is known that the amount that actually came into the hands of the Government to be used for the purposes for which the loan was intended was less than a third of the total. In the first place, before the loan could be touched, the Government had to pay to Speyer & Co. 40,000,000 pesos, which it owed on open notes. Then it had to hand over 10,000,000 pesos to the Mexican banks for money borrowed. Next it had to pay 10,000,000 pesos in discounts and charges. Thus the 160,000,000 pesos had dwindled to 54,000,000 when the Government got a chance at it.
    Practically no mining operations are going on in Mexico, certainly not any which are in the hands of Americans. It is impossible to get to the smelters. The loss to property and to laborers represents a million dollars a day, according to The Times informant, and most of it falls upon Americans.
    That there is a strong feeling against Americans in Mexico there is little doubt. At the same time this feeling, this sentiment, though plain, is artificial. It has been created. At heart every Mexican who thinks at all realizes that American money and American enterprise have been largely responsible for the development of the resources of his country.
    But the failure of the Wilson Administration to recognize the existing Government and the unconcern which Mexicans think it shows about happenings beyond its southern border have been seized upon as a basis for manufacturing anti-American sentiment.
    The banks are in bad condition. Owing to the fact that practically nothing is being produced in the greater portion of the country, no new money is being offered for deposit. . At points along the northern border is lying $20,000,000 worth of goods, mostly of American manufacture, which is awaiting a chance for shipment into the country. Matamoras, once a thriving community, is now a waste, having been destroyed by the rebels. Juarez is in the hands of the Federals, the only border towns in possession of the revolutionary forces being those of Sonora.