Mexican Outlook Worries President.

New York Times 100 years ago today, September 8, 1912:
Orders More Troops to the Border to Protect Americans and Check Raids.
NOT TO CROSS THE LINE
But American Commanders Want to Do So — Mexico Seeks Entrance for Her Troops on Our Territory.
    BEVERLY, Sept. 7.— Although President Taft will not intervene in Mexico without the fullest deliberation upon a step that would mean war, and although every diplomatic resource will be tried in the effort to protect Americans, his friends declared to-night that intervention was nearer than it had been since the first American troops were rushed to the border eighteen months ago.
    It can be stated on the highest authority, however, that should the President decide that intervention was the only course open to him he would call Congress in special session and demand its authority to send American troops across the border. Under no circumstances, he told his friends, would he act against Mexico without consulting Congress.
    Friends of the President realize that he would give an order for intervention with the greatest reluctance. They are aware that it has already been charged by Senators that the President might send the army across the line, make himself a "war President," and rely upon that to bring victory to himself and the Republican Party in November. Mr. Taft has said that such a statement was utterly without foundation, has declared to his advisers that it would be hard to conceive of a President who would use his office to throw the country into a war which authorities have predicted could not end in less than two years, world cost millions, mean the sacrifice of thousands of lives, and ruin for years to come the basis of this Nation's friendship with the Central and South American republics.
    The President authorized Gen. Leonard Wood, Chief of Staff United States Army, to-day to dispatch two more regiments of cavalry to the Texas border. The regiments will be sent from Fort Riley, Kansas, and Fort D. A. Russell, Wyoming. So far as the President was informed there would be no immediate need for more troops in Texas, but conditions along that border have grown worse in the last few weeks. Mr. Taft made it plain that under no circumstances were the troops to cross the line.
    It is in the southern part of Mexico that the President has learned of intolerable conditions affecting Americans. There the Madero Government, according to the Washington information, is utterly unable to cope with the revolutionists, and there seems to be little prospect that the situation will improve.
    The President is known to have communicated a demand that President Madero be more active in the protection of Americans within the last few days. He is hopeful that this reminder, meant for the ears of the Mexican President and for its Foreign Office as well, will be fruitful of results in both Southern and Northern Mexico.
    The situation south of the Mexican capital is regarded as particularly dangerous to Americans, because the revolutionists there apparently have much less fear of an American invasion than their brothers in the north. The only feasible plan for protection of Americans there, Mr. Taft has been told, will be to send troops to some Gulf port of Mexico.
    The trouble is in the interior. There is no opportunity in the south of Mexico to display troops in force and to instill respect for the United States by their appearance as there has been along the Texas frontier. Only one solution of the problem has been offered, and that is intervention. Mr. Taft is still hopeful, however, that President Madero will improve conditions so that such a step will not be taken.