Barrett Defends Mediation.

New York Times 100 years ago today, February 16, 1913:
Says Intervention Advocates Have Gratuitously Misunderstood His Plan.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, Feb. 15.— John Barrett, Director General of the Pan-American Union, replied this afternoon to the State Department's criticism of his proposal for an international mediation in the factional differences in Mexico by sending to every newspaper office in Washington a statement expressing the fear that the department's strictures were inspired by "some person or persons, either in the United States or in Mexico, or in both places, working together, anxious to bring about forcible intervention, and permanent occupation of Mexico by the United States."
    The department's criticism was embodied in what purported to be a paraphrase of a dispatch from Ambassador Wilson protesting against "amateur politics and sentimentality." Such criticism, says Mr. Barrett in his statement, seems to be the result of a "gratuitous misunderstanding" of what he had said.
    Mr. Barrett does not attempt to ax-plain how the persons in Mexico desiring armed occupation induced the American Ambassador to adopt the "gratuitous misunderstanding" of his plan or how the persons in the United States desiring the same thing effected the publication of his substance of the Ambassador's dispatch to the Department of State. His information as to the "persons" suspected, he admits, comes from an anonymous letter which he received late last night, and which he destroyed, because, before he read the statement from the department, he considered the letter a joke. Mr. Barrett's statement reads:

    To brand as amateur politic the suggestion of mediation, a great and accepted broad and practical agency of international friendship, and to call as mischievous activity and sentimentality the application of international co-operation to stop immediately actual fighting and protect lives, seems to be the result of misunderstanding of what I actually had in mind.
    What I really and greatly fear and deplore is that some person or persons either in the United States or in Mexico, or in both places, working together, anxious to bring about forcible intervention and permanent occupation of Mexico by United States troops, and consequently angry with me for presenting a perfectly feasible plan for immediate cessation of hostilities by international mediation, have seized upon me and my simple, informal, and personal suggestion as instruments to force intervention, and have worked up sentiment in the American colony to this end.
    In view of the severity of the complaint of the American colony, and the attitude of the State Department. I am forced in self-defense to make public a fact that I would infinitely prefer never to mention were I not the subject of such criticism.
    Late last night, and before I had been informed of the report from Mexico City. I received an anonymous letter. As best I can quote and recall it was as follows:

    As a friend of yourself and your Southern republics, I want to warn you. You are in danger of attack from two opposite sources on account of the statement you have given out in regard to the settlement of the Mexican situation. One of those is a certain influence that wants intervention and military occupation, and is bitter against the President and State Department for their holding out against intervention. Having so far failed in that direction, it is now incensed at your suggestion and may turn on you both here and in Mexico. The other influence is a man in a great department who cordially dislikes you and everything South American. He is plainly jealous of your work, for Pan-American good feeling and Trade and of the growth of the Pan-American Union. Look out for him, as he may endeavor to do you and your cause harm.

    I cannot believe that this anonymous statement is worthy of actual evidence. I have the most profound respect and regard for the head of the department to which this letter may have referred, and I do not believe for a moment that it refers to him. It must refer to some subordinate, but who he is I cannot imagine.
    With these observations, unless I am further unjustly attacked, I shall have nothing more whatever to say on the Mexican situation, lest it be misconstrued and do harm,

    It is known that for several years the relations between Secretary of State Knox and the Director General of the Pan-American Bureau have not been cordial, and the same thing is true of Mr. Barrett's relations with Huntington Wilson, the Assistant Secretary of State.
    In the handling of the American Government's relations with Latin America there has long been friction between the Department of State and the Director General of the Pan-American Bureau, though Mr. Barrett has never criticised the department's course as being hostile to Latin America. Mr. Barrett received his appointment as head of the Pan-American Bureau when Senator Elihu Root was Secretary of State, and there is reason to believe that he objected to the sterner methods of Secretary Knox in dealing with the Latin-American republics. The South and Central American diplomats seemed to be aware of this difference at the time Mr. Knox wrote his scathing letter to Señor Rodriguez, the Nicaraguan Chargé d'Affaires, giving him his passports. Mr. Barrett has recently been mentioned as differing also with the State Department as to where the credit was due for what expansion there has been in trade between the United States and South America.
    As Mr. Barrett is not attached to the Department of State nor to the American Executive in any capacity the question of insubordination does not arise. Indirectly, however, Secretary Knox is Mr. Barrett's superior officer. The Secretary of State is ex-officio Chairman of the Governing Board of the Pan-American Union, and the United States is by far the most potent factor in the union. In what capacity Mr. Barrett made his suggestion for settling the Mexican troubles does not appear.