Our Duty Toward Mexico.

New York Times 100 years ago today, February 13, 1913:
    The gravity of the situation created by the civil strife now raging in the City of Mexico, so far as that situation concerns us, is neither to be overlooked nor to be exaggerated. It is a matter of serious concern to the American Government and the American people. It is being treated seriously, but also wisely. We have prepared to dispatch warships to both coasts of Mexico, and we have taken measures to put in readiness a considerable force of troops and to provide for them the means of transportation to any point where they may be needed. But these measures are, as was stated at the conclusion of the meeting of the Cabinet held late Tuesday night, "precautionary steps to protect Americans and foreigners in the City of Mexico should conditions of violence continue and anarchy succeed." We have not taken action for any interference in Mexico, we shall not take such action unless it is imperatively demanded. That is the position of our Government. It is wise and strictly correct.
    If procedures amounting to intervention should become necessary, they will be undertaken, we may rest assured, not hastily or from impulse, not from considerations of the expediency of the moment, but in obedience to well-established principles. It will be well in considering our present relations to the Mexican troubles to leave the Monroe Doctrine out of the question. The principles of that doctrine are not involved, they are not applicable, and to drag them in merely leads to confusion. What is going on in Mexico is an attempt on the part of one faction of the Mexican people, or the leader of one faction, to overthrow the existing Government and set up another in its place. Felix Diaz declares that he wants "only a change of Administration." It is perhaps unnecessary to say that with any change of Administration such as the Mexican people may desire to effect neither we nor the Monroe Doctrine have anything to do. That is altogether a matter for the Mexicans to settle. It was very different when Louis Napoleon sought to force upon the Mexicans a Government and a ruler not of their own choosing. We then informed the Emperor that persistence in that attempt would imperil our friendly relations with France, and the French support of Maximilian was withdrawn. No question of that nature has now arisen. Nor would anything in the Monroe Doctrine or in our National traditions and policy justify, in the words of former Secretary of State Richard Olney, "any attempt on our part to change the established form of Government of any American State or to prevent the people of such State from altering that form according to their own will and pleasure." It is no part of our duty or of our purpose to give aid and comfort either to Madero or to Felix Diaz in the present conflict. Both parties to the controversy are Mexicans, it is a Mexican question, they must fight it out.
    It will be only in the event that they do not or cannot "fight it out" that we shall be called upon to consider the question of interference. Should "conditions of violence continue and anarchy succeed," the question of our duty would arise in a more serious form. If the struggle should be prolonged with continuing destruction of life and property, with danger to the lives and property of Americans in Mexico, and with such results that no responsible Government could be said any longer to exist in that country, then it might become our duty to ourselves and to humanity to bring force to bear to put a stop to anarchical conditions. The nature and sufficiency of the justification are readily deducible from the principle we have frequently declared, and have save in one instance observed, in respect to the recognition of Governments newly set up, whether as a result of revolution or otherwise. That principle was declared in President Grant's message of Dec. 7, 1875, in respect to the recognition of the Cuban Republic. President Grant, much urged to recognize the extremely shadowy Government in question, said in his message:
    The creation of a new State is a fact. To establish the condition of things essential to the recognition of this fact there must be a people occupying a known territory, united under some known and defined form of government, acknowledged by those subject thereto, in which the functions of government are administered by usual methods, competent to mete out justice to citizens and strangers, to afford remedies for public and for private wrongs, and able to assume the correlative international obligations and capable of performing the corresponding international duties resulting from its acquisition of the rights of sovereignty. A power should exist complete in its organization, ready to take and able to maintain its place among the nations of the earth.
    As it was nothing more than an insurrection, not a Government in fact, that we were called upon to recognize in Cuba, the appeal of the friends of the insurrectionists was denied. Recognition is one thing, intervention is quite another, but the principles which would justify the one are in a considerable measure deducible from the other. It is our sincere hope that the Mexicans may in some manner end their quarrel, and that a capable Government may be established. But if the strife should be prolonged, and if it should be futile, if neither part should gain such advantage as to give promise of ultimate triumph, then it is plain that presently there would be no Government in Mexico able to fulfill its obligations, to preserve civil order, to protect citizens and strangers, and to perform its international duties. That would be the condition of violence and anarchy referred to in the statement made of the proceedings of the Cabinet Council Tuesday night. And in that case the question of our duty would arise as one demanding an immediate answer to be given with a full sense of our responsibility to ourselves, to other nations, and to humanity. It will not arise until that condition indisputably exists.