President Firm Against Huerta.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 1, 1913:
Unmoved by Envoy's Arguments for Recognition of Present Mexican Ruler.
STICKS TO MEDIATION PLAN
Would Treat with Compromise Administration — House Committee to Hear Ambassador.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, July 31.— President Wilson is as firmly opposed to recognition of Gen. Victoriano Huerta as President of Mexico as he was immediately after reading of the assassination of President Madero and Vice President Pino Suarez in the Huerta-Diaz revolt. If Ambassador Wilson came to Washington with the hope of influencing the President, he has been disappointed.
    The Executive was frank to-day in letting it be understood that he was against recognition of an Administration founded on murder, and that he had not been swerved from his position in the slightest degree by the Ambassador's arguments before the Senate Committer on Foreign Relations. It was only in the presence of that committee that the envoy had opportunity to air his opinions on Mexico. President Wilson and Secretary Bryan in their fifty-minute conference with him were careful to confine their questions to requests for statements of fact, thus giving the Ambassador no chance to expound his theories to them.
    The President of the United States has canvassed the situation in Mexico for himself. The Secretary of State has been equally indifferent to the views of Ambassador Wilson. Senators who, following the envoy's appearance before the Foreign Relations Committee, were disposed to give weight to his ideas in regard to the best method for pacifying the Southern Republic, have become less enthusiastic in that respect. Democrats in the Senate now seem to agree with the President that recognition of Huerta is out of the question.

Recognition Premium on Murder.
    Senator Bacon, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, is of the pronounced opinion that to recognize the Huerta Government would be putting a premium on revolution in Mexico. He believes, moreover, that it would be an incentive to every revolutionary leader to assassinate the head of a nation, with full expectation that his act would receive the approval and official recognition of other nations. Senator Bacon also is of the opinion that the recognition of Huerta, far from bringing about peace, would be the strongest encouragement to ambitious chiefs.
    The Senator reflects the views of President Wilson, who has held from the beginning the vigorous opinion that a great moral question was involved— greater than, the mere judgment of the acts of a single ruler. In his Latin-American statement, issued shortly after his inauguration, the President set forth emphatically the opposition of the United States to those who set up government by arbitrary force and announced that the American Government would prefer in its associations those governments which were founded on law and order.
    Although not referring at the time to any particular nation, the President is known to have had Mexico in mind. The impression he desired to spread was that, though seeking nothing itself, the American Government had no sympathy with the volatile processes by which Governments were overturned in Latin America.

Plan Friendly to Mexico.
    President Wilson told visitors to-day that no unfriendliness to Mexico was involved in the policy he was forming toward that country. He did not divulge the trend of his plan, but he made no attempt to conceal his hostility to the recognition suggestion, for he said emphatically that when he made the statement that his policy would be friendly to the southern republic he did not mean he would acknowledge Huerta as Provisional President. It is known that the President is going ahead with his plan and that when he is ready to announce it it will be found to be free from the influence of the present Ambassador to Mexico.
    Just when the President will make known his views is not certain. It will depend somewhat on the possible adjustment of the dispute by the factions themselves in Mexico. The President thinks the prospect of peace is growing stronger daily, and regards the problem as by no means insoluble. He conceives that the Mexicans themselves may be able to bring about peace shortly.

President Sticks to Plan.
    In the meantime the President apparently is adhering to his desire to attempt to settle the Mexican situation through the mediation of the United States. Pending any action along that line, however, officials of the Government are waiting with some anxiety for news of the outcome of efforts that are being made by friends of Huerta to induce him to retire from the Presidency and make way for a Provisional President who would hold office until the general election in October, when a President and Congress will be chosen through Constitutional means.
    Should Huerta step down and out and a Provisional President satisfactory to the United States be put in his place. President Wilson would accord recognition to the new Government of Mexico.

House Committee to Hear Envoy.
    Ambassador Wilson has been asked by Representative Flood, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, to appear before that committee and give his views in regard to the Mexican situation.
    Secretary Bryan received word to-day from Nelson O'Shaughnessy, the American Chargé d'Affaires in the City of Mexico, that President Huerta was endeavoring to hasten the delivery of his order to Gen. Pascual Orozco of the Federal forces at Chihuahua for the release of Biesel and McDonald, the two mine managers who were arrested there, and who were understood to have been sentenced to death. Mr. O'Shaughnessy said in his dispatch that President Huerta was seeking to have his telegraphic order on the subject delivered in Chihuahua by way of El Paso.
    This information from Mr. O'Shaughnessy conflicts with the statement made in the State Department yesterday that he had reported by telegraph and that Biesel, McDonald and a chauffeur who was driving their car when they were arrested had been released.