Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1913 — President Taft and the Mexican Situation. [ARTICLE]

President Taft and the Mexican Situation.

The position taken by President Taftin refraining .from intervention in Mexico is such as to commend him to all the people oi the United States alike and we are pleased!' to note a friendly word for him in the local democratic organ, which rarely employs its columns in acknowledging the good qualities of the good acts of republican office holders. : President Taft has shown his ability as a statesman in maintaining the position of restraint he‘ has ahd thus far averting a war with Mexico. There are some hot heads who would have urged intervention, but we believe they are very few and that 95 per cent of the people realize that tha president haa con>

ducted the delicate question in a masterful manner. He has for more than two years demanded that Americans be not molested and has stationed soldiers and gunboats in positions where this demand could be made effective if necessary, but he has refused crossing the border or landing troops on Mexican soil. He has proven his broad minded and honest statesmanship. We do not believe, however, that our American capitalists are anxious for the United States to take over Mexico by means of conquest and we have never heard such plan suggested from any source whatever, except in a general way, and in expressing a common belief that Mexico would be much better off itself under American control. We are not willing to believe that any selfish capitalistic interests would rush the United States into a war and all the terrible consequences of war for what it would represent to them. That is a serious charge to make against men who have made investments in Mexico and a charge that we believe is a libel on them.

Mexico is fertile in natural resources, abounding with rich mines, fine lumber, great ranges for cattle, rich farming lands and fine fruit growing tracts. That the Spanish, the Indians and the mixed bloods of the country have failed at great development is deplorable, that they are apt to continue to fail is a fact that must confront the best American thought. That the excellent opportunity for American capital there has long since been discovered is not cause for criticism. That many who have small sums to invest have gone there or invested through corporations is not remarkable and it is not unnatural that these investors should hope to see peace established and should desire the United States to take every reasonable stand in support of peace, even to the point of threatening to send or even of sending troops there to stop the internecine warfare that has torn the republic asunder. But no one has advocated a war of conquest and none want it. If Mexico can settle its own troubles and reestablish peace, that will he the happiest thing for itself and for the United States, hut if the well known hatred held by Mexicans for Americans shall cause them to violate the demands so diplomatically urged by President Taft, then the question should be settled as Senator Tillman recently said “once and for all.” President Taft will soon leave the executive chair,- and the unsettled question will become one of the early perplexities of the Wilson regime. - It is certainly to be hoped that he will prove as. patient, aa diplomatic, as deeply interested and with all as much a statesman as President Taft has been. At least one Rensselaer citizen has a small investment in Mexico. It is in a sugar plantation. J*rior to the revolution it paid a dividend, but none has been paid since that time and none will be paid for a long time if the was continues, but with the restoration of peace either from internal desires or from external demand, the dividends will start again. The idiot who would suggest that capital is demanding that this country take over Mexico and that it was American capital that Inspired the revolution should go to the rain barrel and bathe his feverish brow. American investments were too satisfactory in Mexico for their sponsors to want to inspire a war. Further than all this is the fact that Americans in the final analysis are the most loyal patriots in the world, whether capitalists or filling the humblest walks of life, is country loving and peace loving and approves the policy adopted in Cuba and will be found loyally supporting it again in the case of Mexico if it becomes necessary to adopt it.