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Wilson and Mexico The same patriots calling for preparedness in the face of the war also continued to push for American intervention in Mexico, as always, La Follette thought, to save Wall Street investments in that country. By 1916, he had revised completely his understanding of the forces historically driving American foreign policy. Entirely missing now from his commentary about the Spanish-American War, for example, were the tributes to McKinley’s noble efforts to save the peace until the perfidy of the Spanish compelled him, against his heart-felt desires, to declare war. La Follette now understood this war to have been a typical example of how the bankers, manufacturers, and military men who controlled the United States had imposed their will on the rest of the country. Events in Cuba and the Philippines eighteen years earlier had been determined by the same powerful interests now trying to take over Mexico: “They forced McKinley into war with Spain. They would force the Wilson administration into war with Mexico.”1 The old story now repeated itself once again. The special interests in America had worked tirelessly to gain unlimited access to Mexico’s wealth. Poor Madero, Carranza, and the other Mexican liberals who had looked to the United States as a beacon of progressive enlightenment simply did not understand the country’s actual power structure. La Follette did not doubt for a moment that the violent plots against these Mexican leaders bore a made-in-America stamp. Diaz remained the ideal Mexican leader for Wall Street: someone who could enunciate a few platitudes about caring for the welfare of the people while diligently tending to his main job of acceding to the wishes of American financiers. Development Americanstyle meant keeping the country open to investors. La Follette thought that he 153 8  The Battle for Neutrality in World War I, to  April  could see a world system of capitalist exploitation unfolding, with Mexico a prototype of the model being readied for other countries down the line. Though he felt great disappointment with Wilson over the emasculation of the wartime neutrality proclamations, La Follette continued to hope for a sane policy in Mexico. La Follette’s complex view of the president at this time definitely retained some positive elements. For example, he praised Wilson for nominating Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court. One of La Follette’s closest friends and advisers, Brandeis had been a star in the Progressive movement as one of its outstanding legal scholars and anti-trust advocates. “In time I came to admire and love the man,” La Follette declared with an uncharacteristic public show of emotion.2 He also lauded the zeal of Brandeis in promoting the cause of Zionism. Brandeis had assumed “the responsibility of a movement to relieve the Jews of all countries from the yoke of oppression and injustice and to open up for those who may desire a refuge, a fatherland such as other peoples of the world enjoy.” By nominating to the Supreme Court this magnificent fighter for social justice, “President Wilson has rendered a great public service. . . . The selection of Brandeis to this place of power and influence must strengthen the confidence of all who love democracy, in President Wilson.” Nevertheless, La Follette’s list of negative comments about Wilson grew in 1916. He became increasingly concerned about what a later generation would call the imperial presidency. While still serving as the governor of New Jersey, Wilson had published Constitutional Government in the United States. The section of the book dealing with foreign affairs startled La Follette. The bluntness of Wilson’s language left no ambiguity about his sense of “the unlimited and exclusive prerogative of the Executive in dealing with foreign affairs.”3 Wilson thought that the president’s control over this part of the nation’s business “is very absolute.” The president possessed the initiative in foreign affairs “without any restriction whatsoever.” La Follette detected in Wilson’s assertions about the Constitution the essential precondition for a whole train of disasters. If accepted, his argument concerning foreign affairs would lead inescapably to the demise of constitutional government, as La Follette understood it: “then we have become a one-man power, then the President has authority to make war as absolutely as though he were Czar of Russia.” The issue of the president’s power in foreign affairs had come up in connection with the propriety of introducing a resolution in Congress warning American citizens to keep off...

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