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99 By 1915, Wilson had spent almost two years trying to encourage the growth of constitutional government in Mexico, first by pressuring Huerta to leave and advocating elections, and later by supporting the Constitutionalists’ armed efforts. It was growing clear to Wilson that soon he would have to make a decision: quit debating and negotiating, and pick a faction to recognize. This aggravated Wilson. He preferred to make decisions slowly and carefully. Just as he believed governments and organizations evolved slowly and grew organically, so did his opinions. To Wilson, opinions were organizations of facts and so grew naturally like any other organizations. His decisions had to be made carefully to avoid error. As he would tell his fiancée, Edith Galt, “The fact is, I never have had any patience with ‘ifs’ and conjectural cases. My mind insists always upon waiting until something actually does happen and then discussing what is to be done about that.”1 Wilson’s victory celebration after Huerta’s fall was short. The triumphant revolutionaries began fighting amongst themselves almost immediately, drawing foreigners in Mexico, including Americans, even further into the violence, and thus increasing the number of American casualties both along the border areas and within Mexico. Domestic political pressure on Wilson continued to intensify as lobbyists for American businesses, churches, and others urged him to put an end to the chaos in Mexico. Having witnessed firsthand the destruction in the American South during the Civil War, Wilson maintained a deeply held belief that war was not only sinful, it was also wasteful. From his perspective on the Potomac in 1915, he viewed the fighting in Mexico as nothing but ruinous. No significant constitutional issues 7 The Difficult Choice Is Made, January–October 1915 100 Leading them to the Promised Land appeared to be at stake in the struggle between Carranza and Villa, as there had been in their joint struggle against Huerta. Instead, the Mexican fighting had all the characteristics of a brawl between two ambitious leaders, each trying to grasp and hold on to power despite the wasted lives and property.2 Wilson remained unable to identify a Mexican leader he considered worthy of American recognition. In his textbook The State, he had written that authority based on an individual rather than on a system was the mark of a primitive society. Although Wilson did not believe that Mexico was as politically advanced as the United States or Britain, he saw the Mexican Revolution as evidence that it had evolved to the point where a covenant could be freely developed between Mexico’s people and some constitutional government. Confident that he was on the right side of history, supporting progress, Wilson continued to hope that he could help bring forth from the political chaos in Mexico not merely a sound government but a constitutional republic. Many domestic critics, including Theodore Roosevelt, believed Mexico was too backward for anything but government by an “iron hand.” These critics proclaimed that Wilson was unwilling or unable to protect American business interests there. In the words of Wilson’s political nemesis Senator Lodge, “Wrongs done to Americans and the destruction of American property . . . have passed wholly unregarded by this administration.”3 The American president did not view the Mexican situation in a vacuum but as part of a larger political battle that encompassed the United States and the rest of the hemisphere. The struggle in Mexico and the political battles in the United States were manifestations of the same fight against privileged classes. Wilson was convinced that the “reactionary class” opposing change in Mexico was composed of the same type of people—and in some cases of the very same individuals—that opposed reforms “in our own domestic politics.” These “reactionary forces” carried “into Mexico all that they learned . . . in the corruption of our cities and states, [and] in the distribution of privileges among members of Congress and officials in high places.” This perceived link between political battles at home and abroad was one of the main reasons Wilson saw himself as an ally of the Constitutionalists rather than as an outsider to the Mexican revolutionary battle.4 The president used his January 1915 Jackson Day speech before fellow Democrats in Indianapolis as an opportunity to lash back at his detractors. He bluntly told interventionists, “It is none of my business and it is none of yours, how they [the Mexicans] go about their business.” Mexico was “theirs . . . the government is theirs . . . [and] the liberty...

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