Page:Hands off Mexico.djvu/39

 in the Virginia Bill of Rights, which says that a people has the right to do anything they please with their own country and their own government."

In his original statement to Congress of policy in regard to Mexico (August 27, 1913) the President said:

"It is our purpose, in whatever we do . . . to pay the most scrupulous regard to the sovereignty of Mexico. That we take as a matter of course to which we are bound by every obligation of right and honor."

Repeatedly he pronounced against imperialistic policies as un-American, and specifically against the policy of employing the public armed forces "for the protection of American property" in neighboring countries. In a speech at Cincinnati, October 26, 1916, he said:

"A great many men are complaining . . . that the Government of the United States has not the spirit of other governments, which is to put the force, the army and navy, of that government, behind investments in foreign countries. Just so certainly as you do that you join this chaos of competing and hostile ambitions (the European war)."

And again, in his Speech of Acceptance, 1916:

"The people of Mexico have not been suffered to own their own country or direct their own institutions. Outsiders, men of other nations and with interests too often alien to their own, have dictated what their privileges and opportunities should be, and who should control their land, their lives, and their resources—some of them Americans, pressing for things they never could have got in their own country. The Mexican people are entitled to attempt their liberty from such influences."

He even acknowledged Mexico's right to disorder, Mexico's right to spill as much blood as she pleased in the process of changing her government, Mexico's right to take as long as she pleased in effecting changes:

"It is none of my business, and it is none of your business how long they take in determining it (what their government shall be). It is none of my business and it is none of your business how they go about the business. The country is theirs. . . . Have not European nations taken as long as they wanted and splitspilt [sic] as much blood as they pleased in settling their affairs? And shall we deny that to Mexico because she is weak? No, I say!"

Such quotations could be multiplied. They are so well known that perhaps I have indulged in them at unnecessary length. On the other hand, they cannot be repeated too frequently so long as Mexico stands in danger from us. Either we were despicable hypocrites in the war, or we are hypocrites now