Roosevelt's. Would Mr. Hughes adopt his remedy,
intervention?
"The nation has no policy of aggression toward Mexico. We have no
desire for any part of her territory. We wish her to have peace,
stability and prosperity. We should be ready to aid her in binding up
her wounds, in relieving her from starvation and distress, in giving
her in every practicable way the benefits of our disinterested
friendship. The conduct of this administration has created
difficulties which we shall have to surmount.... _We shall have to
adopt a new policy,_ a policy of _firmness_ and consistency
through which alone we can promote an enduring _friendship._"
The theme friendship is for the non-interventionists, the theme "new
policy" and "firmness" is for the interventionists. On the
non-contentious record, the detail is overwhelming; on the issue
everything is cloudy.
Concerning the European war Mr. Hughes employed an ingenious formula:
"I stand for the unflinching maintenance of _all_ American rights
on land and sea."
In order to understand the force of that statement at the time it was
spoken, we must remember how each faction during the period of
neutrality believed that the nations it opposed in Europe were alone
violating American rights. Mr. Hughes seemed to say to the pro-Allies:
I would have coerced Germany. But the pro-Germans had been insisting
that British sea power was violating most of our rights.
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