CHAPTER XVI.

The following is the text of a resolution adopted by the American refugees upon landing at Galveston, Texas, and sent to United States Senators in Washington :

"WE, AMERICAN CITIZENS, RESIDING IN MEXICO, who have just been driven from our homes at Tampico by a savage mob, wish to protest against, and give wide publicity to, the timid and unpatriotic action of the United States government, in withdrawing our warships from the harbor at Tampico at the moment when the lives of 2000 American women, children and unarmed men were utterly at the mercy of the Mexican mob, which, crazed by rum and patriotism, inspired by incendiary and antiAmerican proclamations and speeches, were preparing to attack, and did attack, American citizens who had placed their helpless women and children in the building of the Southern Hotel, under the protection of those few of us who had not yet been disarmed by the Mexican authorities.

"We wish the American people to know that we owe our lives solely to the prompt and decisive action of the commander of the German gunboat Dresden, who, at this crucial moment, threatened the Mexican authorities with drastic and punitive measures, and thus rescued us under the German flag, delivering us on board our United States warships, in the open seas. We owe our lives today to the brave Germans, with their one small boat, and not in any way to the action of our own government. We furthermore protest against the present non-protection by our

own government of the millions of dollars worth of American property in and near Tampico."

In other issues of even more serious import, it is questionable how efficiently affairs of state have been negotiated, especially those embracing the vital and delicate situation involving this country with Japan, and those European powers having treaties with Japan.

The incidents involving the United States are:

First: In the case of Mexico, the non-recognition of General Huerta as President of that Republic by President Wilson and the result; the refusal of the United States Government to specifically intervene for the protection of foreign interests during the four years of civil war in Mexico.

Second: In the case of Japan. The diplomatic cause of irritation, arising from the elimination of Russia and China from the Pacific and Japan's consequent increased development as a Pacific power, as against United States Pacific expansion; the destruction of the Hawaiian monarchy and the annexation and fortification of those islands by the United States.

(2) "While the establishment of United States naval and military bases is in progress in the Pacific, Japan has prepared for it in so effective a manner that notwithstanding what the naval forces of the United States may be in the future, the Hawaiian Islands can be seized from within and converted into a Japanese naval and military base so quickly, that they will be impregnable to the power of this Republic.”*

(3) "The Japanese military unfit have been withdrawn from the population of the islands, and methodically supplanted by the veterans of the Japanese-Chinese

*"Valor of Ignorance," by Homer Lea.

and the Russo-Japanese wars, and the Japanese military occupation of Hawaii is tentatively accomplished."

(4) It may be roughly stated that the population of these islands is in the neighborhood of one hundred and ninety thousand, of which seventy-nine thousand are Japnese, and are guarded by less in numbers, than a full regiment of United States troops.

(5) The influx of Japanese into Hawaii has been entirely political and the outcome will be military.

Third: The further cause for Japanese discontent is the anti-alien ruling and educational question by the State of California.

Fourth: The objection of the United States to the concession of Magdalena Bay (Mexico) to Japanese inter

ests.

Any of these questions may, within a short period of time, result in "serious misunderstandings."

Those responsible for the country's foreign policy have not settled these pending questions and procrastination in favor of internal politics is diplomatically suicidal.

The progress of commerce, industry and land values, has produced a distinct class which no longer finds its intelligence represented in Congress.

This class or better element rarely exercises the franchise, or cares for political gifts from the party in power. George II. said to Pitt:

"You have taught me to look for the voice of the people in other places than in the House of Commons." How surely does this apply to the administration of today.

The general opulence of the country has brought about the building of a wall around it composed of self superiority and arrogance. This is regarded in pride by a

majority of the people, and thought to be impenetrable against attack, due to the reliance on the vast natural resources contained therein.

For years it has been the hysterical boast and actual popular belief, that not only could the country defend itself against foreign invasion, but could even conquer a first class foreign power.

This conceit is concrete in the Congress (as developed in Mr. Clark's speech) and out of it. For years the policy has been one of military neglect.

It seems to be forgotten that there exists an East and West monarchical frontier to the North extending over three thousand miles in length and the whole of Latin America extending from the Rio Grande (the Southern frontier) to Patagonia, surging with dislike and contempt for "Americans." The extreme western outlying territory of the United States is at the door of Japan, and is today absolutely at the disposal of that nation, while the time consumed in crossing the Atlantic and Pacific has been reduced to hours and days.

The wall has a breach in it, to say very little of the breach in the inner wall, viz: the practically undefended Pacific Coast.

It seems to be forgotten that the forty-eight sovereign States with their consolidated thriving populaion, more than twice that of Great Britain or three-tenths greater than that of the German Empire, must through the Federal government enter the field of international politics to assert its power, whether it wishes to do so or not, or be subject to humiliation in view of Atlantic and Pacific expansion.

The position taken by administration after administration in relation to the "Monroe Doctrine," not only makes

this imperative, but it demands an immediate military power equal to the pretentions under which the Monroe Doctrine can alone be sustained against the first serious foreign protest or aggression.

Doubtless Mr. Bryce, the former British ambassador to the United States, was cognizant of these and other facts when he said in his speech at Stanford University, "The world is still watching the experiment of the republican form of government in the United States."