October 16th
Yesterday, at dark, we got Bonilla off, grateful but nervous. The motor took him to a station about twenty kilometers from the town, where he boarded the train for Vera Cruz, to get the German boat of to-day. Along a certain trend of legal reasoning he is some sixth in line for President, after Madero, Pino Suarez, Lascurain, and others who have been killed, or have disappeared from the uncertain glories of office. He goes to Washington to join the Maderistas, I suppose, in spite of the fact that he has given his word of honor not to ally himself with the revolutionists. It was only on such a promise that we could give asylum to an enemy of the government to which N. is accredited.
The legal (if not the moral) genealogical tree of Huerta’s Presidency is the following: Madero, Constitutional President; Pino Suarez, Constitutional Vice-President (their resignations were accepted previous to their imprisonment, by Pedro Lascurain, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and a God-fearing, honorable gentleman, by the way); Lascurain became President by operation of law in regard to the vacant executive power; he was President some twenty minutes it appears (a bit short, even for Latin-America), giving him time to appoint Huerta to the post of Minister of Gobernación (Interior). After Lascurain’s resignation, given, I understand, with alacrity, automatically, by operation of law, the executive power fell to Huerta with its provisional character, and under the Constitutional promise to call especial elections. This is the technical way by which Huerta became President, and, according to the Mexican constitution, there are no doubts about the complete legality of the operation.