April 2d. Evening
Villa talks freely about his plan when he triumphs: first and foremost, it is to execute Huerta and his whole political family, on the principle that the first duty of a “Mexican executive is to execute”; then to set up a dictatorship for a year. The program drips with blood; and these are the people we are bolstering up!
Lind leaves to-night for Washington, so exit from the tragic scene Don Juan Lindo (I sometimes feel like calling him Don Juan Blindo), who commenced life in a Scandinavian town as Jon Lind, and who has ended by dreaming northern dreams in Vera Cruz, in the hour of Mexico’s agony. My heart is unspeakably bewildered at this trick of fate; and, too, he would have long since precipitated us into war had it not been for the shrewd common sense and trained knowledge of the gifted man at the head of the fleet in Vera Cruz....
A hot indignation invades me as Mr. Lind drops out of the most disastrous chapter of Mexican history and returns to Minnesota. (Oh, what a far cry!) Upon his hands the blood of those killed with the weapons of the raising of the embargo—those weapons that, in some day and hour unknown to us, must inevitably be turned against their donors. It is all as certain as death, though there are many who refuse to look even that fact in the face.
I am not keen about the confidential agent system, anyway. With more standing in the community than spies, and much less information, they are in an unrivaled position to mislead (wittingly or unwittingly is a detail) any one who depends on them for information. Apropos of Mr. Lind, one of the foreigners here said it was as if Washington kept a Frenchman in San Francisco to inform them concerning our Japanese relations. For some strange reason, any information delivered by confidential agents, is generally swallowed, hook and all, but unfortunately, the mere designating of them does not bestow upon them any sacramental grace.