October 14th
Proofs multiply of direct conspiracy of the Deputies against the provisional government. If you scratch a Maderista Deputy you are sure to find a revolutionary of some sort. The task of establishing peace seems well-nigh hopeless. Everywhere are treachery and venality. The note N. handed yesterday to the Foreign Office has not yet been answered, though Moheno refers to it in a press interview, saying that it had been presented to him by Chargé d’affaires O’Shaughnessy, “A gentleman of the most exquisite culture,” and that he must not be held responsible for the “intemperate language of his government,”—rather cocky! Though N. is handling the officials with all possible care, everybody thinks they are preparing a fiery answer for to-morrow. They are capable, at any moment, of sending an ultimatum to Washington themselves, and then the fat would be in the fire!
A heavenly warm sun is streaming in. These October mornings, after the rains have ceased, are the brightest jewels in Mexico’s crown of loveliness.
N. is so sick of the murder and destruction he sees at first hand that he refuses to read anything about Mexico. He is, in fact, living a book of his own. But I take an interest in outside comment. I have just read an article in the North American Review, by Sydney Brooks, giving the English view of the situation, which seems to be that if we had recognized Huerta he would, by now, have been far on the road toward the establishment of peace. Also a quotation from Le Temps, in to-day’s Imparcial, to the same effect. N., however, is beginning to think that nothing but intervention can bring about order. The elements of peace seem no longer in the republic itself. Intervention is a big word, but it needn’t mean the extermination of Americans or their interests in Mexico. Many French people stayed on through the French intervention and reached a green old age; Americans could do the same. Any one who really knows how easily peace is frightened out of a Latin-American republic, and how wary she is about coming back, would think twice about alarming her.
Elim has just presented me with a large bunch of pink geraniums from the vases at our front entrance. I wish he would choose a more remote spot for depredations. He is drawn, as if by a magnet, to the gendarmes and the untasted joys of the pavement. The Mexicans are always nice with children. There isn’t as much difference between the little ones and the grown-ups as in more sophisticated countries.
Bonilla, our minister-in-hiding, keeps very quiet. From what I hear, just to feel safe appears to be a great luxury. I have had no intercourse with him, beyond an exchange of polite messages and putting one of the men-servants at his disposition. They tell me he is very particular about keeping his windows shut and his blinds well drawn at night, and is a bit jumpy if any one knocks at the door.
Huerta has very little natural regard for human life. This isn’t a specialty of successful dictators, anyway. Only by the hand of iron can this passionate, tenacious, mysterious, gifted, undisciplined race, composed of countless unlike elements, be held in order. In the States, where, of course, as we all know, everybody and everything are just as they ought to be, this isn’t quite understood.