December 29th
I inclose a delightful letter from Mrs. J. W. Foster, who always keeps so apace with events. Of course the Fosters read the Mexican news with interest and understanding, as they were here during the years Diaz was trying to establish himself in spite of the Mexican people, and not in spite of us as well, fortunately for Diaz and them....
I send a cartoon from Novedades, representing Huerta paralyzed. One nurse asks the other how he is, and she answers: “No change. He can’t move yet.”
Well, some one has got to “move” if this country and all national and foreign interests are to be saved. I cannot see that a new revolutionary party in the north, whose sole virtue, up to now, is that it is “agin” the government, can do it. Besides which it represents only another pack of hungry wolves to be let loose upon the country. I hear that Carranza has a brother, Jesus, who possesses the family vice of greed to a great degree, and is about to “operate” on the Isthmus. There are predictions that it will look as though the locusts had been over it, if he really gets a “chance.”
Four clerks are sleeping in the house, and the work is going on apace. Cambiaggo, the new Italian minister, was received yesterday with all honors emphasized. Oh, that Fata Morgana of recognition! The Belgian minister has got his leave and has just been here to say good-by. He has already the European eye so familiar to those left behind. He has had a very cordial telegram from a big banker in New York, and wondered if the banker expected to put him up. I said, “If you are met by an automobile and servants in New York, you can be pretty sure you are to stay with him; otherwise you’d better rough it at the Ritz.”
Various ideas are advanced by diplomats here as to the possibility of some arrangement being made through a third party, some one of the great Powers;... some way by which the elections could really be held, and Huerta, if really elected, allowed to remain. N. can’t do it, nor Mr. Lind, nor any American. The national pride on both sides is too compromised to admit of anything but a third power stepping in and “doing the trick.”
There is talk of a big English loan, guaranteed by the customs, at the same time allowing a certain amount of these to be freed—a couple of millions of pesos a month for the expenses of the government. There is a general twitching of international fingers, a longing to remedy our bungling. May, with his face toward Europe, sees everything rose-colored. He predicts that we shall be here until the next elections, the first Sunday in July. There is a great deal of speculation as to Huerta’s personal fortune, but no one knows whether he is rich or poor. His new house in San Cosme is, I hear, a cheap affair. Mme. Huerta wore, when she received, one large, very magnificent diamond depending from her throat. But why shouldn’t she have it?