When Roosevelt was in South America he was fêted and banqueted by the most prominent men in the A B C republics. They were too polite to inform him what they thought of his speeches on the Monroe doctrine. The articles and editorials commenting Roosevelt’s theories were very plain if courteous: that either Mr. Roosevelt had forgotten the original meaning of the Monroe doctrine or that he was deceiving himself into an imperialistic meaning of the doctrine. The Latin Americans and Mexico hope fervently that the unselfish, humanitarian and democratic diplomacy of President Wilson will bear the brunt of the tremendous influences that are brought to bear upon it. It is a well known platitude that certain American mining, railroad and oil interests are subterraneously working against this idealistic policy; that the War Department has been itching for a war of conquest or police work in Mexico. An officer of the United States army in an expansive moment volunteered the information that intervention in Mexico would mean an increase from 80 to 350,000 men in the American army and make it possible to organize it more in proportion with its population. That there being always a danger of a war with Japan, and the United States not being ready for it, a war with Mexico would prepare the army for that eventuality. President Wilson has more admirers in Mexico and South America than any other President or statesman in the whole history of the United States has ever had, not even excepting the martyr President Lincoln, or Washington. The popular thought has been deeply imbedded with the conviction that if the dictator Huerta could not exasperate and inveigle President Wilson into a war with Mexico, that no power for evil can achieve the purpose in the future. Far seeing Mexicans did not expect a prompt solution of the vital problems after the elimination of Huerta. The dictator was only the greatest impedimenta to a realization of liberal ideals; once Huerta eliminated the work was a little less arduous, but still of tremendous purport. The participation of England, France and Germany in a struggle for life in Europe has luckily relieved Mexico of three great mischief makers. The great and sombre powers which have kept Mexico in a turmoil for a hundred years are still at work: the clericals, the landowners and the militarists; in the last twenty years the American interests have been added to the list. A Mexican thinker concreted the thought thus: “The great powers for evil in Mexico are: The Church, the Latifundiæ and the Trusts; their great victims will be President Wilson, Carranza and the Mexican people.” REFLECTIONS