All this is naturally grist for the Japanese mill. Especially interesting are Japanese attempts to play upon Mexican Indianista sentiment. Japanese writers point out physical and cultural similarities between the Mexican native races and themselves, deducing therefrom innate racial affinities springing from the remote and forgotten past. All possible sympathetic changes were rung during the diplomatic mission of Señor de la Barra to Japan at the beginning of 1914. His reception in Tokio was a memorable event. Señor de la Barra was greeted by cheering multitudes, and on every occasion the manifold bonds between the two peoples were emphasized. This of course occurred before the European War. During the war Japanese-Mexican relations remained amicable. So far as official evidence goes, the Japanese Government has never entered into any understandings with the Mexican Government, though some Mexicans have hinted at a secret agreement, and one Mexican writer, Gutierrez de Lara, asserts that in 1912 Francisco Madero, then President, "threw himself into the arms of Japan," and goes on: "We are well aware of the importance of this statement and of its tremendous international significance, but we make it deliberately with full confidence in our authority. Not only did Madero enlist the ardent support of the South American republics in the cause of Mexico's inviolability, but he entered into negotiations with the Japanese minister in Mexico City for a close offensive and defensive alliance with Japan to checkmate United States aggression. When during the fateful twelve days' battle in Mexico City a rumor of American intervention, more alarming than usual, was communicated to Madero, he remarked coldly that he was thoroughly anxious for that intervention, for he was confident of the surprise the American Government would receive in discovering that they had to deal with Japan."[86]