But the President stood firm in his resolve that the people of Mexico should not be punished for the malefactions of their usurping president, and steadily, against great odds, he moved forward to vindicate his policy, unmindful of the jeers and criticisms of his enemies. The heart of that policy he eloquently exposed when he said: "I am more interested in the fortunes of oppressed men, pitiful women and children, than in any property rights whatever. The people of Mexico are striving for the rights that are fundamental to life and happiness—fifteen million oppressed men, overburdened women, and pitiful children in virtual bondage in their own home of fertile lands and inexhaustible treasure! Some of the leaders of the revolution may often have been mistaken and violent and selfish, but the revolution itself was inevitable and is right. The unspeakable Huerta betrayed the very comrades he served, traitorously overthrew the government of which he was a trusted part, impudently spoke for the very forces that had driven his people to rebellion with which he had pretended to sympathize. The men who overcame him and drove him out represent at least the fierce passion of reconstruction which lies at the very heart of liberty; and so long as they represent, however imperfectly, such a struggle for deliverance, I am ready to serve their ends when I can. So long as the power of recognition rests with me the Government of the United States will refuse to extend the hand of welcome to any one who obtains power in a sister republic by treachery and violence." But the President's policy of watchful waiting did win. The days of the Huerta regime slowly wended their uneasy way. Huerta suspended the Mexican Constitution and, having imprisoned half of the Mexican Congress, proceeded to administer the Government as an arbitrary ruler. Slowly but surely he began to feel the mighty pressure of the unfriendly Government of the United States upon him. Still defiant, he sought to unite behind him the Mexican people, hoping to provoke them to military action against the United States. To hold his power he was willing to run the risk of making his own country a bloody shamble, but President Wilson had the measure of the tyrant Huerta from the beginning, and soon his efforts to isolate him began to bear fruit. Even now his bitter critics gave a listening ear to the oft-repeated statement of the American President, as if it contained the germ of a prophecy: The steady pressure of moral force will before many days break the barriers of pride and prejudice down, and we shall triumph as Mexico's friends sooner than we could triumph as her enemy—and how much more handsomely and with how much higher and finer satisfactions of conscience and of honour!