Nicaraguan elections, as "supervised" by American forces, are as much a farce as the elections staged in Mexico in the darkest days of the Diaz despotism.
Americans governed Vera Cruz for seven months, but they did not give the Mexicans a free press. General Funston suppressed Mexican newspapers in Vera Cruz.
We have not given self-government to Porto Rico or the Virgin Islands. In 1917 we landed forces in Cuba to support a government that had perpetuated itself by fraud.
A prominent American, in urging the righteousness of our Haitien adventure, declared: "What those people need more than anything else is for us to teach them honest government." During the regime of Roosevelt, we forced an American Receivership of customs upon the sovereign Republic of Santo Domingo. Soon after Wilson became President, a Senatorial investigation revealed a scandalous situation in which American politicians, in league with American bankers and concessionaires, were preying upon Santo Domingan finances by virtue of political control exerted under the terms of the customs Convention.
Our government of Mexico during the period of conquest and "rehabilitation" would be in the hands of military men, consuls, and carpet-baggers. It would be a Czaristic bureaucracy, the greater part of its energies devoted to the putting down disorder by more violent counter disorder.
Such a government might dole out a certain amount of charity, but it would not voluntarily lay the foundations for the economic betterment of the masses. If we intervened in Mexico our first concern would be to "protect American property," and to advance "American interests," not to benefit the Mexicans. Indeed, our chief complaint against the present government is that it is attempting to administer Mexico for the Mexicans, a policy that is alleged to conflict with American property interests.
Of course, the absence of turmoil, and the resumption of industry on a normal scale, are necessary prerequisites to any general improvement of economic conditions. But I will show that purely selfish interference on our part is largely responsible for the continuation of the turmoil. The interventionist pretense of consideration for the welfare of the Mexican people is sheer hypocrisy.
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