“We are closing one chapter in the history of the world,” said Mr. Wilson, “and opening another of unimaginable significance. . . .  It is a very perilous thing to determine the foreign policy of a nation in the terms of material interests. . . .  We have seen such material interests threaten constitutional freedom in the United States.  Therefore we will now know how to sympathize with those in the rest of America who have to contend with such powers, not only within their borders, but from outside their borders.”

In this way General Huerta, who, in his own eyes, was merely another in the long succession of Mexican revolutionary chieftains, was translated into an epochal figure in the history of American foreign policy; he became a symbol in Mr. Wilson’s new scheme of things—­the representative of the order which was to come to an end, the man who, all unwittingly, was to point the new way not only in Mexico, but in all Latin-American countries.  The first diplomatic task imposed upon Page therefore was one that would have dismayed a more experienced ambassador.  This was to persuade Great Britain to retrace its steps, to withdraw its recognition of Huerta, and to join hands with the United States in bringing about his downfall.  The new ambassador sympathized with Mr. Wilson’s ideas to a certain extent; the point at which he parted company with the President’s Mexican policy will appear in due course.  He therefore began zealously to preach the new Latin-American doctrine to the British Foreign Office, with results that appear in his letters of this period.

To the President

     6 Grosvenor Square, London,
     Friday night, October 24, 1913.

     DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: 

In this wretched Mexican business, about which I have read columns and columns and columns of comment these two days and turned every conceivable proposition back and forth in my mind—­in this whole wretched waste of comment, I have not seen even an allusion to any moral principle involved nor a word of concern about the Mexican people.  It is all about who is the stronger, Huerta or some other bandit, and about the necessity of order for the sake of financial interests.  Nobody recalls our action in giving Cuba to the Cubans or our pledge to the people of the Philippine Islands.  But there is reference to the influence of Standard Oil in the American policy.  This illustrates the complete divorce of European politics from fundamental morals, and it shocks even a man who before knew of this divorce.

In my last talk with Sir Edward Grey I drove this home by emphasizing strongly the impossibility of your playing primary heed to any American business interest in Mexico—­even the immorality of your doing so; there are many things that come before business and there are some things that come before order.  I used American business interests because I couldn’t speak openly of British business interests and his