Part 22
It makes me sick with dread to think of the probable fate of Americans in the desert spaces and the mountain fastnesses of Mexico. Some one has blundered, somewhere, somehow, that _we_ should come in to give the _coup de grâce_ to this distracted nation, who yet clings, and rightly, to those tattered shreds of sovereignty we have left her. The foreign Powers think we are playing the most cold-blooded, most cruel game of “grab” in all history.
_April 18th. 10_ P.M.
Things _do_ move. I came down from Aunt Laura’s room to find Lieutenant Rowan in the hall, just off the train from Vera Cruz, after a delayed, dusty trip. You can imagine he got a warm welcome. Nelson came in just then, and a few minutes later, as we were still standing in the front hall, Portillo y Rojas appeared at the door, looking, we instantly thought, much happier. He was wearing his green, gold-embroidered sash, the insignia of military rank that Huerta has imposed rather than bestowed on all Cabinet officers, who are thus under military discipline and obedience to him as _generalissimo_. They objected to wearing full military uniform, compromising on the sash. Rojas also wore a smile--I don’t know whether it was for me or for the situation. He had come to tell Nelson that the salutes would be given on his, N.’s, written word of honor that they would be returned. He has been an hour and a half in Nelson’s private room drawing up a document--a protocol (_il y va de sa propre tête_)--and he is doing it with the painstaking care of a man who has everything at stake. Nelson himself is pretty foxy, and has to look out for _his_ skin. Well, “all’s well that ends well.” If we get through this the next incident _will_ mean war. I hope at Washington they will appreciate some of the difficulties N. has to meet, and act accordingly. However, “call no man happy until his death.” I hear the click of the big iron gate swinging to after the exit of Lopez Portillo y Rojas.
I am fairly tired out and shall now proceed to draw the drapery of my couch about me and lie down--I hope to pleasanter dreams than those of last night. How glad I am that I haven’t confided my son or my jewels to various terror-stricken acquaintances who have levanted two hundred and fifty miles _east_ and eight thousand feet down. It hasn’t come yet; all, after everything is said and done, hangs on the life of that astute and patient old Cori Indian, whose years of our Lord are fifty-nine, and who, whatever his sins, were they blacker than night, is legally President of Mexico. Chase legality out of Latin America and where are you? After him anarchy, chaos, and finally intervention--the biggest police job ever undertaken in the Western Hemisphere, however one may feel like belittling it from a military standpoint. I have thought all these days of the probable head-lines of the newspapers and hoped my precious mother was not worrying about her distant ones. Good night, and then again good night. “God’s in His heaven; all’s well with _us_.”
_April 19th. 11.30_ P.M.
The last of the continuous line of plenipotentiaries, _chargés d’affaires_, railroad men, laymen of all kinds, have gone. Washington refused Nelson’s signature to the protocol drawn up by Portillo y Rojas and sent for approval. Huerta then refused categorically to give the salutes. So it is intervention. At 4.30 I went down-stairs for tea, as usual, to find Adatchi and Eyguesparsse there. Eyguesparsse, as you know, married the sister of General Rincon Gaillardo. He says that Huerta will resist to the end; his _esprit militaire_ is entirely opposed to the _esprit universitaire_ of Wilson. “_Ils ne pourront jamais se comprendre._” Huerta said to Rincon Gaillardo that intervention would be a work of five years, and productive of the greatest trouble to the United States. Huerta’s stand is _incroyable_, _unglaublich_ unbelievable, _incredibile_--what you will. Each representative who called exclaimed the same thing in his special tongue as he greeted me. Hohler was very quiet, and really very sad at the happenings. He has been a faithful friend through everything. Sir Lionel gets here to-morrow or the next day. Kanya, Letellier, and Clarence Hay stayed for dinner. Hohler came back again in the evening, also von Hintze, who does not think the war vote will go with a rush through Congress to-morrow, and quotes the case of Polk. He said it took three months for him to persuade Congress to vote the money and men for the 1846 war. I can’t verify this. He and von Papen left at eleven. Nelson, Rowan, and I came up-stairs, all a bit fagged. To-morrow will be a full day. I long ago promised the American women here that if and when I thought the break was impending I would let them know. I think it has steadied their situation here that I haven’t “lit out” from time to time. But what of the hundreds--no, thousands--all over this fair land whose possible fate is scarcely to be looked in the face? The “Old Man” has some idea other than despair and fatigue or impatience. He is working on a plan, probably hoping for a chance to play his trump card--the unification of all Mexicans to repel the invaders,--which would take the trick anywhere but in Mexico. We are going to get some more _gendarmes_ for the Embassy. I feel very calm and deeply interested. It is a big moment, and Nelson has been unremitting in his endeavors.
The Foreign Office here has given the press a statement of two thousand words to-night, which will bring forth dismay and horror in the morning. I can’t feel the personal danger of the situation. I am sorry dear Dr. Ryan is away. I sent him yesterday, in care of the consul at Saltillo, the prearranged word, “101,” which meant that, whenever, wherever, he got it, he was to return immediately. At last hearing, the more prudent von Papen, who decided to return to Mexico City, saw him start from Saltillo with his medical supplies and four mules, to try to get to Torreon over a desert stretch.
Von Papen, who had a most uncertain trip, says the only way to prevent the continual destruction of the railways is the establishment of the blockhouse system now planned by the Federal government.
_2.30_ A.M.
I can’t sleep. National and personal potentialities are surging through my brain. Three stalwart railroad men came to the Embassy this evening. They brought reports of a plan for the massacre of Americans in the street to-night, but, strange and wonderful thing, a heavy rain is falling. It is my only experience of a midnight rain in Mexico, except that which fell upon the mobs crying “Death to Diaz,” nearly three years ago. As all Mexicans hate to get wet, rain is as potent as shell-fire in clearing the streets, and I don’t think there will be any trouble. Providence seems to keep an occasional unnatural shower on hand for Mexican crises.
N.’s secret-service man reappeared upon the scene yesterday, probably by the President’s orders. This works two ways. It protects N., and incidentally proves to Huerta that N. is not intriguing against _him_.
Had this war been induced by a great incident or for a great principle, I could bear it. But because the details of a salute could not be decided upon we give ourselves, and inflict on others, the horrors of war. Mr. Bryan, so the _Herald_ playfully remarks to-day, must have been surprised and disappointed. The “salutes were always so cheerfully returned at Chautauqua.” It is no situation for amateurs. The longer I live the more respect I have for technical training. Every Foreign Office in Europe or any other continent keeps experts for just such cases. I may become an interventionist, but _after_ Huerta. He has proved himself vastly superior, in executive ability, to any man Mexico has produced since Diaz, in spite of his lack of balance and his surprising childishness, following upon strange subtleties, and he would have sold his soul to please the United States to the point of recognition. In that small, soft hand (doubtless bloody, too) were possibilities of a renewal of prosperity, after the dreams of Madero that he himself could never have clothed in reality. The reassociation of the government with the conservative elements might have given some guarantee of peace, at least during Huerta’s life, and any man’s life is a long time in an Indian or Latin republic.
_April 20th. 10_ A.M.
We have awakened to a busy morning. At seven o’clock I began to telephone all those women. If anything happens, American women here will be thankful to be out of the way, and if the clouds blow over, they will only have done what they have done before, on several occasions--taken an unnecessary trip to Vera Cruz. Every American in town has either appeared at the Embassy or telephoned. Rowan remains with us, I hope. N. has telegraphed Admiral Fletcher that in view of the fact that he is alone with me at the Embassy, he begs not to have Rowan recalled. He is a dear fellow, and a great comfort and support. Anything his courage and good sense can keep from happening to us will not happen. A cable saying the matter will be laid before Congress this afternoon, instead of this morning, is just received. It gives us a breathing-space. But the telephone! The newspaper men! The frightened Americans! If we are obliged to go, Aunt Laura will stay with Mrs. Melick, that friend of hers who has a handsome house just across the way. This relieves both her and me from anxiety. Americans are leaving in hosts--about five hundred persons, of all nationalities, leave to-day.
I have just found on my table an envelope, “From Elim to Mamma.” A drawing inside represents a tombstone, and a star shines above it. It has a little bunch of fresh heliotrope fastened to it with a clipper, and the back is decorated with three crosses--a bit startling in these potential days! My heart is sick. Wednesday that great fleet arrives. What is it going to fight? It can’t bombard Vera Cruz. The streets are full and the houses overflowing with fleeing non-combatants. It can’t climb the mountains and protect the countless Americans getting their living in the fastnesses or in the valleys. Huerta’s army is engaged in the death-struggle, in the north, against enemies of the government, armed with our munitions. Oh, the pity of it!
And this city, this beautiful city, placed so wonderfully, so symmetrically, on the globe, in the very center of the Western Hemisphere, a great continent to north and south, half-way between immense oceans, and lifted nearly eight thousand feet up to the heavens! Strange, symbolic correspondences between the seen and the unseen constantly make themselves sensible, in some unexplainable, magic way, while to the eye there are the manifold abundancies of mother earth, and this queer, dark, unchanging, and unchangeable race, whose psychological formula is unknown to us, inhabiting and using it all.
_April 20th. 7.30._
This afternoon a whirlwind of rumors. First, that Congress had voted full power to Mr. Wilson, and one hundred and fifty million dollars; that Vera Cruz was being bombarded; that an attack is being planned against the Embassy to-night. There is, doubtless, nothing in this last, but N. telephoned to Eduardo Iturbide, always to be counted on, who is sending us one hundred mounted _gendarmes_. Captain Burnside is coming over here to sleep, and Rowan is with us, besides secret-service men and our own _gendarmes_. We have machine-guns, rifles, and quantities of ammunition. Many people were in for tea, when I am always to be seen. Madame Simon expects to leave to-night for Vera Cruz, with her little boy and two maids. Clarence Hay and the Tozzers are going, too, and about one hundred Germans. Von Hintze has sent away as many men, women, and children as he could induce to go.
I had a curious experience with Adatchi. Suddenly, as he was sitting on the sofa, drinking his tea, von Papen and Ayguesparsse also in the room, I had a queer psychic impression that he was not speaking of what he was thinking. I thought no more of it until he came over to a chair near me and said, with a curious, Oriental smile:
“I had a talk with Portillo y Rojas, this afternoon. All is not yet lost. I have left my secretaries working on a long telegram to Tokio.”
I asked: “You mean there may be a possible arrangement?”
And he said, “Yes,” without enlarging on it. N. is out, calling on Iturbide to thank him for the guard, and Adatchi returns at nine-thirty. After he left, I told Ayguesparsse and von Papen what Adatchi had said.
Ayguesparsse said, “His government would naturally favor the Mexicans.” And we all wondered if the Japs _could_ have worked out an _arreglamiento_. The Japanese _mentalité_ is, of course, absolutely foreign and irreconcilable to ours, but it is _not_ a negligible quantity. Ayguesparsse has been very, very nice all these days, and I realize that behind that elegant silhouette there is a man of poise and kindness. Scarcely had he and von Papen departed when Hohler came in, hoping still for some arrangement. In this dark hour every one of the colleagues has shown himself sincerely desirous of some issue being found. So you have a little of my day, full of a thousand other things. Many people have urged me to depart with them, but I am not nervous, not afraid. I am no trouble to N., perhaps even some help; and certainly dignity and all manner of fitness demand that I remain here with him till he gets his papers, _if_ he gets them, and go off suitably at the time appointed by our country, or the country to which we are accredited. My leaving now would mean to the Americans here that all was lost--even honor, _I_ should add. Elim has not been far out of sight to-day. He was warned, and the _gendarmes_ and everybody in the house warned, that he was not even to look out of the gate; and, scenting possible danger, he has not wandered far afield. He climbs into my chair, trots after me, looks in at the door--he has no intention of being out of call if suddenly wanted. His little senses are alert, and he knows that all is not quiet on the plateau.
_April 21st._
Instead of an attack, last night, everything was very peaceful. The automobile squad, composed of willing and capable Americans, circled continually about the Embassy, as well as the guard of one hundred mounted _gendarmes_ Eduardo Iturbide sent us. A bare message came from Washington, very late, saying that Congress had voted the President full powers. The details we will doubtless get this morning. The _Ypiranga_, of the Hamburg-American Line, arrives at Vera Cruz to-day, with seventeen million rounds of ammunition for Huerta, which will greatly complicate matters. I do not know if we are going to seize it or not. If we do, it is an _acte de guerre_, and we will be out of here on short notice. If one were convinced of the good-will of Washington, this whole incident could be arranged in five minutes. The Mexican Foreign Office published this morning the full text of the documents on the Tampico incident. The officials feel there is nothing to conceal, and the diplomats and every American in town have by now lapped up with their coffee all the secrets of the situation.
XXII
Vera Cruz taken--Anti-American demonstrations--Refugees at the Embassy--A long line of visitors--A dramatic incident in the cable-office--Huerta makes his first and last call at the Embassy.
_April 21st. 12.30._
Nelson has been informed through Mexican sources--a most embarrassing way to get the news--that Vera Cruz was taken by our ships at eight o’clock this morning. (Cortés landed on April 21st, if I am not mistaken, though, of course, that isn’t much help to _us_ now!) The line from Mexico City to Vera Cruz has been blown up. I am so worn out that I wouldn’t mind seeing even the Zapatistas climbing in at the windows. Aunt Laura has been sitting by my bed, wearing that pale-blue woolen jacket you sent me. She feels, after all these decades of Tehuantepec, a chill even in these lovely days. The situation she will find herself in after we go appalls me, but she is determined to remain. All these years she has watched the increasing glories and securities of Don Porfirio’s Mexico. One could go unarmed from the Rio Grande to Guatemala. Now, when the years begin to press upon her, she is caught up and ruined by present-day Mexican uncertainties, or rather, certainties. One _knows_ one will lose everything one has here.
N. just looked in at the door to say we may have to leave _via_ the Pacific (Manzanillo and San Francisco). Well, it is all in the hands of the Lord. Some time, some way, we are destined to be recalled from Mexico City. I wonder what Huerta is thinking of doing this morning. Will the situation weld together his divided people? I am thankful not to be among the hundreds--no, thousands--without bank accounts in New York, Chicago, Boston, or other places, who are being packed like sardines on transports for “home.” These are the real tragedies of the situation to us, though I can’t help thinking of the Mexican side. Several hundred thousand men, women, and children have been killed in various ways since Madero started for Mexico City--American gunners manning his guns.
_April 21st. 5 o’clock._
No news from Washington to-day. We might all be massacred. It is due to the essential meekness, want of national spirit, want of whatever you will in the Mexicans, that we are not, not because a paternal government is watching over its public servants in foreign parts. I have sent out for a good supply of candles; the lights might be cut to-night by some Zapatista band. We all wonder why Huerta hasn’t cut the railroad to Vera Cruz. Why doesn’t he make things a bit nasty for us?
_8_ P.M.
A word from my sofa, where I am resting in my purple Paris draperies. We have had a long line of visitors. Ayguesparsse was the first, and so nice and sympathetic. With his Mexican wife he does not find himself in an easy position. His family-in-law has made many and real sacrifices for _La Patria_ and the Huerta government. Three men, expert machinists, are having their dinners down-stairs, having set up the Gatling-guns under Burnside’s instructions. I have provided _pulque_, _tortillas_, _frijoles_, and cigarettes for countless _gendarmes_. We are ten at dinner, and perhaps twenty have been in for tea. There has been an anti-American demonstration at Porter’s Hotel, where the very clever woman journalist I mentioned before is staying. She will sleep here to-night, in Ryan’s room. The landlady of Porter’s is also coming, and they will have to take friendly turns in a single bed. About twenty extra persons are sleeping here. We hear nothing from Washington direct. Algara, the Mexican _chargé_, has been recalled. N. saw Huerta this afternoon, who begged him not to go. We can no longer cable, though the other legations can send what they like to Washington _via_ their various European chanceries. No trains are going out to-night nor this morning. Three of the many Pullmans, loaded with men, women, and children, which started yesterday for Vera Cruz, have not yet arrived there. We understand there was fighting along the road.
Rowan is being more than nice, but I think he is rather longing for the baptism of fire that _might_ be his, were he in Vera Cruz.
After dinner McKenna came to tell us that there were three car-loads of women and children outside the Embassy gate. They had to come in, of course, and be attended to.
Nelson saw Huerta to-day at his house. The President said to him, very brusquely: “You have seized our port. You have the right to take it, if you can, and we have the right to try to prevent you. _Su Excelencia el Señor Presidente_ Wilson has declared war, unnecessarily, on a people that only ask to be left alone, to follow out their own evolution in their own way, though it may not seem to you a good way.” He added that he would have been willing to give the salutes, but that the incident was only a pretext. In three weeks or three months, he said, it would have been something else; that we were “after him,” or the Spanish to that effect.
I think his real idea is to form the Mexicans into one camp against the foreign foe. He does not want Nelson to go, in spite of the fact that Algara has been recalled. We have no intimation, as yet, of our leaving. Mr. Bryan has stated that he instructed Mr. O’Shaughnessy to see Huerta and ask him to keep the roads open to facilitate the getting out of refugees. We are asking favors to the end. N. had not seen the President for several days and did not know in what disposition he would find him. But Huerta took his hand and greeted him, saying, “_Como está, amigo?_” (“How are you, friend?”). He might have been going to play some Indian trick on him. I begged Rowan to go with N., and he waited in the automobile while N. had the interview.
_Later._
We are at war. American and Mexican blood flowed in the streets of Vera Cruz to-day. The tale that reaches us is that the captain of the _Ypiranga_ tried to land the seventeen million rounds of ammunition. Admiral Fletcher expostulated. The captain of the _Ypiranga_ insisted on doing it, and, as we were not at war, he was within his international rights. The admiral prevented him by force, and, they say, in order to justify the action imposed on him by Washington, took the town--thus putting us on a war basis. Whether this is a true version of what has happened I don’t know. It does not sound like Admiral Fletcher, but he may have had definite orders from Washington. Von Hintze came in this afternoon. He minimized the incident, or rather, seemed to minimize it, but I could see that he was very much preoccupied. It may be a source of other and graver complications than those of Mexico. It has been many a year since American blood flowed in the streets of Vera Cruz. General Scott took it in 1847. The endless repetitions of history!
_11_ P.M.
As I write, a mob, rather inoffensive, is howling outside, waving Mexican flags and exhorting in loud voices. I can’t hear anything from the window except something about _Vivan los Japoneses_, and a few remarks not flattering to _los Gringos_. There are many good and capable Americans, willing, ready, and able to second any use of the guns. N. and Rowan have gone down to the cable-office to try and send off something to Washington. The silence of our government remains unbroken. Sir Lionel came back this morning. He is soon to go to Rio. How beautifully England treats _her_ diplomats! Instead of removing him, last autumn, when the row was on, our press campaign against him caused his superiors to bide their time, but it must be a great trial to Sir L. to be removed at so critical a moment to another post which, though bigger and better paid, is not of the imminent importance of this.
_April 22d._