John Kenneth Turner

“ Assuming that England would consider it practicable to take military action in Mexico, does it follow that we would be justified in entering upon a war of conquest simply to prevent some other nation from entering upon a war of conquest? Would the presence of England in Mexico be a menace to the United States? Is Canada a menace? Or, if we must have a war over Mexico of some kind, why not fight to save Mexico from aggression by others, instead of fighting a war of aggression upon her ourselves? ”

“ For the worst thing that can be said of the Wilson Mexican policy is that it unerringly operates to bring about every condition which the most violent of the interventionists desire.
I do not charge that any party to the intervention conspiracy wants war merely for the sake of war. What is wanted is protection of a highly benevolent character to those who are interested in the exploitation of Mexican resources for their own private profit. Wall Street wants war only because it despairs of procuring the kind of protection it wants without war. ”

“ An evident principle runs through the whole program I have outlined. It is the principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another, whether they be strong or weak. Unless this principle be made its foundation no part of the structure of international justice can stand. The people of the United States could act upon no other principle; and and to the vindication of this principle they are ready to devote their lives, their honor, and everything that they possess. ”

“ On one occasion he declared: "Our first and primary obligation is the maintenance of our own sovereignty." Repeatedly he asserted that we were under an equally binding obligation to respect the sovereignty of others, and pronounced in most sweeping terms for the Golden Rule in international affairs. "There is not a privilege that we enjoy that we would dream of denying to any other nation in the world." "We ask nothing that we are not willing to accord." ”

“ There can be no more important issue than the issue of war with Mexico; for all other issues are tied up with it. The forces of progress will have to gather swift strength or they will feel the crunch of the Iron Heel. The disaster to America will hardly be less than that to Mexico. Intervention in Mexico has been determined upon by Wall Street and the Wilson Administration. The plan is to put it over before the forces working for real democracy, disorganized during the war and still on the defensive, have had a period of legal peace in which to reorganize and expose the crimes of the past. ”

“ So long as American industry is in neeed of capital, so long as American railroads are crying for a billion dollars a year more capital with which to make necessary improvements, so long as our western states plead for capital to come and develop their natural resources, no American dollar that runs into foreign countries, looking for cheaper labor and bigger profits, demanding "preparedness" to protect it, agitating for war to make its profits good, can claim to be a patriotic dollar. ”

“ As we are bound to maintain our own sovereignty, so are we bound, by every consideration of international law and ethics, scrupulously to respect the sovereignty of our neighbors.
We have no right whatever to go in and kill a lot of Mexicans because some Americans have unfortunately been killed. We possess no super-authority which makes us the judge as to whether the Mexican Government is using its best efforts to protect Americans. If an American citizen is determined to remain in dangerous places, he must seek other means of protection than an army of his countrymen. ”

“ So long as we do not fully protect Mexican lives in American territory, how can we insist that Mexico fully protect American lives in Mexican territory?
So long as we are incapable of fully protecting American lives in American territory, how can we expect to be able to protect American lives in Mexican territory?
The way to protect American lives is to protect them, and not to sacrifice them. What the interventionists are asking us to do is to sacrifice American lives, under the pretext of protecting them. ”

“ Intervention by any other name will smell as sweet to the Mexican oil king. In view of the fact that publications and politicians who attack Mexico nowadays do not suggest any remedy except intervention, that, indeed, the remedies they suggest invariably involve some form of intervention, all present attacks upon Mexico or the Mexican Government may fairly be termed pro-intervention propaganda. ”

“ Like every other pro-intervention argument, it will not bear examination. If we assume this obligation for ourselves we would have to concede the right of our neighbors to assume it on behalf of their citizens. Would we concede the right of Italy to send an army into Pennsylvania to protect striking Italians from being murdered by Steel Trust guards and gunmen?
To do so would be to abandon American sovereignty. It is a function of government in the United States to protect the lives of foreigners as well as citizens here to the best of its ability. ”

“ Not only would the Mexican people pay, but the American people would pay—in blood, taxes, higher living costs, in the friendship of our neighbors, in the Constitutional liberties of which peoples are invariably robbed in war-time, in our own character, in all the elements that make for a higher civilization and for world peace.
In the cause of the Mexican "problem" is found its solution. As our meddling has been a decisive factor in creating and prolonging the disorder, and in subjecting Americans to danger, so an opposite policy would tend to produce the opposite result. ”

“ Even laymen are well aware that a war of aggression has a much better chance of success if staged as a war of defense. The Mexican Government has had a number of opportunities to engage in a war of defense against the United States, but it has in every instance passed the opportunity by. These undeniable circumstances place the tale of a Carranza plot to invade the United States in the category of a deliberate fabrication. The insolence story is equally groundless. As to Mexico assisting Germany in the late war, it is obvious that Mexico was not in a position to give assistance. ”

“ In fact, one of the bitterest complaints against Carranza is that he refuses to accord foreigners special privileges, as the Old Regime had done.
Even should Mexico repudiate her foreign debts and enter upon a general policy of nationalization of private property, we would not be justified in attacking her. In using force to compel Mexico to observe her international obligations we would be violating one of our international obligations, an obligation greater than any Mexico would infringe—the obligation to respect Mexican sovereignty. ”

“ It is obvious that the Pelaez "protection" does not safeguard American lives, but only adds to the danger, especially as Americans are continually traveling over hostile ground. It is obvious that the Mexican Government cannot guarantee the safety of Americans either in "Pelaez territory" or anywhere in the zone between "Pelaez territory" and Government territory, and should not be asked to do so. It is obvious that when a Carranza force scatters a Pelaez force there is certain to be some indiscriminate looting and killing by the fugitives. ”

“ Mexico we would probably have to clap on conscription again, float more bond issues, set again in full swing the vast machinery of war-time restriction. The practical difficulties in the way of launching the enterprise are such that it is not Utopian to hope that public opinion may yet be decisive to prevent it.
Intervention is not defensible on any ground. It is bad democracy. For all of us except a handful, it is bad business. ”

“ While no plebiscite has been taken to determine whether Mexicans would or would not welcome intervention, an ordinary appreciation of human nature and human history is sufficient to furnish a pretty confident answer to that question. The impulse of human kind everywhere is toward self-government, not toward subjection to others. No nation in the past has ever chosen or desired to be governed by another one. Nor has any alien people ever shown itself satisfied to be ruled by the United States. ”

“ Stopping short of a war of conquest, it has tended perfectly to prepare the way for such a war—when the time is ripe. The sum and substance of the Wilson policy leaves no hope for the opponent of intervention, but affords every hope and encouragement to the interventionist.
Although international law is clear that foreigners who deliberately remain, for business or other reasons, in areas disturbed by revolution, must take the same chances as citizens, and have no right to demand the armed forces of their home governments to protect them ”

“ It rose triumphant in spite of the persistent enmity of influential foreigners, and the unfriendly meddling of foreign governments.
Carranza personally was never a military hero nor a brilliant orator; he is advanced in years; he wears whiskers; he was connected with the old regime. These circumstances would invalidate any theory that the present government achieved success on the personality of its leader. Why, then, did it succeed over Huerta, Villa, Felix Diaz, Zapata, and all the rest? ”

“ In other words, if the current attacks upon Mexico are well substantiated and the suggested remedy justifiable, then the conspiracy charge must fall. But if they are built upon falsehood we have a conspiracy, and of a most sinister character. Either intervention is a defensible policy or it is not. If it is defensible, the demand for it does not need to be supported by lies. If, on the other hand, the intervention propaganda is found to consist largely of misinformation, then the interventionists and their cause stand self-convicted at the very start. ”

“ For it happens that these gentlemen, instead of directing their energies to increasing the supply for the benefit of the nation, have frequently sought to limit it for the sole purpose of increasing their own profits at the expense of the rest of us. The very interests which are wont to advocate grabbing the natural resources of other countries "for the use of American industry" are the same which favor, and put through, protective tariffs and "anti-dumping laws," forcing the American consumer to pay them higher prices than he would have to pay were free importations permitted from abroad. ”

“ We have heard the same kind of thing from American experts. Well, if the United States Government "ought to hold for its industries and its people" any oil lands anywhere, it would seem evident that it ought first to "hold" the lands that are already under the American flag, where war is not a part of the process; that it ought to look first to the effective conservation of the domestic supply, which is being wasted by the very gentlemen who are urging a great grab from our neighbor. ”

“ As to any one in any position of authority in Mexico imagining that we are afraid of them, or that they can whip us, the evidence is overwhelmingly against this view. The charge, indeed, is in flat contradiction with another charge, coming from the same source, that the Mexicans hate us. For hate is the child of fear; if the Mexicans hate us, it is because they fear us, not, because they think they can whip us. It is in contradiction with another assertion, also from the same source, that the Mexicans would welcome intervention. ”

“ Although we are all entitled to our opinions, we are not entitled to appeal to external force to compel acceptance of them by Mexico. It is a question for the Mexican courts to decide. Mexican judges are as competent and honest as American judges. Th oil companies are wealthy enough to hire the best Mexican legal talent. If they cannot get what they believe to be their rights from Mexican courts, they, nevertheless, have no alternative but to bow to the decision of Mexican courts. ”

“ Still another answer is that past efforts we have made to restore order in other countries have not been a brilliant success. Our ability to restore order in Mexico would depend largely upon the sort of welcome we would receive from the Mexicans. If our efforts were resented and opposed—as they certainly would be—it is obvious that there would at once be a great deal more disorder than ever before. We would have a war on our hands to begin with, and after that a condition of "banditry" infinitely more aggravated than the present one. For every Mexican patriot would turn "bandit." ”

“ Intervention, as defined in international law, is interference by one government in the affairs of another, either by the use of force or the threat of force; it is effective intervention exactly to the extent to which the affairs of the invaded or threatened nation are influenced or controlled by such invasion or threats. The Bulletin of the National Association for the Protection of American Rights in Mexico itself prints open appeals for the use of force in Mexico, and editorially expresses approval of such appeals. ”

“ We would go into Mexico with the opposition of the Mexicans, who could only view our action as an effort to destroy their independence.
We have indulged in much self-praise of our "unselfish" Cuban record, but there is nothing unselfish about it. For we never relinquished control of Cuba, nor permitted the Cubans to enjoy the independence for which they fought. Although in the end we withdrew our army, we refused to withdraw it until the Cubans had revised their Constitution, ceding the United States a portion of their territory and acknowledging our "right" to intervene at will. ”

“ The Doheny theory—which is only a form of stating the theory of Imperialism—assumes that the national interests are something different from what they are. It assumes that international law is not what it is. It assumes that the sovereignty of a country extends to the persons and property of its citizens; wherever they may be, which is not true. It overlooks the fact that Mexico is a sovereign state, and that the Mexican nation, acting through the Mexican Government, has first call upon the resources of Mexico ”