I have just been going over the map with Captain Burnside, and we have been tracing the slow and sure advance of the rebels. They are down as far as San Luis Potosí, not more than fourteen hours from here. They manage to isolate the Federal detachments, one after the other, cutting the railroad lines in front and in the rear. There is a good deal of that northern march where one can go a hundred kilometers without finding a drop of water.
I was reading Mme. Calderon de la Barca’s letters—1840-1842—last night. She was the Scotch wife of the first Spanish minister after the Mexican independence, and her descriptions of political conditions would fit to-day exactly, even the names of some of the generals repeating themselves. She speaks of “the plan of the Federals,” “the political regeneration of the Republic,” “evils now arrived at such a height that the endeavors of a few men no longer suffice,” “a long discussion in Congress to-day on the granting of extraordinary powers to the President,” “a possible sacking of the city.”... Our history here. She goes on to say that they (the brigands) are the growth of civil war. Sometimes in the guise of insurgents taking an active part in the independence, they have independently laid waste the country. As expellers of the Spaniards these armed bands infested the roads between Vera Cruz and the capital, ruined all commerce, and without any particular inquiry into political opinions robbed and murdered in all directions. And she tells the bon mot of a certain Mexican: “Some years ago we gave forth cries—gritos (referring to the Grito de Dolores of Hidalgo). That was in the infancy of our independence. Now we begin to pronounce, pronunciamos (a pronunciamiento is a revolution). Heaven only knows when we shall be old enough to speak plainly, so that people may know what we mean.”
December 2d.
I go in the afternoon to a charity sale at Mrs. Adams’s, for the “Lady Cowdray Nursery Home.” Mr. A. is the Cowdray representative of the huge oil interests in Mexico. It sometimes looks as if this whole situation could be summed up in the one word, “oil.” Mexico is so endlessly, so tragically rich in the things that the world covets. Certainly oil is the crux of the Anglo-American situation. All the modern battle-ships will be burning oil instead of coal—clean, smokeless, no more of the horrors of stoking—and for England to have practically an unlimited oil-fount in Mexico means much to her.
We had a pleasant dinner last night here—Clarence Hay, Mr. and Mrs. Tozzer, and Mr. Seeger; the dinner itself only so-so. Mr. Seeger’s suggestion that the guajolote had been plied with grape-juice rather than with something more inspiring was borne out by the bird’s toughness, and there were strange, unexplained intervals. However I impressed upon C. H. that I was giving him this splendid fiesta because his father had signed N.’s first commission (to Copenhagen), and the time passed merrily. There are other things you can do at dinner besides eating, if you are put to it.
I inclose a long clipping, most interesting, from Mr. Foster’s Diplomatic Memoirs. He was minister here for some years—1873-1880, I think. His relations, too, of conditions at that time seem a replica of these in our time: “The railroad trains always contained one or more cars loaded with armed soldiers. The Hacendados did not venture off their estates without an armed guard and the richest of them lived in the cities for safety. Everybody armed to the teeth when traveling and the bullion-trains coming from the mines were always heavily protected by guards.” Mr. Foster sets forth the actions of the United States in delaying recognition of Diaz when he assumed the Presidency, and tells of the various moments in which we were on the brink of war with Mexico. In 1875, Congress conferred on Diaz “extraordinary faculties,” the effect of which was to suspend the legislative power and make him a dictator.
N. paid over the Pius Fund, yesterday—the indemnity of 45,000 pesos that Mexico is forced to pay yearly to the Catholic Church in California for confiscation of its property about one hundred years ago. It was the first decision of the Hague Tribunal. Archbishop Riordan, when consulted about the manner of paying it, telegraphed to Mr. Bryan that he left it in N.’s hands to be disposed of as if it were his own. N.’s policy has been to get the various foreign powers to appeal to us for protection of their citizens, thus tacitly acknowledging our “Monroe” right to handle questions that came up. So far France, Germany, Spain, and Japan have done so.
December 3d.
Yesterday, at four o’clock, Sir Lionel and Sir Christopher Cradock were announced. When I went down-stairs, a few minutes later, I found my drawing-room a blaze of afternoon sun, setting off to perfection twice six feet or more of Royal British navy—Sir Christopher and his aide, Cavendish, resplendent in full uniform. They had just come from calling on Huerta in state, at the Palace. I was really dazzled for the first moment. Sir Christopher is a singularly handsome man, regular of feature, and of distinguished bearing. His aide, equally tall and slender, a younger silhouette of himself, was standing by his side. Britannia resplendens! Sir Christopher was evidently very interested in seeing, at first hand, the situation he is to “observe” from the vantage of Vera Cruz. After a lively half-hour he was borne off by Sir L. for visits at the legations, and comparative darkness fell upon the room. As we are all dining at the German Legation, where there is a gala dinner for him and the captain of the Bremen and his staff, we merely said au revoir.