[Delivered at a joint session of the two Houses of Congress, August 27,
1913.]


GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS:

It is clearly my duty to lay before you, very fully and without
reservation, the facts concerning our present relations with the
Republic of Mexico. The deplorable posture of affairs in Mexico I need
not describe,[D] but I deem it my duty to speak very frankly of what
this Government has done and should seek to do in fulfillment of its
obligation to Mexico herself, as a friend and neighbor, and to American
citizens whose lives and vital interests are daily affected by the
distressing conditions which now obtain beyond our southern border.

Those conditions touch us very nearly. Not merely because they lie at
our very doors. That of course makes us more vividly and more constantly
conscious of them, and every instinct of neighborly interest and
sympathy is aroused and quickened by them; but that is only one element
in the determination of our duty. We are glad to call ourselves the
friends of Mexico, and we shall, I hope, have many an occasion, in
happier times as well as in these days of trouble and confusion, to show
that our friendship is genuine and disinterested, capable of sacrifice
and every generous manifestation. The peace, prosperity, and
contentment of Mexico mean more, much more, to us than merely an
enlarged field for our commerce and enterprise. They mean an enlargement
of the field of self-government and the realization of the hopes and
rights of a nation with whose best aspirations, so long suppressed and
disappointed, we deeply sympathize. We shall yet prove to the Mexican