The manifest danger of such a situation was that such offenses might
grow from bad to worse until something happened of so gross and
intolerable a sort as to lead directly and inevitably to armed conflict.
It was necessary that the apologies of General Huerta and his
representatives should go much further, that they should be such as to
attract the attention of the whole population to their significance, and
such as to impress upon General Huerta himself the necessity of seeing
to it that no further occasion for explanations and professed regrets
should arise. I, therefore, felt it my duty to sustain Admiral Mayo in
the whole of his demand and to insist that the flag of the United States
should be saluted in such a way as to indicate a new spirit and attitude
on the part of the Huertistas.

Such a salute General Huerta has refused, and I have come to ask your
approval and support in the course I now purpose to pursue.

This Government can, I earnestly hope, in no circumstances be forced
into war with the people of Mexico. Mexico is torn by civil strife. If
we are to accept the tests of its own constitution, it has no
government. General Huerta has set his power up in the City of Mexico,
such as it is, without right and by methods for which there can be no
justification. Only part of the country is under his control. If armed
conflict should unhappily come as a result of his attitude of personal
resentment toward this Government, we should be fighting only General
Huerta and those who adhere to him and give him their support, and our
object would be only to restore to the people of the distracted Republic
the opportunity to set up again their own laws and their own government.

But I earnestly hope that war is not now in question. I believe that I
speak for the American people when I say that we do not desire to