d States and the passive
support of its anti-Huerta policy by Great Britain, the Mexican usurper
refused to resign. President Wilson now began to espouse the interests
of Villa and Carranza. His letters to Page indicate that he took these
men at their own valuation, believed that they were sincere patriots
working for the cause of "democracy" and "constitutionalism" and that
their triumph would usher in a day of enlightenment and progress for
Mexico. It was the opinion of the Foreign Office that Villa and Carranza
were worse men than Huerta and that any recognition of their
revolutionary activities would represent no moral gain.

_From President Wilson_

The White House, Washington,
May 18, 1914.

MY DEAR PAGE:

. . . As to the attitude of mind on that side of the water toward the
Constitutionalists, it is based upon prejudices which cannot be
sustained by the facts. I am enclosing a copy of an interview by a
Mr. Reid[43] which appeared in one of the afternoon papers recently
and which sums up as well as they could be summed up my own
conclusions with regard to the issues and the personnel of the
pending contest in Mexico. I can verify it from a hundred different
sources, most of them sources not in the least touched by
predilections for such men as our friends in London have supposed
Carranza and Villa to be.

Cordially and faithfully yours,
WOODROW WILSON.

HON. WALTER H. PAGE,
U.S. Embassy,
London, England.

The White House, Washington,
June 1, 1914.

MY DEAR PAGE:

. . . The fundamental thing is that they (British critics of Villa)
are all radically mistaken. There has been less disorder and less
danger to life where the Constitutionalists have gained control
than there has been where Huerta is in control. I should think that
if they are getting correct advices from Tampico, people in England
would be very much enlightened by what has happened there. Before
the Constitutionalists took the place there was constant danger to
the oil properties and to foreign residents. Now there is no danger
and the men who felt obliged to leave the oil wells to their
Mexican employees are returning, to find, by the way, that their
Mexican employees guarded them most faithfully without wages, and
in some instances almost without food. I am told that the