ction, and
the situation which led to Wilson's victory in November, 1912. Wilson,
writing a dozen years before the fight between Taft and Roosevelt, had
unconsciously drawn a parallel closer perhaps than the facts warranted;
and the reader who had been attracted by this similarity read on into
Wilson's characterization of Jefferson an introduction to the
achievements of his Administration with a growing hope--if he happened
to be a Wilson man--that after as before election Wilson's record would
duplicate Jefferson's.

Colonel Harvey was as good a prophet in 1913 as in 1904. Wilson's
achievement in domestic affairs in the first year of his Administration
was not likely to suffer much by comparison with Jefferson's. But it
could not have crossed anybody's mind in March, 1913, that
complications of international politics such as had almost ruined the
country under Jefferson would in the latter part of Wilson's first term
expose him to as much criticism as Jefferson, and for the same reasons.

America was still new as a world power, but was beginning to feel more
at home. In Taft's Administration, with Philander C. Knox as Secretary
of State, there had been for the first time the beginnings of what
might fairly be called a consistent foreign policy. True, it was not a
very lofty policy, nor was it by any means generally approved in
America. It was called by its friends "dollar diplomacy," meaning the
promotion of American commercial interests by diplomatic agencies. It
had been exemplified principally in Central America, where its
operations had not always commanded admiration, and in China, where
Knox had made a well-intentioned but not very skillful effort to
prevent the absorption of Manchuria by Russia and Japan.

_Landmarks in Wilson's Mexican Policy_

_Program for armistice and elections to end civil war, August,
1913._

_"Watchful waiting," 1913-14._

_Capture of Vera Cruz, April 21, 1914._

_A B C mediation, April 25, 1914._

_Flight of Huerta, July, 1914._

_Recognition of Carranza, September, 1915._

_Villa's raid on Columbus and Pershing's expedition into Mexico,
March, 1916._

_Flight and death of Carranza, May, 1920._

However primitive this organization of foreign policy, none the less
Taft and Knox had taken a great step forward in the improvement of
American diplomatic machinery. The diplomatic service and the State
Department were beginning to