l be necessary. For the circumstances are new. The rejection of our
friendship makes them new and will inevitably bring its own alterations
in the whole aspect of affairs. The actual situation of the authorities
at Mexico City will presently be revealed.

Meanwhile, what is it our duty to do? Clearly, everything that we do
must be rooted in patience and done with calm and disinterested
deliberation. Impatience on our part would be childish, and would be
fraught with every risk of wrong and folly. We can afford to exercise
the self-restraint of a really great nation which realizes its own
strength and scorns to misuse it. It was our duty to offer our active
assistance. It is now our duty to show what true neutrality will do to
enable the people of Mexico to set their affairs in order again and wait
for a further opportunity to offer our friendly counsels. The door is
not closed against the resumption, either upon the initiative of Mexico
or upon our own, of the effort to bring order out of the confusion by
friendly cooeperative action, should fortunate occasion offer.

While we wait the contest of the rival forces will undoubtedly for a
little while be sharper than ever, just because it will be plain that an
end must be made of the existing situation, and that very promptly; and
with the increased activity of the contending factions will come, it is
to be feared, increased danger to the non-combatants in Mexico as well
as to those actually in the field of battle. The position of outsiders
is always particularly trying and full of hazard where there is civil
strife and a whole country is upset. We should earnestly urge all
Americans to leave Mexico at once, and should assist them to get away in
every way possible--not because we would mean to slacken in the least
our efforts to safeguard their lives and their interests, but because it
is imperative that they should take no unnecessary risks when it is
physically possible for them to leave the country. We should let every
one who assumes to exercise authority in any part of Mexico know in the
most unequivocal way that we shall vigilantly watch the fortunes of
those Americans who cannot get away, and shall hold those responsible
for their sufferings and losses to a definite reckoning. That can be and
will be made plain beyond the possibility of a misunderstanding.

For the rest, I deem it my duty to exercise the authority conferred upon
me by the law of March 14, 1912, to