In May 1911 the Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz was overthrown by Francisco Madero, who, in turn, was murdered by the strongman Victoriano Huerta in 1913. Huerta was ruling Mexico when Woodrow Wilson took office as president of the United States. Wilson voiced support for the opposition and immediately set to work to undermine Huerta’s dictatorial regime. Although Henry Cabot Lodge advocated a militant foreign policy—one based on the premise that the United States was a great power and should always act as such—at the same time he could also urge caution, as when he attacked President Wilson in his January 6, 1915, Speech on Mexico for engaging in a blundering and destructive intervention in that country.