File No. 312.11/834a.
The American Ambassador to the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Mexico, September 15, 1912.
Mr. Minister: The Government of the United States is officially informed that three American citizens have recently been murdered in Mexico under circumstances of revolting barbarity—Mr. W. II. Waite, at Achotal, Vera Cruz, on April 4, 1912; Mr.’ Henry Crumbly, near Peruandiru, Michoacán, on July 21, 1912; and Mr. Rowan Ayres, at Sierra San Andrés, Michoacán, on August 13, 1912—and that the respective local authorities, who have done practically nothing toward apprehending and punishing the murderers seem disposed to treat these crimes with indifference. Such conduct, in the opinion of the Government of the United States, is not only contrary to law but betrays a callousness for which it would be difficult to find a parallel and is altogether subversive of the ends of justice.
The Government of the United States does not expect the Mexican Government to assume responsibilities not incumbent upon that Government in accordance with the applicable rules and principles of international law; but it does expect that the Federal administration at present in control in Mexico City shall live up to its obligations [Page 843] toward the citizens of the United States within Mexican borders, the most fundamental of which is their protection and the punishment of those who injure them. Mere reference to the cases of Samuel Hidy, murdered at the Los Plátanos colony, in the State of San Luis Potosí, in May, 1911; George W. Crichfield, shot from ambush near Tuxpán, in the State of Vera Cruz, and who died on April 7, 1911; William W. Fowler, who died as the result of wounds inflicted by a Mexican peon near Tuxpán, in the State of Vera Cruz, June 18, 1911; John R. Lockhart, apparently assassinated on or about November 8, 1910, between Ventana and San Dimas, in the State of Durango; Joseph O. Ellick, killed near Badiraguato, in the State of Sinaloa, September 30, 1910; Caradoc Hughes, killed on September 17, 1910, between Durango and Llano Grande; Thomas Green, shot on September 11, 1910, at Tampico, and who died the following day; Emilie A. Krause, cut with machetes on December 12, 1910, at Tampico Alto, and who died on July 2, 1911; James M. Reid, shot and killed by a policeman in Mexico City on November 20, 1910; W. L. Randell, robbed and murdered at Chamal on or about March 1, 1910; and of [sic] other cases (which need not here be set down) that have repeatedly been urged upon the attention of the Mexican Government without anything effective ever having been done to capture or punish the authors of the crimes, will serve to remind your excellency that the Government of the United States has been, to say the very least, long-suffering and forbearing in the face of grievous and unrighted wrongs. And the case of the Americans, Patrick Glennon, A. L. Foster, and John G. D. Carroll, who were killed at Alamos, Lower California, on June 11, 1911, by Mexican Federal soldiers acting, seemingly, under the orders of their superiors, for which atrocious crime the Government of the United States has never been able to secure, by means of diplomatic representations, even so much as a proper investigation by the Mexican Government, in spite of an unceasing insistence to this effect, will throw into still higher relief the supineness of Mexican authorities and, in this instance, of the Federal Government itself, and of the tolerance and patience of my Government.
The Government of the United States therefore informs the administration now discharging the duties of government in Mexico, so that due note may be taken thereof, that it is in no disposition to allow the indifference and shortcomings of local officials in Mexico to continue to defeat the ends of justice where American citizens are concerned, and that, in addition to the redress and punishment of the other crimes of which the Government of the United States complains, the Mexican administration must immediately institute, under its own direct supervision, an investigation of the murders of Waite, Crumbly, and Ayres and a prosecution of the murderers which will produce satisfying results in the way of finding those guilty of these barbaric outrages, of capturing them, bringing them to justice, and dealing with them in accordance with their deserts.
And in this connection the Government of the United States observes, for the information of the Mexican administration, that it is just as little of a disposition to tolerate the arrest of American citizens on frivolous and inadequate charges, and their imprisonment in insanitary and filthy jails in consequence of the refusal of local authorities to admit them to bail. Such arrests have, most regrettably, [Page 844] been numerous and continue to occur, and although frequent and urgent remonstrances have been made they have almost always, unfortunately, been without satisfactory result. The Government of the United States fully understands that Americans resident in Mexico who offend against the laws of Mexico must expect commensurate punishment therefor; but it can not in justice to its nationals permit them constantly to be made the objects of the tyranny of petty local authorities, or of intrigue or anti-American sentiment.
The Government of the United States desires to make it known to the present administration in Mexico that to its surprise and misgiving it has been informed that certain men—Mexican citizens and officials—seemingly overcome by greed and inimical to American interests on account of their nationality, are, without the least hindrance from the administration—to which Americans in Mexico must naturally look for protection in their rights—persecuting and preying upon these interests at every favorable opportunity. The Associated Press, it is stated, has been repeatedly hampered by unnecessary and irksome restrictions for which the administration can not be held entirely unresponsible. The Mexican Herald, an American paper, is alleged, on what appears to be credible authority, to have been the victim of treatment altogether unfair. American interests in the Tlahualilo Co. assert that they have failed to receive justice in the litigation in which they are engaged with the Mexican Government through a court decision which, it is claimed, was rendered under adverse influence upon the court from official quarters. American oil interests in the vicinity of Tampico proffer evidence that they are taxed almost beyond endurance, and assurance is given that there is on foot at Mexico City at the present time an attempt to annul the concession of the Mexican National Packing Co., in spite of the protests of the American Embassy and the British Legation at Mexico City, an act which would entail a loss of millions of pesos to the twelve hundred odd American stockholders in the defunct United States Banking Corporation, of which the Packing Co., with its business and property, is an asset. The instances here cited of the disposition of the Mexican Government, either through inadvertence or otherwise, to permit wrongful acts against legitimately acquired American rights do not by any means constitute all which might be made the subject of remonstrance. Those set down, however, are the most recent instances of the kind and are illustrative of conditions which appeal insistently to the attention of my Government. The Government of the United States must insist that this predatory prosecution, amounting practically to confiscation, shall cease forthwith and it expects immediate assurance from the Mexican administration that it will promptly bring this about.
The people of the United States have profoundly at heart the fate of their countrymen in Mexico. They desire that the wrongs described shall terminate, and that the untold hardships endured by innocent and unoffending American noncombatants in Mexico during the revolutions of the last two years, and still being endured, shall cease. They have confidently anticipated throughout a long period that the present Mexican Federal administration would make the amelioration of conditions throughout Mexico its foremost aim, and have thought that the great substantial fact of the needless and illegal endangering and sacrificing of American lives and property by [Page 845] disorders throughout Mexico among the Mexican people would be dealt with swiftly, determinedly, and adequately. But their hopes have been vain, and the Government of the United States finds itself compelled to say on behalf of the American people that its faith in the effectiveness of the Mexican Government has been shaken to its base, and that it can not longer, out of an unavailing regard for the amour propre of Mexico, view without the greatest concern a continuance of a state of affairs so calamitous in its effect upon the lives and interests of American citizens in Mexico, which has become well-nigh intolerable. The time has come when the administration at Mexico City, which has thus far persistently asserted that it was able to and possessed the means to administer the affairs of government, must either demonstrate its determination and ability to handle the present situation by the early establishment of order and the effective administration of law, or frankly confess that conditions are such that it is powerless to do so. In the latter case it would evidently become necessary for the Government of the United States to consider what measures it should adopt to meet the requirements of the situation.
The President of the United States directs me to say to your excellency, and to His Excellency the President of Mexico, that the indifference to if not the active persecution of Americans and American interests in Mexico, on the one hand, which I have been at pains to describe, and the failure of the Mexican administration to exert the efforts it would seem capable of exerting to bring about an improvement in the deplorable state of affairs that continues to exist throughout Mexico, and which so disastrously affects American life and property, on the other hand, are observed with growing concern and uneasiness by the Government of the United States, and that it would appear that in the face of conditions which should evoke the most vigorous efforts and single-hearted endeavor the administration is either apathetic or incompetent, or both. I am enjoined to say that no intention exists on the part of the Government of the United States to derogate in any way from the rights or the dignity of the Mexican Government or to interfere unduly in Mexico’s domestic affairs, but that the conditions in which Americans in Mexico now find themselves are such that it must be plainly and frankly stated that the situation as it exists can not be allowed to go on indefinitely, and that the administration in Mexico must bestir itself to fulfill its international duties toward American citizens and their interests.
I am directed to say to your excellency that this statement is made in all friendliness, but soberly and seriously and in the expectation that it will carry conviction, and that the admonition it contains is delivered after mature deliberation upon the situation, in which the facts and the rights and duties of the Mexican Government on the one side and of the Government of the United States on the other have been taken fully into account. In the absence of such an effort on the part of that administration the Government of the United States will have no recourse but to consider whether it would not be better to abandon a policy which, while highly advantageous to the present administration at Mexico City on account of its pronounced friendliness, apparently fails to accomplish (as it should accomplish if the administration fulfilled the obligations incumbent upon it as the head of a civilized country in the family of nations) anything adequate toward the alleviation of the distressing plight of many American [Page 846] citizens in Mexico who are murdered and preyed upon before an indifferent administration and subjected by conditions of revolution to practically all of the horrors of war.
The Government of the United States desires from your excellency as promptly as possible a comprehensive and categorical statement as to the measures the Mexican Government proposes to adopt: (I) To effect the capture and adequate punishment of the murderers of American citizens; (II) to put an end to the discriminations against American interests, such as those which have been referred to above; and (III) to bring about such an improvement in general conditions throughout Mexico that American settlers in that country will no longer be subjected to the hardships and outrages attendant upon a more or less constant state of revolution, lawlessness, and chaos.