File No. 812.00/11654.
Special Agent Carothers to the Secretary of State.
I have just dined with Villa. We discussed situation at length. He said there would be no war between the United States and the Constitutionalists; that he is too good a friend of ours and considered us too good friends of theirs for us to engage in a war which neither side desired; that other nations would laugh and say, “The little drunkard has succeeded in drawing them in”; that as far as he was concerned we could keep Vera Cruz and hold it so tight that not even water could get in to Huerta and that he could not feel any resentment. He said that no drunkard, meaning Huerta, was going to draw him into a war with his friend; that he had come to Juarez to restore confidence between us.
My impression is that he is sincere and will force Carranza to accept his own friendly attitude. He was much pleased that the embargo had not been restored, saying that he must secure his ammunition for the Monterey campaign through El Paso and that the report that the embargo had been restored had worried him. His residence is within two hundred yards of the international bridge guarded by ten men. He told me that he realized that if we were to go to war the United States would crush them, but that they would do much damage and fight as long as they could continue to exist on herbs and live in the hills; but that even though we were to cross into Mexico he would still ask us to withdraw and talk it over. He asked me what the extensive military activity in El Paso meant, to which I replied that the American forces had much to contend with on this side, with five thousand prisoners at Fort Bliss and ten thousand refugees in the city, and that the activity meant prevention of rioting in El Paso. He expressed satisfaction at this and said he would do the same thing under similar conditions.
[Page 486]In comparing his conversation with me to published interview with newspaper reporters please bear in mind that those interviews have been edited by the Carrancista junta here and that junta is striving to show that Villa upholds Carranza’s note to you. Villa’s attitude is that Carranza may write pretty notes from Chihuahua but that he is here to do the work. If we can hold Villa in Juarez a few days, and provided the proposed embargo does not change his attitude, I have hope of establishing the neutrality of the Constitutionalists through Villa. As indicative of his frame of mind he handed me a beautiful blanket with the request that I forward it to General Scott with his compliments.