Office of the Historian

14. Telegram From the Embassy in Mexico to the Department of State1

Mexico City, February 18, 1918, 5 p.m.

790. From Murray to Creel. “I am proceeding in accordance with instructions February 16th.2 Suggest personal drawing account in lieu of salary maximum three hundred monthly from February 18th. I have shown Mooser3 all our correspondence to date. While I am ignorant of the nature his recommendation as inferred from third and sixth sentences your cable, am loath at present to indorse ten thousand monthly or any cumbersome local committee plan. Let us go slowly until we get our bearings. Emphatically certain that it would be distinctly injudicious to involve Embassy or Consulate directly or overtly. Nothing to be gained and disadvantage obvious. Committee’s branch here should function on its own responsibility, working independently with close relations with Embassy understood and in coordination with other friendly bodies to obviate duplication and overlapping, but always maintaining its supremacy in influence and control. Our work must be done aggressively, openly, and cleanly with due regard for dignity and conservatism and a complete avoidance of methods which would place us on level with German propagandists. I shall investigate with a view to possible action later expediency of encouraging friendly newspaper by openly purchasing and using space at regular advertising rates or otherwise assisting them in reducing their expenses for paper.”

Summerlin
  1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Decimal File 1910–1929, Box 731, 103.93/48. No classification marking. Blue. Received February 19 at 1:46 a.m. A handwritten notation at the top of the telegram reads: “Copy to Creel. Feb 19, 1918. File RBM [?].” Beneath this notation Patchin wrote: “Copy to Creel + File. PHP.”↩
  2. In telegram 771 to Mexico City, February 16, Creel instructed Murray that he was the “official representative Committee in Mexico and I want you to report on all press matters and propositions for financial and educational cooperation with various allied and private committees.” (National Archives, RG 59, Central Decimal File 1910–1929, Box 736, 103.9302/40d)↩
  3. George Mooser, CPI representative sent to Mexico to take charge of a “film campaign.” (Telegram 755 to Mexico City, February 9; National Archives, RG 59, Central Decimal File 1910–1929, Box 736, 103.9302/32b)↩