Office of the Historian

File No. 812.00/511.

The Secretary of State to the Mexican Ambassador.

[Memorandum.]
Department of State,
Washington, November 29, 1910.

The Department of State acknowledges receipt of the memorandum of his excellency the Mexican ambassador [of Nov. 23], concerning the movements of Francisco I. Madero and stating that the Government of Mexico had been informed that an American engineer [etc.].

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The matter was immediately brought to the attention of the Departments of War and Justice for appropriate action.

The Government of the United States must however express its dissent from the conclusion which your excellency seems to reach, that the persons named by your excellency have been “up to now” operating in the United States “in violation of the laws of neutrality.” As your excellency has already been formally advised, the proper officers of the Government of the United States stand ready to institute proceedings against all violations, not only of general international obligations regarding neutrality, but also of the stringent rules prescribed by the statutes of the United States regarding the conduct of American citizens and others, resident within the United States, toward countries or peoples with which the Government of the United States is at peace; and these Federal officers, as has been indicated to your excellency’s Government, await merely the production of evidence in order to set the judicial machinery in motion, for the purpose of correcting any violation either of the internal rules of neutrality or of the statutes of the United States. The Department also begs to suggest for your excellency’s consideration the fact that the Federal officers of this Government have thus far been most energetic in rendering assistance to the officers of the Government of Mexico, in the matter of preventing hostile operations on this side of our mutual boundary, and that but for this full, hearty and energetic action of the Federal officers of the Departments of both War and Justice, it is not improbable that the situation along the frontier might to-day be far more serious.