File No. 812.00/665.
The Mexican Ambassador to the Secretary of State.
Washington, January 23, 1911.
Excellency: With your Department’s note, No. 390, of the 19th instant, there has been received the copy of an official letter from the Department of Justice, inclosing a copy of a letter from the United States marshal for the western district of Texas, relative to complaints of violations of the neutrality laws committed by persons bent on stirring rebellion against the regime established in the Mexican Republic and copies of inclosures referred to in the said letter.
In expressing my feeling of gratitude for the kindness with which your excellency was pleased to forward to me the aforesaid documents, I avail myself of the occasion to say that the Government of Mexico has no doubt that the proper authorities will make all the [Page 394] investigations necessary to prove the frequent violations of the neutrality laws of the United States by individuals who use every means to disturb the normal conditions of life in a neighbor country.
This assurance, with which the Government of Mexico relies on the good will of the Government of the United States to prevent disturbances, is complete. It is easy to conceive how bold the disturbers of the peace would grow if this Government expected our officers to make investigations and offer evidence concerning acts of the character above referred to, committed in American territory. Should those upon whom rests the duty of seeing that the laws of this country are observed, falter in exercising zealous vigilance and taking spontaneous action, our own country would be in constant danger, not of political vicissitudes, of which it has no fears, but of criminal attempts which, under the pretext of schemes of regeneration, have for their sole end the advancement of men who, holding no property in either country and being without means of subsistence because unable to make an honest living, have no resources but attacks on private property in Mexican territory.
This embassy believes that by conducting the investigations, as they doubtless do, with the purpose of exhausting every means of conviction, the American authorities would soon bring to light legal evidence of the unlawful character of the acts reported by our consuls to which I have had occasion to refer in the notes relative to the subject herein considered.
I have [etc],