File No. 812.00/1023.
The Secretary of State to the Mexican Chargé d’Affaires.
The Department of State has received the Mexican Embassy’s memorandum of the 18th instant, stating that, according to information in the embassy’s possession, the I. C. Hirsch Iron, Steel & Rail Co., of Cincinnati, Ohio, is prepared to sell, and has received offers for, certain rifles and cartridges in its possession.
The Department of State is constrained again to repeat the statement, already frequently made, that commercial trading in arms and ammunition is not a violation either of the international rules governing neutrality or of the provisions of the so-called neutrality statutes of the United States, and that this Government is utterly unable, under its Constitution and laws, to take any action whatsoever in connection with such transactions, unless and until a violation of law occurs. The embassy’s memorandum has, however, been copied to the Department of Justice in order that that department may observe the supposed transaction if consummated, with a view to preventing violation of any of the laws of this Government.
In this connection the Department of State desires to call to the embassy’s attention the fact that the information possessed by it goes [Page 441] to show that a considerable and perhaps the greater number of insurrectos are armed with Mauser rifles and not with American rifles.
Washington, March 29, 1911.