The President to the Governor of Arizona.
Washington, April 18, 1911.
Your dispatch received. Have made urgent demand upon Mexican Government to issue instructions to prevent firing across border by Mexican Federal troops and am awaiting reply. Meantime I have sent direct warning to the Mexican and insurgent forces near Douglas. I infer from your dispatch that both parties attempt to heed the warning, but that in the strain and exigency of the contest wild bullets still find their way into Douglas. The situation might justify me in ordering our troops to cross the border and attempt to stop the fighting or to fire upon both combatants from the American side. But if I take this step, I must face the possibility of resistance and greater bloodshed, and also the danger of having our motives misconstrued and misrepresented and of thus inflaming Mexican popular indignation against many thousand Americans now in Mexico and jeopardizing their lives and property. The pressure for general intervention under such conditions it might not be practicable to resist. It is impossible to foresee or reckon the consequences of such a course, and we must use the greatest self-restraint to avoid it. Pending my urgent representation to the Mexican Government, can not therefore order the troops at Douglas to cross the border, but I must ask you and the local authorities in case the same danger recurs to direct the people of Douglas to place themselves where bullets can not reach them and thus avoid casualty. I am [Page 461] loath to endanger Americans in Mexico where they are necessarily exposed by taking a radical step to prevent injury to Americans on our side of the border who can avoid it by a temporary inconvenience.