File No. 812.00/1934.
The Secretary of State to the Mexican Ambassador.
Washington, May 20, 1911.
My Dear Mr. Ambassador: In reply to your personal note of the 19th instant, I beg to say that I at once communicated the contents of your letter to the Attorney General by telegraph with a request that he take such steps as were necessary and proper in the premises. I ought, however, to point out to you that it will be impossible for the Attorney General to prevent the release of this man upon habeas corpus unless the Attorney General is able to show that Pryce is guilty of some violation of our so-called neutrality statutes or of some ordinary criminal offense.
Although you state that Pryce has led filibustering expeditions from the United States into Lower California, Mexico, investigation will doubtless show that his activities have been conducted within the provisions of the statutes, and that while he may have led bodies of insurrectos in Lower California, such bodies were organized in Lower California and not in the United States. The careful patrol which this Government has for months kept along that portion of the Mexican boundary makes this presumption almost a certainty.
Of course, if the robberies of which you speak are extraditable offenses, it would be possible for your Government to institute appropriate extradition proceedings.
I am, etc.,