File No. 812.00/1963.
The Secretary of State to the Mexican Ambassador.
Washington, June 6, 1911.
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 24th ultimo, in which you ask that judicial proceedings be instituted against Ricardo Flores Magón and his associates in what you are pleased to term “the many scandalous filibustering attempts organized in territory of the United States against Lower California,” and have taken pleasure in transmitting a copy thereof to the Attorney General, with a request that he take appropriate action in the premises.
The Department can not, however, fail to observe your statement (with which it must disagree) that there have been many scandalous filibustering attempts organized on territory of the United States against Lower California. As your excellency is well aware, the Government of the United States has been most vigilant in the measures which it has taken to insure the most complete observance not only of its international duties but also the strict enforcement of its own so-called neutrality statutes. These measures have involved an elaborate policing of the American side of the border, which has been maintained with marked efficiency, notwithstanding the conspicuous absence of similar measures upon the part of the Government of Mexico on its own territory, upon whom rests primarily the [Page 499] responsibility of prohibiting the taking of arms and ammunition to Mexico or the landing of them at particular times or places, or the prevention of incursions of marauding or other bands of men. The absence of proper policing on the Mexican side of the border has been the more conspicuous because these matters of protection relate to the revenue and police regulations of the Government of Mexico, and it has never been recognized by international law that such regulations come within the rules regulating the conduct of other nations.
In this connection I desire to repeat the statement made in the Department’s communication to your embassy of February 11, 1911, that almost all of the information which has been heretofore communicated to the Federal officers regarding alleged violations of the international rules of neutrality, as well as of the so-called neutrality statutes of the United States in connection with the disturbances in Mexico, has upon careful and minute examination proved to have been based upon groundless rumors, and that when the information has been based upon a substantial foundation the parties have been vigorously prosecuted.
I must therefore take occasion again to deny the intimation that there have been many scandalous filibustering attempts organized on territory of the United States against Lower California in violation of the so-called neutrality statutes of the United States, or of the rules of international law, during the recent disturbed conditions in Mexico; and, further, again to assert that so far as is known almost no illegal activity whatsoever has occurred on this side of the border, whatever the sympathies of the peoples of particular localities may have been, and that wherever such activity has occurred it has been vigorously prosecuted.
I need not assure your excellency that the Government of the United States will be glad in the future as in the past to exercise the greatest care in order that its obligations and laws may continue to be strictly observed.
Accept [etc.],