File No. 812.00/2279.
The Secretary of State to the Mexican Ambassador.
Washington, August 17, 1911.
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency’s note No. 198, of the 14th instant, in which you state that Giuseppe Garibaldi, a Mexican revolutionary agitator, has purchased from the Winchester Co. 1,000 rifles, intended, it is believed, for use against the established government in Mexico; and you request that this Government interpose its good offices to prevent the shipment of these arms to Mexico.
Your excellency’s note has been copied to the Attorney General for his information and for such action, if any, as the law, facts and circumstances of the case may call for or warrant.
In this connection I should call to your excellency’s attention that in view of the general conditions of peace which it is understood now exist within the borders of the territory of Mexico it is difficult to see in what way the mere commercial purchasing of arms and ammunition in New York City could, internationally speaking, be regarded as any violation of the neutrality of the United States toward the Mexican Republic; and, further, it seems quite clear that such purchase of arms and ammunition as a mere commercial transaction unconnected with any military expedition would not constitute a violation of the neutrality statutes of the United States, even if a state of war now existed in Mexico, and certainly would not fall within the purview of such statutes under the present conditions of peace, which it appears reign in your country. Upon these points I would respectfully refer to the various notes which I have heretofore had the honor to address to your predecessor, wherein the fundamental principles of the American law governing neutrality have been quite fully set forth.
Accept, etc.,