File No. 711.1215/357.
The Acting Secretary of State to the American Ambassador.
Washington , September 18, 1911 .
Sir: The Department has received Mr. Dearing’s No. 882, of the 1st instant, communicating to the Department the substance of his interview with President de la Barra in regard to the Chamizal controversy.
There is enclosed for your information a memorandum of a conversation between the Acting Secretary of State and the ambassador of Mexico, on September 2, 19111 with an item given to the press attached, and you are referred to the Department’s telegram of September 2, 1911,1 to the embassy at Mexico City in which the Department expressed the opinion “that any attempt to relocate the line of 1864 would not only prove nugatory but would be most unfortunate in that it would be almost certain to result in seriously embittering the strained conditions at El Paso and Juárez.”
In order that the embassy may be fully advised in case the possibility of relocating the line of 1864 should again come up for discussion, you are informed that, so far as the Department is aware, any attempt to relocate the line of 1864 would necessarily involve going into the parole evidence of alleged old inhabitants. This would lead, in the opinion of the Department, to a questioning of the veracity of the witnesses on both sides, and thereby would not only tend to embitter the local situation but might result in exchanges which might even tend to disturb the friendly relations between the two Governments.
[Page 604]In addition to the Department’s profound conviction that the recent award is absolutely invalid, and that it would be entirely impossible to locate the line of 1864, the Department for the reasons stated would regard any attempt to locate the line as highly unfortunate on account of the foregoing considerations
I am, etc.,