File No. 812.00/4246.
The Secretary of State to the American Ambassador.
Washington, June 28, 1912.
Sir: There are enclosed herewith for the information of the Embassy copies of two letters from the Department of Justice, of June 13,1 with enclosures, and of June 19,1 and a copy of a letter addressed by this Department to the Attorney General1 relative to the alleged recruiting of soldiers for the Mexican Government, in the American border States, and the apparent connection therewith of Mr. E. C. Llorente, the Mexican Consul at El Paso.
The laws of this Government are peremptory in their provision that no person shall within the territory or jurisdiction of the United States enlist or enter himself, or hire or retain another person to enlist or enter himself or to go beyond the limits or the jurisdiction of the United States with intent to be enlisted or entered in the service of any foreign State as a soldier; and the unmistakable object of these laws is to prevent every such act. Moreover, these laws are in strict conformity with the law of nations, which declares that no State has a right to raise troops for service in another State without its consent, and that whether forbidden by the municipal law or not the mere attempt to raise troops without such consent assails the national sovereignty.
If, then, agents of the Mexican Government have enlisted or attempted to enlist military recruits, their action would appear to be either in studied evasion of the law or in violation thereof; and in either alternative it is alike injurious, and if the former is the case and these agents have escaped punishment as malefactors such successful evasion only serves to increase the degree of wrong that has been done to the United States. (See Moore’s Digest, vol. vii, p. 879 et seq.)
You are instructed to invite the attention of the Mexican Government to this matter in the above sense and to say that in view of the public rights and the municipal law of the United States it is a matter of surprise to this Government to find that the investigations of the agents of the Department of Justice seem to show that the engagement of persons within the United States to proceed to Mexico there to serve as soldiers of the established Government has been going on and that it is difficult for this Government to understand how the raising of troops in this country could be reconciled with a due regard for the sovereignty of a friendly neighbor.
You are also directed to say that this Government, while it is loath to believe that the recruiting which the investigations of the Department of Justice seem to show has been taking place is being carried out with the knowledge or under the direction of the Mexican Government, trusts that the Government of Mexico, realizing the injurious character of such activity, will at once take steps to have recruiting for Mexican Federal forces, whether authorized or not, cease immediately, and will at once give to all persons concerned who may be under the control of the Mexican Government—particularly to [Page 816] the Mexican Consul at El Paso—instructions of such a character that they will desist from any attempt to recruit soldiers on American soil. You may say finally that the Department of Justice has been requested by this Department thoroughly to investigate all apparent infractions of the so-called neutrality statutes of this country, and to proceed in accordance with the law against all who may be found guilty of such infractions, and so to put an end to action infringing the municipal law of this country and derogatory to the sovereignty of the United States.
I am [etc.]