File No. 312.11/811.
[Untitled]
Mexico, August 22, 1912—3 p.m.
The President’s attention should, I believe, be called to the growing anti-American spirit of the Madero administration, which not only shows a decided preference for European markets in all lines but is harassing and discriminating against American interests, at the instigation of a group of corrupt men who surround the President, [Page 827] and manifested recently in the lockout of the American employees of the railways, in the persecution of the Associated Press, and the one American newspaper in Mexico, in the Government’s suborned decision in the Tlahualilo case, in the discriminatory and almost confiscatory tax placed on the oil products at Tampico, and in the present attempt to annul the concession of the Mexican National Packing Co. in spite of the protests of the Embassy and the British Legation, which annulment would involve a loss of several million pesos to the United States Banking Co. trust. The Embassy will do all it can to prevent these unjust acts, but it is respectfully suggested that a positive stand in all Mexican matters is advisable, in view of the services we have rendered to Mexico and our patience with the Government.