File No. 412.11/144.
The American Chargé d’Affaires to the Secretary of State.
Mexico, December 6, 1912.
The Foreign Office has rejected a German claim in a note the terms of which are almost identical with those refusing Hall’s claim. This is the first information received by the German Minister regarding [Page 983] his numerous claims for damages due to revolutionary disturbances. He forwarded it at once to his Government, with the comment that if this principle is allowed he can accomplish nothing more by diplomatic methods. He will recommend that the German Government show the Mexican Government that it can not make such an absurd denial of justice in the case of German subjects. I have also received another note refusing another claim in similar terms.
I should be glad to have some light on the Department’s probable attitude with regard to such claims, of which the Embassy is daily receiving a number; it would appear to be a waste of time to send them to the Foreign Office if the Mexican Government’s present contention is to be allowed.
Another class of claims is becoming quite important—those for personal service, such as that of locomotive engineers, rendered by American citizens to the Federal military authorities, for which the claimants have proper authorizations and payment orders signed by commanding officers, but payment of which is refused at the War Department in spite of the instructions from the commanders who employed them that they should apply there.