Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Address of the President to Congress December 2, 1913

File No. 812.00/9069.

The American Chargé d’Affaires to the Secretary of State.

No. 2072.]

American Embassy,
Mexico, September 22, 1913.

Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith the original text and translations of the two notes sent by Mr. Gamboa to Mr. Lind, dated, respectively, the 16th¹ and 26th of August, 1913.

I have [etc.]

Nelson O’Shaughnessy.

[Inclosure—Translation.]

The Secretary for Foreign Affairs to Mr. Lind.

Mexico, August 26, 1913.

Sir: Yesterday I had the honor of receiving from your hands a note in which you are pleased to state that, although you had no instructions from the President of the United States of America, from the scope of your instructions you reply to the note of this Government, given to you through me on the 16th instant.

You are pleased to repeat from those same instructions the paragraph which says literally:

“We wish to act in these circumstances in the spirit of the most earnest and disinterested friendship. It is our purpose in whatever we do or propose in this perplexing and distressing situation not only to pay the most scrupulous regard to the sovereignty and independence of Mexico—that we take as a matter of course to which we are bound by every obligation of right and honor—but also to give every possible evidence that we act in the interest of Mexico alone, and not in the interest of any person or body of persons who may have personal or property claims in Mexico which they may feel that they have the right to press. We are seeking to counsel Mexico for her own good and in the interest of her own peace, and not for any other purpose whatever. The Government of the United States would deem itself discredited if it had any selfish or ulterior purpose in transactions where the peace, happiness and prosperity of a whole people are involved. It is acting as its friendship for Mexico, not as any selfish interest, dictates.”

In spite of the fact that at the beginning of the note which I now answer you state that you lack instructions from the President of the United States of America, after the statement which I have reproduced above you state in the name of the same President that the method indicated in my note of the 16th instant, in so far as it concerns the recognition of the present Government (which I may say in passing is quite far from being a de facto Government, as you have chosen to qualify it) or—this you add—of any other future Government of Mexico, is something which only the United States of America may decide, which in the exercise of its sovereign rights in this respect will not hesitate, especially in times of serious domestic troubles, to consummate in the manner which, in the judgment of the United States of America and not in that of Mexico, may be best for this latter. You add that the President of the United States of America sincerely and ardently believes that my Government will see in the suggestions of His Excellency Mr. Woodrow Wilson the most feasible plan for serving our vital interests and for insuring the speedy reestablishment of our domestic tranquillity. And, still in the name of the President of the United States, you submit to the consideration of my Government the three following propositions:

(1) That the election called for the 16th of October of the present year [the note sent to the Foreign Office by Mr. Lind stated October 26 and not 16] shall be held in accordance with the constitutional laws of Mexico.

(2) That President Huerta, in the manner originally indicated by the President of the United States of America, give the assurances called for in paragraph “c” of the original instruction, a paragraph which says literally “The consent of General Huerta to bind himself not to be a candidate for election as President of the Republic at this election.”

(3) That the remaining propositions contained in your original instruction shall be taken up later but speedily, and resolved as circumstances permit and in the spirit of their proposal.

You add, furthermore, Mr. Confidential Agent, that the President of the United States of America has, authorized you to say that if my Government “acts immediately and favorably upon the foregoing suggestions,” the President will express to American bankers and their associates assurances that the Government of the United States of America will then look with favor upon the extension of an immediate loan sufficient in amount to meet the temporary requirements of the present Mexican administration. At the end of your note, Mr. Confidential Agent, you express the hope of your Government that my Government will judge it consistent with the best and highest interests of Mexico immediately to accept such propositions; that they are submitted in the same spirit and to the same end as the original propositions, but in a more restricted form to the end that my Government may act within its faculties without the cooperation or aid of any other outside factor.

It appears at once, Mr. Confidential Agent, that in this case the proposal of His Excellency Mr. Woodrow Wilson is not to remove himself an iota from the position originally assumed by him, for notwithstanding the time consumed since the 16th, the date of my reply, to the 25th, in which you delivered to me your second note, which I am here answering, the essence and even the form of his original instructions are the same, with the aggravating feature well qualified by you as “more restricted.”

For my part it would have been sufficient to answer this note in its totality by reproducing the whole of my note of the 16th instant as negative as it is categorical, as I have the honor to reproduce it in the present note. But the President ad interim wishes to carry his forbearance to the last point, and to the end that Mexican public opinion, which is so justly disturbed by the present tension in the diplomatic relations between the two countries, and also to the end that the various foreign Governments which have offered their good offices in the most delicate possible manner—I am glad to repeat that this has been their attitude and not less pleased to express grateful acknowledgment thereof—may be duly informed, has authorized me to reply to you in the following terms:

I will begin by taking notice of a highly significant fact: Between the night of the 14th instant, when I received the sheets containing your instructions—not directed to anyone and calling the present administration “the persons who at the present time have authority or exercise influence in Mexico”—and yesterday, some progress has been made, in that now the Constitutional President ad interim (see paragraph No. 2 of the new propositions) is called “President Huerta,” and in the whole course of the note the personnel of his administration as referred to as the “de facto Government.”

But, inasmuch as this or that qualification is of no importance, upon the ground that all the representations of your Government have not been initiated except with ourselves, which gives us, upon the supposition that we have been dispossessed of it, a perfect political and moral personality to clear up the present divergence, I intentionally limit myself solely to pointing out the facts.

If your original proposals were not to be admitted, they are now, in the “more restricted” form in which they are reproduced, even more inadmissible, and one’s attention is called to the fact that they are insisted upon, if it be noticed that the first proposal had already been declined. Precisely because we comprehend the immense value of the principle of sovereignty which the Government of the United States so opportunely invokes in the question of our recognition or nonrecognition—precisely for this reason we believe that it would never be proposed to us that we should forget our own sovereignty by permitting that a foreign government should modify the line of conduct which we have to follow in our public and independent life. If even once we were to admit the counsels and advice (let us call them thus) of the United States of America, not only would we, as I say above, forego our sovereignty, but we would as well compromise for an indefinite future our destinies as a sovereign entity and all the future elections for President would be submitted to the veto of any President of the United States of America. And such an enormity, Mr. Confidential Agent, no government will ever attempt to perpetrate, and this I am sure of, unless some monstrous and almost impossible cataclysm should occur in the conscience of the Mexican people.

We believed, taking into consideration the disproportionate interest that the President of the United States of America has shown concerning our internal affairs, that he as well as his Government would know perfectly well the provisions of our Constitution in the matter of elections. Unfortunately, and in view of the insistence with which His Excellency Mr. Wilson sustains his first ideas, we are compelled to acknowledge that we have made a mistake. The reform of constitutional articles Nos. 78 and 109, put into effect by the Congress of the Union on November 7, 1911, provides among other requirements that which is contained in the final part of article 78: “The Secretary of State in charge of the Executive power shall not be eligible to the office of either President or Vice President when the elections shall take place.”

This transcription, which I take the liberty of making, Mr. Confidential Agent, in order that the Government of the United States of America may take due note of it, prevents the constitutional ad interim President of the Republic from being a candidate at the forthcoming elections; and if His Excellency President Wilson had taken into consideration that paragraph before venturing to impose upon us the conditions in question, and which we may not admit, the present state of affairs between you and ourselves would have been avoided, leaving out of the discussion our decorum and the personal pride of the President of the United States wrongly interested in this discussion without foundation.

It should be well understood that the ad interim President could not be elected President or Vice President of the Republic at the forthcoming elections already called for the 26th of October, because our own laws prohibit him from being a candidate, and these laws are the sole arbiters of our destinies; but never through the imposition, although friendly and disinterested, of the President of the United States of America, or of any other ruler, powerful or weak (this does not matter in the case), who would be equally respected by us.

I beg to inform you, Mr. Confidential Agent, that up to the present time, at least, only the President of the United States of America has spoken of the candidacy of the constitutional ad interim President at the forthcoming elections. Neither the solemn declarations of this high functionary nor the most insignificant of his acts—all of which have been done with a view of obtaining a complete pacification of the country, which is the supreme national aim and which he has decided to bring about in spite of everything—have authorized anyone even to suspect that such are his ultimate intentions. It is perfectly well known that there does not exist in the whole country a single newspaper, a single club, a single corporation or group of individuals who have launched his candidacy or even discussed it.

On what, then, is the gratuitous suspicion of the President of the United States of America based, and his demand, which is absolutely inadmissible, that the ad interim President of the Republic should enter into agreements and contract obligations which have never heretofore been imposed upon the ruler of any sovereign nation?

The question having been set forth, as I have had the honor of doing in this reply, His Excellency Mr. Wilson will have to withdraw from his present attitude, at the risk that his motives—which, I take pleasure in acknowledging, are, as he himself quotes them, friendly and disinterested, altruistic and without ulterior ends—at the risk, I repeat, that they may be wrongly and differently interpreted by all the other nations, which look upon our present international conflict with more or less interest. And although the President of the United States of America should take an altogether different stand from the universal viewpoint, which considers differently an administration under the conditions in which our own is at present (the best proof of my assertion is the unconditional recognition of the foremost powers of the world, amongst which the United States of America occupies such a prominent and legitimately acquired rank), he will have to cease to call us a de facto Government and will give us the title of ad interim Constitutional Government, which is the only one to which we are rightly entitled.

Permit me, Mr. Confidential Agent, not to reply for the time being to the significant offer in which the Government of the United States of America insinuated that it will recommend to American bankers the immediate extension of a loan which will permit us, among other things, to cover the innumerable urgent expenses required by the progressive pacification of the country; for in the terms in which it is couched it appears more to be an attractive antecedent proposal to the end that, moved by petty interests, we should renounce a right which incontrovertibly upholds us. When the dignity of the nation is at stake, I believe that there are not loans enough to induce those charged by the law to maintain it to permit it to be lessened. On the other hand, I have seen with great pleasure that the President of the United States of America proposes for a later date, and, according to what the circumstances permit, the solution of what was marked with the letter “a” in the original instructions, and in the note to which this is a reply with the number 3; for this reveals that we are really in the way of arriving at an arrangement equally dignified for both sides.

In view of all this, Mr. Confidential Agent, today, more than ever, we profoundly hope for an immediate solution of the conflict which unfortunately has separated us. I would go even further: I would forego on our part that our respective ambassadors be received immediately, since for the end in view the present personnel of our reciprocal embassies is sufficient, if it remains as it has been heretofore, until the elections of October have taken place; but I will always stand on the unavoidable condition which declares that we are in reality the ad interim Constitutional Government of the Mexican Republic.

In my turn, Mr. Confidential Agent, I beg again to repeat to you the pleasing impression which you leave with me as a citizen of the United States of America, and as an able, righteous and well-intentioned personal representative of His Excellency Mr. Woodrow Wilson; I esteem in you greatly the gratitude which you say you profess for the well-deserved treatment which you have received in Mexico at the hands of the ad interim Constitutional President of the Republic, from private individuals and from myself, and I reiterate to you, as in my previous note, any perfect consideration.

F. Gamboa.

1. It appears, ante, appended to the telegram of August 27, 10 p.m., from the Secretary to the Chargé d’Affaires.