File No. 312.11/1001a.
The Acting Secretary of State to the American Consular Officers in Mexico.
Washington , November 25, 1912 .
Gentlemen: The Department desires to ascertain the extent to which American citizens resident in Mexico have suffered in their lives, peace and property as a result of the disturbed conditions prevalent throughout Mexico for the last two years, to be apprised of the wrongs for which no redress has been furnished that have been suffered by them and to which the passage of time but adds an intensity of degree, and to be informed of the measure of protection, if any, that has been afforded them generally and in specific instances by the Mexican Federal Government. You are instructed, therefore, carefully to review the correspondence on file in your office since October 1, 1910, and earlier correspondence wherever necessary, and to submit to the Department, at the earliest time compatible with a thorough compliance with the requirements of this instruction, a succinct but comprehensive report on these matters in accordance with the accompanying directions,1 which should be carefully studied. These directions have been so prepared as to cover the entire field. It will be obviously unnecessary, therefore, to do more than to comply with them in so far as they are applicable to the peculiar circumstances of the instances of murder, death, hardships, annoyances, et cetera, that have occurred in your district. Your report should be prepared in as compact and neat a form as possible, your various statements being made to follow the sequence of the heads given in the directions, so far as possible, and being so arranged and numbered as to make them easily identifiable.
Your report, when sent to the Department, should consist of the following papers:
- First. A list of the murders that have occurred in your district.
- Second. The histories of the various cases of murder, each history being made a separate document, and all the documents being placed together.
- Third. A list of deaths incident to the existence of the revolution and its attendant state of war.
- Fourth. The histories of the various cases of such deaths, each history being made a separate document, and all the documents being placed together.
- Fifth. A list of hardships and annoyances.
- Sixth. The histories of the various cases of hardships and annoyances, each history being made a separate document, and all the documents being placed together.
- Seventh. A list of property losses.
- Eighth. The separate histories of the various cases of such property losses, each history being made a separate document, and all the documents being placed together.
- Ninth. A brief statement of instances of constructive losses.
- Tenth. A brief statement of claims cases.
- Eleventh. A statement of the general conditions under which Americans in Mexico have been obliged to live since the beginning of the present revolutionary unrest, and the sufficiency or insufficiency of the measures taken by the Federal Government in the conduct of its operations against the insurrectionists, and to afford protection to American life and property.
I am [etc.]
- Not printed. The directions consist of minutely detailed amplification of the eleven points enumerated in this instruction.↩