File No. 812.00/7431.

The American Ambassador to the Secretary of State.

[Telegram—Paraphrase—Extract.]

225. The President yesterday informed me that public opinion was being greatly irritated throughout the country on account of the delay of our Government in recognizing the present Provisional Government. * * * He said that on this account his Government did not feel that it would be justified, in view of a hostile public opinion and of the undignified position in which it would be placed by so doing, in concluding the important questions at present pending between the two Governments—that is to say, the Chamizal and Colorado River cases and the special and general claims cases. He added that the Washington Government’s views in these cases—together with the Tlahualilo case, which had been entirely concluded—had been accepted in principle by this Government, and that whenever the Government of the United States would place this Government in the position of settling the questions as matters between two friendly and sovereign if not equally powerful countries their solution might be expected.

I replied briefly that the views of the President and Secretary of State on this question had not been communicated to me and asked if he desired me to transmit the substance of what he had said to Washington. He asked me to do so.

Henry Lane Wilson.