File No. 812.00/11719.
Consul General Hanna to the Secretary of State.
Monterey, April 24, 1914.
On the 21st of April a federal military officer by the name of Captain Alvarez del Castillo, evidently instructed by the federal military commander to tear down all American flags, arrived at this Consulate General with a street mob which he had gathered about four o’clock in the afternoon, and pounded in the door and demanded that the American flag over this Consulate General be immediately lowered or he would shoot it down, and the other federals proceeded to tear down all American flags, standing on them, making speeches throughout the city of Monterey, burning some of them, and tearing them up and leaving them piled in the middle of the streets. It was the most insulting act that I or any of the people of Monterey have ever witnessed. They then placed a police guard in front of this Consulate General, and all the inmates in this building were considered prisoners. The next morning, the 22cl of April, about 10 o’clock, a police lieutenant arrived with a force of men and advised me that he had been instructed to search the building. The insulting search was completed about noon, when your Consul General was taken prisoner through the streets with the mob, and carried first to the penitentiary, and afterwards to the state government palace, which building has been for some time military headquarters and fortified, and was the object of special attack by the then attacking forces. While I was placed under heavy guard in the grand reception room of the state palace I fully realized that I was constantly being considerably insulted and greatly humiliated, not on account “bf my personality but on account of my official position as representative of the United States Government in northern [Page 660] Mexico. At about 8 o’clock in the evening of April 22cl I was taken before the military court and notified that I was charged of being in sympathy with the Constitutionalist chiefs and as being friendly to certain Constitutionalist generals, and especially General Pablo Gonzales and General Antonio Villareal. I was kept a prisoner incommunicado until the evacuation of the city by the federal troops and arrival of the Constitutionalist forces early this morning. I was left entirely alone in the state capitol building for about six hours without being informed by any individual or officer of their departure. The officers of the Constitutionalist army inform me that they heard that I was taken prisoner and the American flag ordered down from over this Consulate General. A Constitutionalist officer by the name of Mayor Fierros with a company of men hurried to the state palace where they had heard I was being held prisoner, and broke into the locked door early this morning, furnishing me with a saddled horse, and accompanied me to the suburbs of the city, where I met General Antonio Villareal, who is to be the governor of the State of Nuevo Leon. In company with General Villareal and some of the foreign consular representatives in Monterey, we proceeded to the state palace, where speeches were made to the people, who assembled in great masses in front of the state house, giving assurances of full protection to all foreign and non-combatants, and the fullest degree of freedom and protection of law-abiding people. Shortly after our arrival at the state house, General Pablo Gonzales arrived, and he also gave strongest assurances of proper protection for all the law-abiding residents of Monterey.