File No. 312.115/50.
The Secretary of State to Consul General Shanklin.
Washington, January 30, 1914.
Sir: The Department has received your despatch No. 1566 of January 12, 1914,103 enclosing a copy of a communication from Mr. C. L. Neal, Director of Los Institutes Central y Anglo-Mexicano, at Toluca, Mexico, saying that notices have been put up on the street corners at Morelia notifying every one who pays taxes on property there immediately to make a voluntary loan to the Government in proportion to the taxes paid. Mr. Neal also says that the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, located at Richmond, Virginia, owns a house there and, as their Treasurer in Mexico, he pays the taxes on the property, and asks whether he will have to pay the forced loan.
You are instructed to make a formal protest against the imposition of this forced loan upon American citizens, but to inform the interested Americans that if, in spite of this protest, the authorities continue in their effort to collect this loan from Americans, they should pay the loan under protest making such protest a matter of record if possible, and take receipts for the payments.
I am [etc.]
- Not printed.↩