File No. 312.41/139.
Vice Consul Simpich to the Secretary of State.
Nogales, February 26, 1914.
Arrived from Cananea tonight and at nine p.m. called on Señor Ysidro Fabela, Acting Secretary Foreign Relations for Carranza, and explained to him substance of Department’s telegram regarding case of Benton. Fabela immediately went to Carranza’s room telling me to wait at the Consulate; that he would arrange an interview. I waited two hours. At eleven o’clock Fabela came to Consulate and said that Carranza had agreed to receive me some time to-morrow, February 27; but that Carranza wished to point out that representation regarding the Benton case should not be made through an American Consul but through some diplomatic representative of Great Britain; that Carranza also is dissatisfied that communications concerning the Benton case are being addressed to General Villa instead of to him as he and not Villa is in supreme command of the Constitutionalists. Fabela then left promising to notify me to-morrow at what hour I might see General Carranza.