File No. 312.51/80.
The Acting Secretary of State to the French Chargé d’Affaires.
Washington, August 4, 1914.
My Dear Mr. Chargé d’Affaires: Referring again to the situation of the Christian Brothers at Zacatecas, I beg to inform you that the Department is now in receipt of information which it considers reliable to the effect that three Christian Brothers, Messrs. Adrian Astruc and Adolph Giles, French, and Father Vega, Mexican, were shot on June 24, 4 p.m., by order of General Chao; that 14 others were banished, and are now at Santa Fé, New Mexico, having been forced to make a payment of $5,000 ransom; that, by order of the same General, 22 priests at Zacatecas were threatened with death unless they paid a hundred thousand dollars; and that, upon payment, they were arrested and subsequently banished. These latter priests were sent to El Paso, Texas.
The Department is to-day telegraphing the above information to the American Ambassador at Paris and to the American Vice Consul at Saltillo, with instructions to the latter to impress again upon General Carranza the seriousness of these outrages, and to insist urgently that the parties guilty of these acts be adequately punished.
I am [etc.]