File No. 322.112J72/9.
Consul General Goding to the Secretary of State.
Guayaquil, March 7, 1914.
Sir: As my telegram was necessarily brief, herein is a more extended report on Mr. Robert B. Jones’ case. On the afternoon of December 11, 1913, Mr. Jones called at the home of a Chinaman to collect the rent, as agent of the place, which was many months overdue, remaining on the outside of the front door during a rather heated conversation with a half-caste son of the renter. Mr. Jones then walked to the corner of the block where he was talking with two [Page 283] men, when they as well as many others heard the report of a revolver from within the house occupied by the Chinese. At the moment the shot was heard, and from the time of the departure of Mr. Jones, the front door of the said house was closed and locked; for when the neighbors and a policeman tried to enter they could not and were compelled to do so through a side entrance from a patio.
One neighbor, a woman residing in the adjoining house, heard persons crying; and, after failing to gain an entrance through the locked front door (at the same time observing Mr. Jones talking to two men at the corner), she passed along a side passage through a door connecting with the patio, and into a bedroom where the half-caste was lying with his head in his mother’s lap, a revolver being on a stand near by. A sister of the injured man (she is 10 years old), replying to a question said “my brother has shot himself.” When the next caller entered the room a few moments afterward, the revolver was not in sight, and the mother stated that Mr. Jones had shot her son, which she and the young wife of the man continue to affirm, adding that the young daughter told them, although they personally saw nothing.
On December 13, 1913, Mr. Jones was arrested and taken to jail, although several witnesses of good social standing swear they saw Mr. Jones at the corner when the report of the shot was heard, one gentleman living across the street, who was just leaving his house, swears he saw the deceased looking out from the window toward where Mr. Jones was standing talking to two men, and a few moments afterward heard the report of the shot within the house occupied by the deceased.
Witness after witness swore to similar facts, yet Mr. Jones’ arrest and imprisonment followed.
I have kept the American Minister in Quito fully informed by telegraph and by letter.
That you may understand the case, I enclose copies of many of the sworn affidavits of witnesses used in the proceedings.8
Since writing the above I have learned of a movement among the Guayaquil merchants who, to the number of about two hundred, are signing an indignant protest against the arrest and imprisonment of Mr. Jones.
I have [etc.]
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