File No. 812.00/11443d.
The Secretary of State to Chargé O’Shaughnessy.
Washington , November 24, 1913 .
558. The following has been reported to the Embassies except Turkey and Mexico and to the European Legations. Have sent copy to Lind.
our purposes in mexico.
The purpose of the United States is solely and singly to secure peace and order in Central America by seeing to it that the processes of self government there are not interrupted or set aside.
Usurpations like that of General Huerta menace the peace and development of America as nothing else could. They not only render the development of ordered self government impossible; they also tend to set law entirely aside, to put the lives and fortunes of citizens and foreigners alike in constant jeopardy, to invalidate contracts and concessions in any way the usurper may devise for his own profit and to impair both the national credit and all the foundations of business, domestic or foreign.
It is the purpose of the United States therefore to discredit and defeat such usurpations whenever they occur. The present policy of the Government of the United States is to isolate General Huerta entirely; to cut him off from foreign sympathy and aid and from domestic credit, whether moral or material, and to force him out.
[Page 444]It hopes and believes that isolation will accomplish this end and shall await the results without irritation or impatience. If General Huerta does not retire by force of circumstances it will become the duty of the United States to use less peaceful means to put him out. It will give other Governments notice in advance of each affirmative or aggressive step it has in contemplation should it unhappily become necessary to move actively against the usurper; but no such step seems immediately necessary.
Its fixed resolve is that no such interruptions of civil order shall be tolerated in so far as it is concerned. Each conspicuous instance in which usurpations of this kind are prevented will render their recurrence less and in the end a state of affairs will be secured in Mexico and elsewhere upon this continent which will assure the peace of America and the untrammeled development of its economic and social relations with the rest of the world.
Beyond this fixed purpose the Government of the United States will not go. It will not permit itself to seek any special or exclusive advantages in Mexico or elsewhere for its own citizens but will seek, here as elsewhere, to show itself the consistent champion of the open door. In the meantime it is making every effort that the circumstances permit to safeguard foreign lives and property in Mexico and is making the lives and fortunes of the subjects of other Governments as much its concern as the lives and fortunes of its own citizens.
You will communicate to the foreign office.