File No. 812.00/11532.
Chargé O’Shaughnessy to the Secretary of State.
Mexico City, April 16, 1914, 11 p.m.
858. With reference to the Department’s number 752, April 16, 1 p.m. I have just returned (10:30 p.m.) from long interview with the Minister for Foreign Affairs whom I took to see General Huerta but I did not see him myself. I fear that my telegram number 856, [Page 466] April 15, 9 p.m., may have appeared ambiguous. The phrase “He said that if the American Government would not agree to this the question could go to The Hague” refers to the simultaneous saluting of the two flags. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, who believes that an arrangement should be made almost at all costs, has been able to formally make the following proposition at the instance of General Huerta: That the American flag shall be hoisted on the flagstaff at the saluting-station at Tampico and saluted by twenty-one Mexican guns; and that, simultaneously with the hoisting of the American flag on the said flag-staff, the American war vessel that is to salute the Mexican flag shall hoist the Mexican flag and, simultaneously with the salute given by the Mexican battery to the American flag, salute the Mexican flag. In other words, that there shall be an absolute coincidence in time in the two actions. I fear that this is the best arrangement that can be made and I have been able to arrive at this proposition only after much labor, as General Huerta insists that he is in the right and that the American marines had no right to be where they were as there was fighting going on. I have the honor to request that if you agree to this that I be informed with all possible haste as I desire to begin as early as possible tomorrow to get the terms thereof carried out with as much celerity as possible in order that the salutes may be given Saturday morning, April 18. I had not been put in possession of a copy of the full text of Admiral Mayo’s demand to General Zaragoza, which has embarrassed me somewhat, until I was given a copy of it at the Foreign Office today.