File No. 812.00/11618.
Special Agent Carothers to the Secretary of State.
Department’s April 21, 9.50 p.m.
Following is translation of text of reply from Carranza:
In answer to the message of Secretary of State Bryan, which was communicated to me through you, please transmit to Mr. Bryan the following note addressed to President Wilson:
“Pending the action of the American Senate on Your Excellency’s message directed to that body, caused by the lamentable incident which occurred between the crew of a whaleboat of the cruiser Dolphin and the soldiers of the usurper Huerta, certain acts of hostility have been executed by the naval forces under the command of Admiral Fletcher at the port of Vera Cruz. In view of this violation of the national sovereignty, which the Constitutionalist Government did not expect from a Government which had reiterated its desire to maintain peace with the Mexican people, I comply with a duty of high patriotism in directing this note to you with a view of exhausting all honorable means before two friendly powers sever the pacific relations that still unite them.
“The Mexican nation—the real people of Mexico—have not recognized as their executive a man who has sought to blemish the national integrity, drowning in blood its free institutions. Consequently the acts of the usurper Huerta and his accomplices do not signify legitimate acts of sovereignty, they do not constitute real public functions of domestic and foreign relations, and much less do they represent the sentiments of the Mexican nation, which are of confraternity towards the American people. The lack of representative character in General Victoriano Huerta as concerns the relations of Mexico with the United States as well as with Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Cuba has been clearly established by the justifiable attitude of these nations, who have refused to recognize the usurper, thus lending a valuable moral support to the noble cause that I represent.
“The usurped title of ‘President of the Republic’ cannot invest General Huerta with the right to receive a demand for reparation on the part of the Government of the United States, nor the right to grant a satisfaction if this is due.
“Victoriano Huerta is a culprit amenable to the jurisdiction of the Constitutionalist Government, today the only one, In the abnormal circumstances of our nation, which represents the national sovereignty in accord with Article 128 of the Political Constitution of Mexico. The illegal acts committed by the [Page 484] usurper and his partisans, and those which they may yet perpetrate, be they of an international character such as those that recently occurred at the port of Tampico, or of a domestic character, will be tried and punished with inflexibility and promptness by the tribunals of the Constitutionalist Government.
“The individual acts of Victoriano Huerta will never be sufficient to involve the Mexican nation in a disastrous war with the United States, because there is no solidarity whatever between the so-called Government of Victoriano Huerta and the Mexican nation, for the fundamental reason that he is not the legitimate organ of our national sovereignty.
“But the invasion of our territory and the stay of your forces in the port of Vera Cruz, violating the rights that constitute our existence as a free and independent sovereign entity, may indeed drag us into an unequal war, with dignity but which until today we have desired to avoid.
“In the face of the real situation of Mexico—weak in comparison with the formidable power of the American nation and weaker than ever after three years of bloody strife—and considering the acts committed at Vera Cruz to be highly offensive to the dignity and independence of Mexico, contrary to your repeated declarations of not desiring to disturb the state of peace and friendship with the Mexican nation, and contrary also to the resolution of the American Senate, which has just declared that the United States does not assume any attitude inimical to the Mexican people and does not purpose to levy war against them; considering also that the hostile acts already committed exceed those required by equity to the end desired, which may be held to be satisfied; considering, furthermore, that it is not the usurper who should have the right to make reparation—I interpret the sentiment of the great majority of the Mexican people, so jealous of its rights and so respectful of the rights of foreigners, and invite you only to suspend the hostile acts already begun, to order your forces to evacuate all places that they hold in the port of Vera Cruz, and to present to the Constitutionalist Government, which I as Constitutional Governor of the Slate of Coahuila and First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army represent, the demand on the part of the United States in regard to acts recently committed at the port of Tampico, in the security that the demand will be considered in a spirit of elevated justice and conciliation.
V. Carranza,
The Constitutional Governor of the State of
Coahuila, and First Chief of the Constitutionalist
Army.”
Original by mail.