File No. 812.00/23452d.
The Secretary of State to the Special Commissioners.
Washington, May 24, 1914.
The President directs me to say:
“It is clear to us that the representatives from Mexico are keenly aware that General Huerta no longer has the force or standing to insist on anything; and they of course cannot expect us to supply him with the force or influence he lacks. We get the impression that the Mexican representatives are chiefly anxious that we should by some means intervene to prevent the complete success of the revolution [Page 506] now in progress. We on our part cannot afford in right or conscience to do that and can act only in the spirit and for the purposes expressed in the propositions I shall presently state. We are encouraged by your dispatches to believe that the Mediators realize the situation in all its elements as fully as we do, as shown by their willingness that a representative of the Constitutionalist cause should exercise the powers of the provisional presidency and that a Constitutionalist should be chosen president at the elections which would follow. We appreciate this very much and see in it a great hope for a logical and complete settlement.
“Please present to the Mediators as you have occasion and in the way you think best the following considerations and conclusions, by which we feel that we must be guided.
- First. We can deal only with the facts in Mexico as they now stand. Concerning them it is too late to exercise any choice or effect any change.
- Second. We must deal with those facts if possible and get our solution out of them without the use of the armed forces of the United States.
- Third. The elimination of Huerta by one process or another, is now clearly inevitable, the only question remaining being the method, the occasion and the circumstances of his elimination.
- Fourth. The object of our conferences now is to find a method by which the inevitable can be accomplished without further bloodshed. By the inevitable we mean not only the elimination of Huerta but the completion of the revolution by the transfer of political power from Huerta to those who represent the interests and aspirations of the people whose forces are now in the ascendency.
- Fifth. To attempt to put a stop to the present processes of revolution before we have a peaceful method to suggest would be impracticable and futile because based upon no definite programme. It would, moreover, in all probability very soon force active intervention upon us and delay and confuse all we have hoped for.
- Sixth. We can at the present stage of things do little more than set the stage for a settlement and demand guaranties that a settlement will be effected. Before we can insist on the acceptance of anything by the Constitutionalists, even the cessation of arms, we must know what it is that we are to insist that they accept. The whole settlement obviously depends, if there is to be no force used by the United States, on the acceptance of the programme by the Carrancistas. The use of force by the United States against them could be justified only by their rejection of terms of such a character that refusal on their part to accept them would be clearly indefensible, terms which meant the full attainment of the just objects of the revolution without further bloodshed.
- Seventh. We are inclined to believe that it would be unwise to attempt to work out the details of the reforms involved anywhere but at Mexico City and through the proposed provisional government.
“We suggest that a prompt agreement upon a clear programme which the Constitutionalists can accept is the best and only way to stop the process of arms.”