File No. 812.00/23451.
The Secretary of State to the Special Commissioners.
Washington, May 31, 1914.
This Government is seriously disturbed by the attitude of the Mediators with regard to admitting representatives of the Constitutionalists [Page 520] to the conference, and it wishes in particular most respectfully but most earnestly to protest against the apparent willingness of the Mediators to base their conclusion in this extremely important matter on newspaper articles or upon impressions derived from unauthoritative sources which they suspect to be inspired. Nothing could be so unsafe or so full of serious risk as that. Representation of the Constitutionalists in the conference is not only desirable, it seems to us all but essential to the success of the conference. The pacification of Mexico cannot be hoped for or secured unless the leaders of the revolution assent to the plan suggested by the Mediators. The mere fact that General Carranza has now sent an agent to Niagara Falls seeking admission to the conference, in spite of his earlier refusal to do so, seems to us to show very clearly that he did not at first realize the scope that was to be given to the discussion and to the plan to be proposed, and that it is just because that scope is so inclusive of everything he is interested in that he wishes admission. It is evidence of good faith, for if he participates he will be under the stronger compulsion before all the world to accept the results. Nothing that has come to our knowledge either directly or indirectly would justify the suspicions or the distrust which seems to have taken such deep root in the minds of the Mediators. If the representative of the Constitutionalists is not admitted to the conference we shall have to constitute ourselves judges of what would be just to them and reasonable to expect them to accept without any adequate means of forming the judgment. They might insist upon less, if consulted directly by the Mediators, than we would in the present circumstances think it fair to insist upon for them. We do not mean to say that the continued refusal of the Mediators to receive the representative of the Constitutionalists would necessarily render the conclusions of the conference impracticable and futile; but it would certainly deprive the Mediators of the approval and support of public opinion in this country, which they now enjoy in so gratifying a degree, and would darken the whole outcome with doubt and searching criticism. We would deeply deplore any conclusion which might even seem to throw the least doubt upon the impartiality of the Mediators by any circumstances which we could not heartily justify or successfully explain away.
Upon another matter: It is clear to this Government that its representatives would not be justified in signing minutes which described the present Mexican delegates as Representatives of the United Mexican States or of the Mexican Government, though we should be quite willing to have them spoken of as the Representatives of General Huerta or of the Government of General Huerta or of the Government at Mexico City, or by some equivalent description. We do not see how it would be consistent with the present attitude of the Governments of Brazil, Argentina and Chile towards the de facto government at Mexico City to go any further, inasmuch as their attitude is exactly the same as that of the Government of the United States, to our great gratification, a circumstance which happily made it possible for us to accept their gracious offer of mediation.