File No. 812.00/12723.
Vice Consul Silliman to the Secretary of State.
Saltillo, August 3, 1914.
The following is a translation of the text of a statement made public by General Antonio J. Villareal and General Luis Caballero in representation of Governor Carranza, issued this afternoon and giving the reasons why there could be no conference with the representatives who have come from the City of Mexico to Saltillo in representation of the Carbajal Government:
Upon the resignation by General Huerta of the so-called government in the City of Mexico and the taking over of the same by Lie. Francisco Carbajal, the First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army, Don V. Carranza, received various intimations relative to the reception of the peace delegation which Lie. Carbajal wished to send.
The First Chief manifested a willingness to receive the delegation, with the understanding that the subject matter to be treated would be the unconditional surrender of the so-called Carbajal government and the army that supported it, as this was considered the only patriotic and acceptable form of concluding the war.
Lic. Carbajal designed as his representatives General Lauro Villar and Lie. David Gutierrez Allende, with Lie. Salvador Urbina acting as Secretary.
The said commission started from Mexico City to this place before the First Chief had an opportunity of knowing what were the instructions or faculties given by Carbajal to his delegates for the discharge of the mission entrusted them. The First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army, Don V. Carranza, on his part designated the undersigned as his representatives to meet those of Carbajal, whom we awaited in this city of Saltillo.
On their arrival here we had a preliminary conference with the view of examining the credentials and instructions of Messrs. Villar and Allende in the said conference; Lic, Carbajal’s delegates made known to us that the only instruction they had was to submit to the representatives of the First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army the propositions which embodied the basis on which Carbajal would be disposed to deliver the situation in the south of Mexico to the Constitutionalist Army. Said propositions are as follows:
- First. The celebrating of an armistice ordering the Immediate suspension of hostilities as rapidly as possible by all chiefs of the contending parties.
- Second. The transfer of authority by the medium of the dissolution of the present congress and the reinstalling of the Congress dissolved by Huerta.
- Third. The reinstalled Congress to issue an amnesty for political offenders or offenses in connection therewith, in such a way that no one can be molested on account of political opinion or on account of military operations which have been carried on.
- Fourth. Recognition of military rank obtained in conformity with the regulations and laws relative thereto.
- Fifth. Admitted the reinstallation of the dissolved Congress, Lie. Carbajal would resign his office by tendering his resignation which would be accepted by the reinstated houses of Congress or through medium of a proclamation of the nation, the designation of the person who would receive the Presidency being made by the reinstated Congress in conformity with the system in vogue prior to the year 1898.
- Sixth. Arrangements relative to the financial question, especially with regard to foreign interests.
As the said six propositions are in absolute disagreement in our mind with the articles of the Plan of Guadalupe, and their acceptance would imply an unconstitutional, impracticable process in transfer of authority which would signify a recognition of acts executed by the usurping government, we could not take them into consideration. On the other hand the First Chief of the Constitutional Army had always manifested and in that sense he gave us our instruction with clearness, that the only basis on which he was disposed to hear propositions from the government of Huerta or any other that calls itself his successor, was that of unconditional surrender. We found ourselves, therefore, in a position where we could not enter into a discussion of the propositions formulated. Again, on the other hand, as the delegates of Lie. Carbajal say they have not authority to treat on the basis of unconditional surrender, the proposed conference could neither be instructed nor carried on.
Antonio B. Villarreal.
Luis Caballero.