File No. 322.112St8/4.
Consul General Goding to the Secretary of State .
Guayaquil , May 11, 1915 .
Sir: I have the honor to report that after receiving your telegram of May 1, 1915, relative to the arrest of Mr. Strong, an American citizen [Page 375] who is one of the superintendents of the Manta Railway, I cabled to Consular Agent Santos, through the Esmeraldas Agency, as the only available route, to investigate the matter and report by telegraph and, later, in full by letter.
Mr. Santos received my message while ill in bed with fever; and as Consular Agent Hedian was to pass through Manta en route to Guayaquil, on private business, Mr. Santos requested him to make the investigation.
Mr. Hedian reports to me that he called on Mr. Strong, whom I personally know, who stated he was on board a steamer in the Manta harbor, miles distant, when a train robbery was committed by the revolutionists out on the line. A few days later a local newspaper asserted that the editor was of the opinion that the railway officials were implicated in the robbery, whereupon the Governor of the Province of Manabí, in which Manta is located, ordered the arrest of a number of those officials, but soon afterward liberated all but Mr. Strong, an American, and Mr. Scott, the locomotive engineer of the train, the latter being a British subject.
Mr. Santos telegraphed the Governor asking that Mr. Strong be given his liberty but the Governor refused.
The state of affairs in Manabí is anything but peaceful, the province being practically in the control of small bands of robbers who cannot be termed revolutionists.
Mr. Strong informed Mr. Hedian he was wholly innocent, and knew absolutely nothing of the affair until after it had occurred. He has now been in jail for three weeks with no prospect of even an examination and is suffering in health. Some emphatic move should be made for his relief, otherwise Mr. Strong’s release is a question of months.
I have [etc.]