File No. 812.00/14573.
The Secretary of State to
Special Agent Silliman.
[Telegram.]
Department of State,
Washington,
March 11, 1915—1 p.m.
Please deliver the following message from the President to General
Carranza.
The President to
General Carranza.
I thank you for your message of the 9th of March, for the assurance
it conveys and for your kind personal words. I beg that you will
understand that if our messages are occasionally couched in terms of
strong emphasis, it is only because they concern some matter which
touches the very safety of Mexico itself and the whole possible
course of her future history.
[Page 669]
We seek always to act as the friends of the Mexican people, and as
their friends it is our duty to speak very plainly about the grave
dangers which threaten her from without whenever anything happens
within her borders which is calculated to arouse the hostile
sentiment of the whole world.
Nothing will stir that sentiment more promptly or more hotly or
create greater dangers for Mexico than any, even temporary disregard
for the lives, the safety or the rights of the citizens of other
countries, resident within her territory, or any apparent contempt
for the rights and safety of those who represent religion; and no
attempt to justify or explain these things will in the least alter
the sentiment or lessen the dangers that will arise from them.
To warn you concerning such matters is an act of friendship, not of
hostility, and we cannot make the warning too earnest. To speak less
plainly or with less earnestness would be to conceal from you a
terrible risk which no lover of Mexico should wish to run.
