File No. 812.00/15284.
Consul Schmutz to the Secretary of State.
Aguascalientes, June 15, 1915.
Sir: I have the honor to report that notwithstanding the boasted protection given to foreigners and foreign property which General Villa speaks of in his reply to President Wilson’s note, he continues to issue confiscatory decrees against the merchants of this town, who naturally do not want to sell their merchandise for the depreciated Villa currency except at an apparently exorbitant price when computed in said money. For instance an article that costs the merchants, say, one dollar in the United States and which, when the Mexican peso was worth 0.50 U. S. Cy., he would sell for four pesos, he is now compelled to sell 120 to 140 pesos in order not to lose on it; and the authorities arrest him and he is insulted and called a thief and warned that his stock will be confiscated unless he sells at “reasonable prices,” by which they mean a loss of 75 to 80 per cent on cost of goods.
Due to the fact that the Villa money of small denomination is accepted as currency in Guadalajara and the surrounding territory now controlled by Obregon, everyone in this city is hoarding the 25-centavo, 50-centavo and peso bills, and there is a dearth of small change, which makes it difficult and in some instances impossible for the merchant to make the necessary change.
Hilario Berlie, a French citizen, was arrested and spent the night under arrest for no other reason than that he could not change a Villa bill tendered in payment in his store for some small purchase. The day prior I had sent to the local post office to purchase two pesos of stamps but the postmaster refused to sell them unless I sent the exact amount of my purchase, as there was no change in the post office. On the same day I had a similar experience for lack of change at the telegraph office. Neither the postmaster nor telegraph operator was arrested, but for the same experience an honorable foreign merchant is arrested and abused and looked upon with suspicion.
Nicolás Allende, an Ottoman subject, had his stock confiscated because he failed to submit an inventory of his goods to the authorities.
Federico Straub, on a similar frivolous charge, was arrested for buying Mexican silver pesos. Yet all telegrams sent out of Mexico must be paid in Mexican silver or gold and it is a crime to buy silver or gold money. This is one of the government’s decrees I am compelled to break every time I send a telegram to Washington.
A great quantity of freight and merchandise had accumulated in the local freight depot due to the interruption of railway traffic. Two days ago the military chiefs, going through the warehouses, noticed these goods and had them all loaded on freight cars and made the freight employees surrender the corresponding bills of lading. I understand that the approximate value of this freight was about $400 U. S. Cy.
General Villa has also issued an order compelling the surrender of all work and dairy animals on the various haciendas and farms. These animals are to be shipped up north as additional booty and loot and the farmers are to remain without an ox, mule or cow to [Page 710] assist them in tilling the soil or obtaining a means of scarce sustenance.
It is positively disgusting to read the expression of high moral ideals in General Villa’s reply to President Wilson’s note and to see the contemptible and hypocritical defrauding of the ignorant peon for his personal gain and greed and the tyrannical brutal oppression with which he treats all who are not willing to bow down servilely and obey his infamous and senseless decrees.
The United States will never be able to assist this unhappy country and its cruelly oppressed people until it puts aside all ideas of cooperation with such bandits as the man who calls himself the First Chief of the Conventionist Party of Mexico.
I have [etc.]