Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Address of the President to Congress December 5, 1916

File No. 812.00/17743

The Secretary of State to Mr. Arredondo

Department of State,
Washington, March 13, 1916.

My dear Mr. Arredondo: I enclose for your information and for that of the de facto Government of Mexico a statement which the President has authorized me to make public.

With warm regards [etc.]

Robert Lansing

[Inclosure]

[Untitled]

In order to remove any apprehension that may exist either in the United States or in Mexico, the President has authorized me to give in his name the public assurance that the military operations now in contemplation by this Government will be scrupulously confined to the object already announced, and that in no circumstances will they be suffered to trench in any degree upon the sovereignty of Mexico or develop into intervention of any kind in the internal affairs of our sister Republic. On the contrary, what is now being done is deliberately intended to preclude the possibility of intervention.