File No. 812.00/20165
Vice Consul Robertson to the Secretary of State
Washington, June 9, 1916.
Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report on the Plan of San Diego and other conditions in the Monterey, Mexico, section.
plan of san diego
On or about January 8, 1915, several Mexicans of the Huerta or Federal faction, who were military prisoners charged with political offenses, while confined at Monterey, signed what they called the Plan of San Diego. This plan was a scheme for the promulgation of a revolution in the States of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and California with the object of establishing an independent republic and was to have been participated in by the Mexicans, Negroes and Indians. After the success of the movement, the new republic was to either remain independent or become a part of Mexico. After securing the establishment of this republic, the originators and followers of the movement were to assist the negroes to take six more of the States belonging to the American Union and from these form a negro republic. Among the leaders of this movement were Basilio Ramos Jr., a native of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and Augustin Garza. Ramos was the secretary of the organization and Garza was to have been the commander in chief of the revolutionary army. This movement was just started when Basilio Ramos Jr. was arrested at McAllen, Texas, by the Immigration authorities, about the middle of January 1915 and taken to Brownsville, Texas, where at an examining trial before the U. S. Commissioner he was bound over to await the action of the Federal grand jury. At the May 1915 term of the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas at Brownsville, Ramos was indicted but when the case was called for trial, the court dismissed the case and discharged the defendant. Among other papers found on Ramos at the time of his apprehension at McAllen, Texas, was a letter from Augustin Garza in which allusion was made to General Nafarrate, the then Carranza commander at Tampico. At the time of Ramos’ apprehension and indictment he was an exile from Mexico but some months later amnesty was granted him and he was banqueted and feted by Carranza officials at Nuevo Laredo, Monterey and Tampico and proclaimed a great hero. For months he has been actively engaged in furthering this Plan of San Diego.
In the summer of 1915, another movement along the lines of the Plan of San Diego was started by Luis de la Rosa and Aniceto Pizano, former residents of Cameron County, Texas, where the former had been a deputy sheriff at Rio Hondo, a farming community near San Benito, and the latter related to a number of the leading Mexican residents of southwest Texas. Newspapers printed at Matamoros, Monterey, Tampico and other places in northern Mexico, on the same day, all printed the manifesto of this new movement and the press of northern Mexico continued thereafter for days to give glowing accounts of the victories won by the Texas revolutionists, [Page 571] the capture of towns, looting of banks, killing of American soldiers, hasty retreat of those of the inhabitants of Texas who had not been killed, the abandonment of Washington by President Wilson and the American Senate, et cetera. The circulation of these publications was held up by Federal authorities at Laredo. Anyone at all familiar with the way newspapers are published in Mexico is aware of the fact that no paper can keep on day after day printing articles of the nature of these articles without the consent and approval of the authorities, hence the deduction that the publication met with the approval of the Carranza authorities. Another fact also too well known for contravention is that no one carries arms in Mexico without the knowledge and consent of the authorities and therefore it is generally believed in Mexico and in Texas that de la Rosa and his men were armed, either by or with the consent of General Nafarrate who at that time was in command of the Carranza forces at Matamoros and was a close personal friend of both Luis de la Rosa and Pizano. The hat bands worn by these raiders, I have reason to believe were printed in a shop in Monterey, Mexico, operated by a German. In one of the raids made into Texas, a son of Pizano was so badly wounded that it became necessary to amputate one of his legs. At that time, it was a well known fact that Pizano was living in a two story house on the main plaza in Matamoros. Shortly before the Norias, Texas, raid, a Mexican endeavored to make arrangements with Dr. Look, a Canadian physician, residing at Montemorelos, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, to have the Doctor make a trip to some unnamed point about a hundred miles from Montemorelos and near the Texas border. About six weeks ago, other Mexicans called on Dr. Look and were very anxious to be sure that he was a British subject and not an American citizen. After the Doctor had satisfied them of his allegiance to the British crown, these men made him a proposition along the same lines as those of his earlier visitor. The Doctor became suspicious of this second visit and came to Monterey to see me, when at dinner at one of the hotels he told me of these two experiences and informed me that his opinion was that his services were wanted for the purpose of establishing a base hospital preparatory to another raid into Texas. Luis de la Rosa has made several trips during the past few months into the Montemorelos section and at Tula, a place off of the railroad, he is reported to have enlisted a number of recruits.
The followers of the original Plan of San Diego and Luis de la Rosa and his adherents have formed a revised Plan of San Diego of which de la Rosa is the president and Ramos is secretary. They have organized a number of juntas or lodges in Texas and Mexico. To enlist the negroes in this movement, these people sent a negro doctor, a resident of Victoria, Tamaulipas, who is a fugutive from justice in the States, through Texas and Oklahoma, but my information is that this man met with no success among his colored brethren. Among the numerous officers of the Carranza Army who are in accord and working for the furtherance of the Plan of San Diego is Colonel Maurilio Rodriguez of the Osuna Brigade. This man is the party with whom I am informed Mr. Pablo Burchard, the German Consul at Monterey has been in conference at Monterey, one of these conferences having been held at the Hotel Aurora which is just cross the street from the capitol of Nuevo Leon. Among other reports [Page 572] concerning the activities of Colonel Rodriguez are two which are very significant, one is that soon after the recognition of the de facto Government, the First Chief sent for Rodriguez, gave him $50,000.00 and told him that he wanted him to cease his activities, as the object of the raids had been accomplished when the United States recognized his Government. Later, it is reported, Rodriguez was apprehended in Mexico City at the request either of the United States or the State of Texas but was very promptly released on the demand of General Pablo Gonzalez, whose sympathy and cooperation with de la Rosa, Rodriguez and others is said to have induced him to recently supply them with 10,000 rifles and an ample supply of ammunition, the deliveries of these having been made at both Monterey and Tampico. When General Obregon passed through Saltillo en route for the recent conference at the border with Generals Scott and Funston he is alleged to have had a conference with de la Rosa who came up from Tampico for this conference. According to information obtained from parties who say they have seen some of the commissions issued by the promoters of the Plan of San Diego, these commissions are signed by a German in addition to the signatures of de la Rosa and other officials.
In February 1916, a new and enlarged manifesto was issued by de la Rosa, Ramos and others. A copy of this was loaned me and while the names of the parties signing it were fictitious, my informant told me that the officers of this new organization were de la Rosa, Pizano, Ramos, Garza, Rodriguez, Joaquin Sada and others whose names I do not now recall.
Shortly after a conference at Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, between Governor James E. Ferguson of Texas and Don Venustiano Carranza, Aniceto Pizano was apprehended and detained at Matamoros but notwithstanding the promise made to Governor Ferguson by the First Chief, Pizano was never delivered to the Texas authorities.
From a Mexican citizen, whose father was an American, I learned some weeks since that a Colonel Briseno of the Carranza Army had been selected as the man to take charge of activities for de la Rosa in Zapata County, Texas. I conveyed this information in a personal letter to one of my Army friends at Laredo, Texas, and when I was in Laredo recently was told that this man Briseno was at Guerrero, Tamps, with 200 men. He made overtures to return to Texas and said he was no longer in the Carranza Army but my information is that he was told to stay where he was as the Texas authorities preferred that he remain in Mexico.
I have [etc.]