File No. 812.00/21584
The Secretary of State to the Mexican Ambassador
Washington, December 29, 1917.
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency’s note of December 22, 1917, in which you quote a telegram received by you from the President of Mexico, wherein the latter [Page 946] states that Juan Andrew Almazan, Romulo Cuellar and Lorenzo Lopez entered Mexico at Tahualchal, near Matamoros, where they gathered a band of three hundred and fifty men, but were completely routed at Agualeguas, on December 6, 1917; that another band tried to cross into Mexico between Ciudad Camargo and Mier; that opposite San Ignacio and Guerrero, Antonio J. Villarreal is organizing a band for the purpose of crossing into the State of Tamaulipas; and that, before the capture of Ojinaga by Villa, another band of reactionaries, headed by Hipolito Villa, crossed the boundary line into the State of Chihuahua.
You request that orders be issued by the Government of the United States for the guarding of the frontier, in order to prevent the organization of such evildoers, and their crossing into Mexico.
In reply I have the honor to inform your excellency that I have sent a copy of your note to the Secretary of War, for such action by him as the facts of the case may call for.
Accept [etc.]