File No. 312.115/310a
The Secretary of State to Ambassador Fletcher
Washington, June 14, 1917, 5 p.m.
252. You are instructed to bring at once to the attention of General Carranza the following:
The treatment to which the American owned mining and smelting properties in the State of Sonora are being subjected by the local authorities, as observed by this Government in regard to the relation between employers and employees, appears to be deliberately designed to compel the complete suspension of all operations on these properties.
The sincere sympathy of the Government of the United States with every, effort to improve labor conditions and safeguard the rights and interests of labor has been demonstrated too often to be open to question. Its motives cannot be misunderstood, therefore, when it points out that a distinction must be drawn between the just regulation of the relation between employer and employee and the entire elimination of the employer by the employee in the management and control of the employers’ property, which is the situation bound to be produced by the treatment above mentioned.
Obviously this situation is prejudicial to the interests of the employees as well as to the State and also is destructive of the rights of the property owners. The inevitable result therefore, will be to stop the operation of these properties, throw the employees out of employment and shut off the governmental revenues derived from internal and export taxes upon the properties and their products.
In these circumstances it is difficult to escape the conclusion that there is an ulterior and unfriendly purpose behind the adoption by the local authorities of this destructive policy toward American owned properties, which is clearly so detrimental to American interests as well. The Government of the United States therefore feels justified in calling this situation to the attention of the de facto Government in the belief that it will recognize the obligation and the advantage of insisting upon the adoption by local authorities of a more enlightened and equitable policy toward these properties in the interests of all concerned.