File No. 763.72119/468
The Secretary of State to the Mexican Consul General at San Francisco in Charge of Mexican Interests ( De Negri )
Sir: I have to request that you will have the kindness to transmit to the President-elect of the Mexican Republic the following reply to the communication of February 11, 1917, addressed by him to you with instructions to deliver it to the Government of the United States.
In his note of February 11, 1917,1 the President-elect proposes to all the neutral governments that the
groups of contending powers [in the present European conflict] be invited, in common accord and on the basis of absolutely perfect equality on either side, to bring this war to an end either by their own effort or by availing themselves of the good offices or friendly mediation of all the countries which would jointly extend that invitation. If within a reasonable time peace could not be restored by these means, the neutral countries would then take the necessary measures to reduce the conflagration to its narrowest limit, by refusing any kind of implements to the belligerents and suspending commercial relations with the warring nations until the said conflagration shall have been smothered.
The Government of the United States has given careful and sympathetic consideration to the proposals of the de facto Government, not only because they come from a neighboring republic in whose welfare and friendship the United States has a peculiar and permanent interest, but because these proposals have for their end the object which the President had hoped to attain from his discussion a few months ago of the aims of the belligerents and their purposes in the war. Of the futile results of the President’s efforts at that time General Carranza is no doubt aware. Instead of the conflict being resolved into a discussion of terms of peace, the struggle, both on land and on sea, has been renewed with intensified vigor and bitterness. To such an extent has one group of belligerents carried warfare on the high seas involving the destruction of American ships and the lives of American citizens, in contravention of the pledges heretofore solemnly given the Government of the United States, that it was deemed necessary within the past few weeks to sever relations with one of the governments of the allied Central powers. To render the situation still more acute, the Government of the United States has unearthed a plot laid by the Government dominating the Central powers to embroil not only the Government and people of Mexico, but also the Government and people of Japan in war with the United States. At the time this plot was conceived, the United States was at peace with the Government and people of the [Page 68] German Empire, and German officials and German subjects were not only enjoying but abusing the liberties and privileges freely accorded to them on American soil and under American protection.
In these circumstances, all of which were existent when the note under acknowledgment was received, the Government of the United States finds itself, greatly to its regret and contrary to its desires, in a position which precludes it from participating at the present time in the proposal of General Carranza that the neutral governments jointly extend an invitation to the belligerent countries to bring the war to an end either by their own effort or by availing themselves of the good offices or friendly mediation of neutral countries.
At the present stage of the European struggle, the superiority of the Entente powers on the seas has prevented supplies from reaching the Central powers from the Western Hemisphere. To such a degree has this restriction of maritime commerce extended that all routes of trade between the Americas and the continent of Europe are either entirely cut off or seriously interrupted. This condition is not new. In 1915 the Central Governments complained of their inability to obtain arms and ammunition from the United States while these supplies were being shipped freely to the ports of their enemies. The discussion of the subject culminated in the American note of August 12, 1915 (a copy of which is enclosed),1 to the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government, upholding the contention of the United States that its inability to ship munitions of war to the Central powers was not of its own desire or making, but was due wholly to the naval superiority of the Entente powers. Believing that this position of the United States is based upon sound principles of international law and is consonant with the established practice of nations, the President directs me to say that he can not bring himself to consider such a modification of these principles or of this practice as compliance with General Carranza’s proposal to suspend commercial relations with the warring nations would entail.
The President regrets, therefore, that, however desirous he may be of cooperating with General Carranza in finding a solution of the world problem that is intruding itself upon all countries, he is, for the reasons set forth, unable at the present time to direct his energies toward the accomplishment of the lofty purposes of the President-elect in the way suggested by his proposals. The President would not be understood, however, as desiring to impede the progress of a movement leading to the resumption of peaceful relations between all of the belligerents, and would not, therefore, wish the Mexican Government to feel that his inability to act in the present stage of affairs should in any way militate against the attainment of the high ideals of General Carranza by the cooperation of other neutral governments in the use of their good offices and friendly mediation to bring about the end of the terrible war which is being waged between the great powers of Europe.
I am [etc.]