812.00/22581
The Mexican Ambassador (Bonillas) to the Acting Secretary of State
Memorandum
The Washington Post, in its issue of today, publishes the news herewith attached,39 in which it is stated that Felipe [Federico?] Cervantes, Chief of Staff to General Felipe Angeles, when he was with Francisco Villa in 1914, was arrested near Socorro, Texas, 35 miles southeast of El Paso, with 18 men who were attempting to cross to Mexico to join Angeles and Villa, charged with violating the neutrality laws by setting on foot a military expedition against a friendly country.
[Page 556]The Mexican Consulate General at El Paso, Texas, through its agents, had obtained similar information. A report dated March 12, inst., states that Federico Cervantes, residing at 405 E. Wyoming St.; Magdaleno Flores, of South Florence and Second Streets, room 2 or 3; Jesús Chacón and Alberto Porras, residing at the “Tienda Blanca”, on Charles Street, were preparing to leave for Mexico to join Felipe Angeles.
The departure would have taken place on Monday March 17. It is asserted that Cervantes bought in El Paso seven horses with their mounts, and arms with a sufficient number of rounds of ammunition. Julian Tellez and another man were to join them, offering that they would take their own horses and arms. The plan consisted in taking the arms on the night of Sunday March 16, probably on board Ford automobiles, driven by the chauffeurs Ezequiel Chacón and Eduardo Angeles’s son. Two or three days before Monday 17th they were to be met by a group of Villistas, who were supposed to reach the border on that date, and were going to take them to Angeles’s headquarters. The group was not going to be very numerous, and was to penetrate towards Socorro, on the Mexican side.
A copy of the above report was delivered to Captain Counts, Chief of the Military Intelligence in El Paso, Texas.
Information has been received to the effect that the automobile No. 3, of the “Stand Bueno Bueno”, of 304 South Stanton St. driven by Vicente Pérez, former chauffeur of Felipe Angeles in Mexico, is used by the conspirators in their trips across the international line. They also use the automobile of Eduardo Angeles’s son, located at the stand opposite another of the same class No. 1181, on Second St. It is stated that Lie. Manuel Garza Aldape, Minister of the Interior in Huerta’s Government, has arrived or will arrive very shortly to direct and organize the revolutionary movement in El Paso.
It is desired that the above mentioned men, as well as all others appearing complicated in this matter be punished as violators of the neutrality laws of the United States.
- Not printed.↩