812.00Sonora/514: Telegram
The Ambassador in Mexico (Morrow) to the Secretary of State
[Received 7:07 p.m.]
187. Reference your number 233, April 4, 5 p.m. Before this message arrived I had seen a report in the local morning paper that an American citizen supposedly an aviator had been captured by the Federals in the recent fighting around Jimenez and I directed Colonel MacNab to see, informally, the President and explain that although it had been announced by the State Department that American citizens voluntarily fighting in the ranks of the rebels would lose certain rights to protection from the American Government, it was most important that any American citizens so fighting and captured be treated with every consideration. It was explained to the President by Colonel MacNab that if they were harshly treated in any way that it would create a most unfavorable impression in the United States; that on the contrary if they were treated with consideration the opposite might be true.
The President told Colonel MacNab that they had no knowledge of any American citizens having been captured with the rebels but he asked Colonel MacNab to assure me that any prisoners so captured would be treated with all consideration and that he would communicate immediately with General Calles at the front upon this matter.
[Page 386]Your 233 has now been decoded and will be read by me to the President this afternoon and in addition thereto the subject matter will be communicated in the usual way to the Minister of Foreign Relations.