AMERICA IN THE GREAT WAR-AND AFTER 1916-1925

PRESIDENT WILSON ASKING CONGRESS TO DECLARE WAR ON GERMANY.

THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN JOINT SESSION, APRIL 2, 1917

AMERICA

Great Crises In Our History Told by Its Makers A LIBRARY OF ORIGINAL SOURCES Volume XII America in the Great War- And After 1916-1925 ISSUED BY

AMERICANIZATION DEPARTMENT VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS OF THE

UNITED STATES CHICAGO, U. S. A.

WAR WITH MEXICO IS THREATENED

By Robert Lansing, Secretary of State.

THIS review of the outrages perpetrated on American citizens by Mexican bandits and soldiery, secretly instigated by the German Government, is Secretary Lansing's official reply, dated June 20, 1916, to a protest from the de facto Government of Mexico against the presence of American troops in Mexico.

The bandit leader was Pancho Villa. His followers had invaded New Mexico, plundering and slaying civilians before U. S. troops arrived.

General Funston was authorized to send a strong American force into Mexico to "get Villa alive or dead," and disperse his murderous band. A force of over 4,000 men, under General Pershing, entered Mexico in March, 1916, and remained there until 1917. Several clashes had occurred with Mexican troops, with casualties on both sides, when President Wilson called for an army of militia to safeguard the Mexican border. War was averted, but our ran, militia got good training for the sterner warfare that awaited them in Europe.

SIR: I have read your communication, which was delivered to me on May 22, 1916, under instructions of the Chief Executive of the de facto Government of Mexico, on the subject of the presence of American troops in Mexican territory, and I would be wanting in candor if I did not, before making answer to the allegations of fact and the conclusions reached by your Government, express the surprise and regret which have been caused this Government by the discourteous tone and temper of this last communication of the de facto Government of Mexico.

The Government of the United States has viewed with deep concern and increasing disappointment the progress of the revolution in Mexico. Continuous bloodshed and disorders have marked its progress. For three years the Mexican Republic has been torn with civil strife; the lives of the Americans and other aliens have been sacrificed; vast properties developed by American capital and enterprise have been destroyed or rendered non-productive; bandits have been permitted to roam at will through the territory contiguous to the United States and to seize, without punishment or without effective attempt at punishment, the property of Americans, while the lives of citizens of the United States, who ventured to remain in Mexican territory or to return there to protect their interests, have been taken, in some cases barbarously taken, and the murderers have neither been apprehended nor brought to justice. It would be difficult to find in the annals of the history of Mexico conditions more deplorable than those which have existed there during these recent years of civil war.

It would be tedious to recount instance after instance, outrage after outrage, atrocity after atrocity, to illustrate the true nature and extent of the widespread conditions of lawlessness and violence which have prevailed. During the past nine months in particular, the frontier of the United States along the lower Rio Grande has been thrown into a state of constant apprehension and turmoil because of frequent and sudden incursions into American territory and depredations and murders on American soil by Mexican bandits, who have taken the lives and destroyed the property of American citizens, sometimes carrying American citizens across the international boundary with the booty seized.

American garrisons have been attacked at night, American soldiers killed, and their equipment and horses stolen. American ranches have been raided, property stolen and American trains wrecked and plundered. The attacks on Brownsville, Red House Ferry, Progreso Post Office and Las Pelades, all occurring during September last, are typical. In these attacks on American territory, Carranzita adherents and even Carranzita soldiers took part in the looting, burning and killing. Not only were these murders characterized by ruthless brutality, but uncivilized acts of mutilation were perpetrated. Representations were made to General Carranza, and he was emphatically requested to stop these reprehensible acts in a section which he has long claimed to be under the complete domination of his authority.

Notwithstanding these representations and the promise of General Nafarete to prevent attacks along the international boundary, in the following month of October a passenger train was wrecked by bandits and several persons were killed seven miles north of Brownsville, and an attack was made upon United States troops at the same place several days later. Since these attacks, leaders of the bandits well known both to Mexican civil and military authorities, as well as to American officers, have been enjoying with impunity the liberty of the towns of Northern Mexico. So far has the indifference of the de facto Government to these atrocities gone that some of these leaders, as I am told, have received not only the protection of that Government, but encouragement and aid as well.

Depredations upon American persons and property within Mexican jurisdiction have been still more numerous. This Government has repeatedly requested in the strongest terms that the de facto Government safeguard the lives and homes of American citizens and furnish the protection which international obligation imposes, to American interests in the northern States of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Chihuahua and Sonora, and also in the States to the south.