File No. 812.00/6076.
[Untitled]
Mexico, February 10, 1913—4 p.m.
Department’s February 10, 11 a.m. There are some 5,000 Americans and perhaps 25,000 foreigners of all kinds in this city absolutely without protection either against invading Zapatistas or against the rising of a mob. I can not indicate how the Government of the United States could extend protection to Americans and foreigners in Mexico City, because of its interior position and other difficulties and because of the uncertainty of a situation which may radically change at any moment for the worse or for the better. There is, however, no doubt in my mind as to the immediate necessity, in anticipation of sympathetic outbreaks in Mexican ports, that formidable warships supplied with marines should be dispatched to points on the Atlantic and the Pacific and that visible activity and alertness should be displayed on the boundary.