THE TEXAS BORDER AND THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION by ERIC CARROLL TANNER, B.A. A THESIS IN HISTORY Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MSTER OF ARTS Approved

August, 1970

PREFACE The Mexican Revolution v/as a tumultuous event--the first extensive Latin American social revolution.

Its im-

pact altered the future course of the Mexican nation.

Un-

fortunately for Mexico's northern neighbor, this impact was .not entirely limited by Mexican boundaries, for on more than one occasion the revolution spilled over into the United States. Texas, for reasons presented later, v/as the primary recipient of this spillage onto American soil.

This thesis

proposes to study the repercussions of the Mexican Revolution on the Texas border from 19IO-I915.

Three different

but interrelated topics will be examined in the course of the thesis.

First surveyed will be the arms smuggling

through Texas, noting the effects of this traffic on the revolution, the border, and American policy.

Next to be

discussed will be the actual overflow of the revolution into Texas, in the form of cross-border raids, sniping from Mexico, and the like.

Finally, a study of the impor-

tant newspapers in the affected regions of Texas will attempt to gauge public opinion there as it concerned the revolution and American responses to it.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACMOWLEDGEI/TENTS

, ,

PREFACE

ii iii

CHAPTER I, II. III,

INTRODUCTION

1

ARIvIS ACROSS TliE BORDER

9

FRICTION ALONG THE FRONTIER

35

PUBLIC AND EDITORIAL OPINION ON THE TEXAS BORDER, 1910-1913 BIBLIOGRAPHY

6l 92

IV,

APPENDIX

101

IV

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Before looking at the effects of the Mexican Revolution on the Texas border, it is necessary to briefly survey the events in Mexico during the period I91O-I915. Several small, sporadic uprisings in northern Mexico on the night of November I8, 19IO, proclaimed the beginning of what was to be that country's most trying era--the Mexican Revolution.

Five bloody years and perhaps a mil-

lion lives were consumed before its most violent phases ended.

Political and military leaders came and went like

the seasons; lives and careers flamed and ended in meteoric fashion.

The world, especially the United States, watched

as Mexicans attempted to settle their differences and redirect their sundered nation. The revolution was the result of increasing political and social discontent aimed at the government of Porfirio Diaz.

Dfaz had come to pov/er in I876 with three

goals in mind:

to unify and pacify Mexico, stabilize the 2 government, and make the nation prosperous. The passing years saw the old dictator lose sight of these lofty goals.

^Howard F. Cline. The United States and Mexico (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), 121. p

Charles C. Cumberland, Mexican Revolution: Under Madero (Austin, Tex., 1952), 3. 1

Genesis

and his rule became increasingly less benevolent.

His

methods, consisting of favoring the wealthy--the Cientificos, setting his enemies against each other, and virtually eradicating the small landowner, kept Dfaz in power for over thirty years, but by 1910 they were beginning to fail. The once powerful regime was weakening, collapsing from internal corruption; Diaz and his aged cohorts were becoming vulnerable. Into this situation stepped Francisco I. Madero, the son of a wealthy Coahuila family.

Madero had studied in

Mexico, France, and the United States, and it was during these travels that he became aware of Mexico's manifold

3 problems.

Upon his return to Mexico the young man became

politically active (as active as was possible in Porfirian Mexico) and gathered about him a small following in his home state.

In I910 it seemed that Madero might have his

chance, for tv/o years earlier, in an interview with James Creelman in Pearson's Magazine, Dfaz had intimated that he

4 might retire in I910 at the end of his term.

Almost over-

night a number of political organizations, Madero's among them, surfaced, only to be sent scurrying for cover again when it became apparent that Diaz's retirement announcement ^Ibid., 31. Stanley R. Ross, Francisco I. Madero: Mexican Democracy (New York, 1955j^ ^^-

Apostle of

•1 ^ 3 had been premature.

However, despite Diaz's deviousness,

Madero committed himself as a presidential candidate in 1910. The 1910 election resembled some previous Mexican elections.

The opposition candidate--in this instance

Madero--campaigned from a Jail cell.

Diaz v/as returned to

office by a thumping majority in an obviously fixed election, but his success at the polls was overshadowed by a rising tide of discontent in Mexico.

After the election,

Madero was released from custody and made his way to the United States—to plot the overthrow of the aging dictator. While in the United States, Madero drafted the Plan of San Luis Potosi, the ideological foundation for his revolt.

In this document Madero declared the I910 elections

invalid, assumed the title of provisional president, declared war on the Diaz government, and pledged to hold

5

elections upon capturing the capital.

It was under this

banner that various groups launched the revolution in November of 1910. It was first assumed that the rebellion would be crushed by the government without undue effort; but such was not to be the case, for in just seven months the Diaz regime collapsed.

Since Madero initiated his revolt short

"^Cumberland, Mexican Revolution, cisco I. Madero, 115.

121; Ross, Fran-

of men, money, and munitions, one writer has described his revolution as "a colossal bluff that succeeded." The turning point in the revolution came on May 10, 1911.

The Maderistas, as the rebels were called, captured

the city of Ciudad Juarez, and from that day, Diaz's political fate was sealed. the victorious Madero.

He resigned and left Mexico to In October an election was held

that placed the diminutive Madero in the presidential palace, and Mexico was at peace. The peace was one of short duration, however; as almost immediately the new government was plagued by a series of revolts.

The first was engineered by General

Bernardo Reyes who sought to return Mexico to the care of the Cienti'ficos^ Reyes, like Madero before him, hatched and nurtured his plot in San Antonio, Texas, but unlike Madero, he suffered harrassment from the American authori-

7 Reyes'

ties and a lack of popular support in Mexico.

efforts never blossomed into full scale rebellion. Unfortunately for Madero, the next revolt did bear fruit.

It was fronted by General Pascual Orozco of

^Cline, The United States and Mexico, 121. of the better treatments of Reyes' revolt can be found in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. Charles C. Cimiberland, ''Mexican Revolutionary Movements from Texas, 1906-1912," LII (1949), 301-324. Vic Niemeyer, "Frustrated Invasion: the Revolutionary Attempt of General Bernardo Reyes from San Antonio in I9II." LXVII (1964), 213-225. '''TWO

5 Chihuahua who, because of personal differences with Madero, o

became a hireling of the Cientj'ficos in the north.

In

February of 1912, Orozco declared against the government he had once supported and took the field against it at the head of his troops.

The president was slow to take

forceful action, and as a result, the fighting continued for some months.

In April, General Victoriano Huerta was

dispatched northward to quiet Orozco's machinations.

Six

weeks later, at Telleno, the back of the rebellion was broken, and Orozco became a fugitive in the mountains of 9 Chihuahua. With the exception of an abortive revolt in October at Veracruz by Felix Diaz, Porfirio's nephew, the remainder of 1912 was a relatively calm period for the Madero government-

Indeed, 1913 even showed promise to be a good

year, but such was not to be the case, for on February 9, fighting broke out in the capital.

Reyes and Felix Diaz,

o

Clarence C. Clendenen, Blood on the Border: the United States Army and the Mexican Irregulars (New York, 19b9), 133. 9 Clarence C. Clendenen, The United States and Pancho Villa: a Study in Unconventional Diplomacy (Ithaca, N. J., I96I), 23. For detailed accounts of the Orozco Rebellion see: Paul W. Christiansen, "Pascual Orozco: Chihuahua Rebel: Episodes in the Mexican Revolution, 191O-I915," New Mexico Historical Review, XXXVI (April, I96I), 97-120. See also Michael C. Meyer, Mexican Rebel: Pascual Orozco and the Mexican Revolution, I91O-I913 (Lincoln, Nebraska, 19^)7).

who had been imprisoned in the city, directed the rebellion from their cells. After a week of fighting, Madero and his vice president, Pino Su(frez, v/ere taken captive.

Victoi-iano

Huerta, Madero's commanding officer, turned against the president and installed himself as provisional president. Madero and Suarez v/ere assassinated, almost certainly by order of Huerta, and the revolution entered yet another 10 bloody phase. With the resignation of Madero, Mexican-American relations also entered a new phase.7 Until the climactic days of February 1913 in Mexico City, relations betv/een the two nations had not been seriously strained.

Even the ouster

of Diaz brought about no diplomatic breach, as Madero's new government was readily extended recognition by the Taft administration in Washington.

Throughout both Madero's

revolution in I9II and tenure in office thereafter, American policy had been one of hands off, doing nothing more than observing from the sidelines.

In fact, Taft sought

to aid Madero in I912 by refusing to allow weapons to be shipped to Mexico.

Taft continued to take no precipitous

action during the disturbing events in Mexico City, leaving that step to his successor, Woodrow VJilson.

l^Cumberland, Mexican Revolution, 233-241. Also Lov/ell L. Blaisdell, "Henry Lane Wilson and the Overthrow of Madero, " Southv/estern Social Science Quarterly. XLIII (1962), 126-135.

Wilson took office early in March while the Mexican cauldron was still bubbling,(and announced there would be no recognition by the United States of any government in Mexico that had come to pov/er as had Huerta's. After the new president recalled the Taft's ambassador, Henry Lane Wilson, the president kept in touch in Mexico by sending a series of special envoys there, but he never officially recognized the government of General Huerta. A number of Mexican political and military leaders also refused to accept the Huerta government and declared against it.

The principle leaders of this the Constitu-

tionalist Civil War were Venustiano_Carranza, Pancho Villa, and Emiliano Zapata.

For the rest of I913 and part of 19l4,

neither side accomplished much; however, the stalemate v/as broken in April when United States troops occupied the city of Veracruz, denying to Huerta the revenue and supplies he so desperately needed.

This occupation, combined with a

series of rebel victories in the north, sent Huerta packing ^ -n 1^ for Europe.

Of the Constitutionalist triumvirate, Carranza was the politician; Villa and Zapata were military chieftains. It was natural, then, for Carranza to become the next provisional president of Mexico.

Unfortunately for that un-

happy nation, true peace remained as elusive as ever, for

^^line. The United States and Mexico,

155-162.

8 only a brief period elapsed until a rift developed between Carranza on the one hand and Villa and Zapata on the other. At first, the fighting favored the rebels, but by mid-1915, the tide had clearly turned in favor of the government forces under command of Alvaro Obregon.

The autumn of 1915

was also the autumn of Villa's efforts in the north for both his power and his territorial possessions v/ere waning.^^

Carranza had won.

To be sure, there were still

some pockets of stubborn resistance remaining, but the Carranza government stood without a serious rival in its path. Sealing its triumph, the United States extended de facto recognition to the Carranza government on October 19, 1915.

''"SAnita Brenner, The Wind that Swept Mexico York, 1943). 44-48.

(New

CHAPTER II ARMS ACROSS THE BORDER A number of problems confronted Francisco 1. Madero's rebels when they initiated the revolution that night in November I910, but four stand out above all the others. First, it appeared that the regime of Porfirio Diaz, thanks to three decades in power, was well entrenched and v/ould 1 be difficult to dislodge. Second, the Maderistas, as the rebels v/ere called, were forced to establish contact in the major foreign capitals, trying simultaneously to enlist foreign aid (primarily American) and deny it to the established government of Mexico.

While in San Antonio, Texas,

in 1910, Madero had made a statement, "To the American People," pleading for their understanding of his cause and assuring them that he, not Diaz, represented democratic 2 interests in Mexico.

Third, except for his family fortune,

Madero had little with which to finance the revolution, for his support came mainly from the poor peones of the rural north.

The government's support, on the other hand.

As it turned out, the Diaz government, probably because of the thirty year reign, was corrupt, inefficient, and on the verge of collapse. See introduction, p. i for a further description and a note on sources. 2 San Antonio Daily Express, October 11, I9IO. Here^ after cited as the San Antonio Express.

10 came from the pov/erful Cientificos, the moneyed, upper class Mexicans who felt that a continuation of the system as under Diaz was an absolute necessity.-^

Fourth, Madero

lacked an army; he was in need of guns and additional men to use them.

At the outset, the Maderistas consisted of

a collection of loose knit, unorganized bands of unknov/n strength—enough perhaps to wage a guerilla style war, but incapable of large scale tactics and operations. them was a regular army.

Facing

Although it v/as not a first class

fighting force because of a paucity of good officers and an actual size falling far short of that on paper, Diaz's army nevertheless possessed a regular chain of command, logistical support, and at least som.e semblance of military training.^

It v/as a worthy foe for the rebels,

Madero needed money, men, leadership, and vast quantities of v/eapons.

The money came from the remaining

family holdings, small contributors, and secret arrangements made by members of the Madero family.^

The men came

in small groups or in small personal units v/hen their leader would commit himself to the revolution.

In the early months

the size of the revolutionary array varied in direct proportion to its success. flAen like Pancho Villa and Pascual

^Cumberland, Mexican Revolution, 10-11, Ross, Francisco I. Madero, 13^^ ^Cumberland, Mexican Revolution, 131.

11 Orozco came forward and provided the needed leadership abilities. ) i^he essential v/eapons came mostly from the United States.

y

The northern republic, ov/ing to its prox-

imity to Mexico and the fact that Europe was engaged in a massive arms race, furnished the preponderant bulk of the arms and ammunition to all factions in Mexico, feis chapter is concerned v/ith Mexican and American policy changes brought about by the arms traffic along the border, smugglers' methods, and the impact of smuggling upon the border.^ The immediate reaction of the Diaz government to the insurrectos' (rebels') attempt to import munitions was twofold. .First, on November 20, I910, its customs officials announced that the Mexican government would control the arms supply along the entire length of the border from Texas to California, not allowing any munitions to enter

6^

until the. uprising was suppressed. ^ Less than a month later Diaz himself decreed that there could be no further arms

7 The Mexican government seemed

importation into Mexico.

confident of its ability to seal off the boundary, for it controlled all the cities and ports of entry adjacent to the United States.

The government's second measure was to

El Paso Morning Times, November 20, I9IO. cited as the El Paso Times. '^Ibid., December 17, I9IO.

Hereafter

12 purchase considerable stores.of weapons for its own use, preventing the Maderistas from obtaining them, ^ n December, the government bought out the entire stock of arms of the Ketelsen & Degetau Co. in Ciudad Juarez, thus adding to the large amounts it had purchased in November in Douglas, Arizona.

8

In conjunction with this two-pronged policy, Diaz placed huge orders in Europe for v/eapons^ and also stepped 10 up the limited production at home. On April 4, I9II, while negotiating v/ith the rebels, the Diaz government ordered from France ten eighty-millimeter mortar batteries and twenty thousand shells.

Ten days later, from Great

Britain, it ordered fifty thousand rifles and five million 12 cartridges. These massive purchases, occurring o Ibid., December 11, I9IO, November 24, 1910. o -^As has been previously mentioned, the United States v/as the primary source for armaments, but some European nations, primarily France, Great Britain, and Germany, did furnish some weapons to the federal forces in Mexico. 10 El Paso Times, June 15, I9II. After the Madero Revolution had ended in success follov/ing the battle for Ju/rez in May 1911^ an interesting fact came to light. In the fight for Juarez the assaulting rebels had suffered only very light casualties while inflicting heavy losses upon the defending federales; everyone was at a loss for an explanation. Then in June it v/as discovered that the federal ammunition plant had been putting an insufficient amount of pov/der in its cartridges, causing the bullets to have reduced accuracy and shortened travel. ^^Ibid., April 5^ 1911. •^^Ibid., April 15, I9II.

13 simultaneously with the negotiations, prompted one cynic to remark that Diaz was fulfilling his pledge "to obtain 13 peace at any price." Just as they occupied no border cities, the rebels V

also held no ports, so they had to rely upon the porous American border rather than Europe for their weapons./ During the revolution's early stages Arizona seemed to be the [ I I

chief source of supply for the rebels, but soon Texas became the focal point for channeling the arms traffic into Mexico.^ There were a number of reasons that Texas received that dubious honor. \ Texas was more populous, hence the means of transportation were better developed.

The state

possessed seaports--something lacking in New Mexico and Arizona.

Most important, the area adjacent to the Texas-

Mexico boundary v/as, and is today, rugged, desolate, and sparsely populated.

While it is true that the Rio Grande

separates Texas from Mexico, it is also true that the border is long and the Rio Grande shallow. The first movement of arms into Mexico produced an American policy of neutrality.

At no time during the

Madero Revolution did the United States recognize the belligerency of the rebels; therefore it had no diplomatic contacts v/ith and no policy directed tov/ard them.

President

Taft repeatedly announced that America's policy regarding •^^Ibid.

14 the Mexican situation was one of strict neutrality.

The

obvious question quickly arose about weapons shipments to the Mexican insurrectos. American neutrality?

What constituted a violation of

InJ^ll__the Justice Department in-

itiated an analysis of the subject by studying court cases involving similar problems in earlier periods--notably the years just prior to the Spanish-American War.

Concerning

the Mexican situation, it was decided that men armed with rifles who crossed the border did not violate American neutrality, but those who planned in the United States what could be construed as an attack upon Mexico did.

Cer-

tainly, such a vague shading as that could lend itself to a number of v/idely varied interpretations.

Perhaps the

clearest point made by the Justice Department was that the United States had no lav/ specifically prohibiting v/eapons shipments to the Mexican rebels.

It was to be v/ithout such

a law until I912. By March the revolution v/as gaining the momentum that would carry it to success, and Taft, in an obvious display of power, ordered 20,000 American troops to the Mexi15 can border, ostensibly for maneuvers. A division v/as garrisoned in San Antonio, Texas, and a number of its troops

14 Ibid., March 17, 1911. 15 Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, I9II, 4l5. "llereafter cited as Foreign Relations.

15 were used as border patrolmen as well as being engaged in maneuvers.

Taft had expressed the desire to suppress the

arms traffic from Texas into Mexico; the troop movements were merely an extension of that desire. 16 Despite the military's presence in South Texas the "exporters" there were v/orking feverishly to keep the Maderistas supplied.

They even tried sending v/eapons

through the mails, but at least one shipment sent in that manner was seized in Nuevo Laredo and returned to the United 17 States. In April at Laredo, Texas, just across the river from Nuevo Laredo, American authorities seized tv/o crates 18 of rifles bound for the Maderistas. /Evidently the arms traffic in South Texas reached large proportions, for it evoked comment from the Mexican ambassador, M. de Zamacona. In a note to Philander C. Knox, Zamacona complained that: . . . the rebels are showing greater activity on the Texas frontier betv/een La^redo and Brownsville, as the Consul of Mexico reports a very noticeable movement of arms and ammunition consigned to Laredo and other points, among others Fremont, where a merchant by the name of J. C. Canales is in collusion with the rebels.19 North and west of the San Antonio area lay the rugged, desolate, sparsely populated area mentioned earlier.

l^Ibid., xii. -^'^El Paso Times, November 29, I9IO. •^^Ibid., April 10, 1911. "Foreign Relations, I9II:, ^71.

r 16 Protection was even more scarce here than the population, so the rebels v/ere not always content to purchase arms and ammunition, but instead often stole what they needed from ranches and small towns.

Such an event occurred December

23, 1910, when a large party of men, "reportedly Mexican," broke into the general store at Balmorhea, seventy miles deep into Texas.

Once inside the store the bandits took

all the guns and ammunition, touching nothing else. Despite the events in early 1911 in South Texas and the Big Bend area. El Paso soon became Texas' smuggling capital. Just weeks after the revolution began, at least ^ ' 21 six residences there were thought to be arms caches.

In

El Paso (and other cities also) revolutionary committees had been established and were actively engaged in aiding the rebels and supplying them with guns, ammunition, and 22 ' food. These activities in and around El Paso made an already difficult task even more so for the hard pressed Mexican federal customs officers in Ciudad Juarez.

By

December, I9IO, they had begun to search all railroad__cars entering Ciudad Juarez in an effort to ferret out any hidden v/eapons, but their adversaries were clever, hiding ^^El Paso Times, December 24, I910. 21-"Ira J. Bush, Gringo Doctor (Caldwell, Idaho, 1939);. 180. 22

"The Movement Tov/ard Mexico, " Independent, CXX (March, I9II), 579-

17 munitions in false bottomed cars and in grain shipments,^^ The city of El Paso even became a contributor to the rebel cause, albeit unv/ittingly, v/hen the Blue V/histler, a cannon of Civil War vintage, was stolen early in 1911 from Washington Park in the city and disappeared into MexiCO.

Accompanying it across the border was more than a

ton of shot and an ample powder supply and tv/o hundred Mausers with a thousand rounds--all bound for Madero.

The

Blue V/histler served its new master as a siege gun, and according to all reports, served him well.

After Pladero's

success was assured, the old field piece was returned to El Paso in a splendid ceremony at the International Bridge ,^^ Despite the efforts of those endeavoring to prevent it, the rebels were obviously getting a steady if limited supply of weapons, for they began to win some of the skirmishes v/ith federal forces.

By far the most important of

these was the capture of the important border city of Ciudad Ju^ez on I%y 10, 1911,

The battle started acci-

dentally while the tv/o factions v/ere negotiating,^^

After

two days of bitter fighting, the federal garrison surrendered, and a major turning point in the revolution against Diaz had been reached.

^^El Paso Times, December 11, 1910, ^^Bush, Gringo Doctor, 187-1^B. ^^El Paso Times, August 19, 1911. Clendenen, Blood on the Border, 132.

1^ The successful capture of Ciudad Juarez by Madero's troops had two important effects on the course of the revolution,

First^ it gave them their first port of_^ntry, an

important one across from a large American city, and second, it convinced Porfirio Diaz that he could not prevail.^ He therefore began making plans to resign as president.

Three

days prior to the fall of Ciudad Ju/rez, he had expressed his willingness to retire "after peace is restored, "^'^ Yet less than three weeks later, without the restoration of peace, the aged dictator boarded the German ship Ypiranjg;a and left Mexico in the hands of Francisco de la Barra, the new provisional president. V/ith the defeat of Diaz it was certain that Mexico would never again be the same.

A nev/ order was in the

making, and a nev/ architect v/as to design the rebuilding of Mexico.

In October of 1911, an election in Mexico was

held, and to the surprise of no one, Madero was the overv/helming choice of Mexicans v/ho voted.

The diminutive

Coahuilan assumed office in November, and Mexico appeared back on the path to peace and prosperity.

Such was not to

be the case, for from the beginning of his terra until his forced resignation and death in 1913, Madero v/as constantly

'^"From Diaz to Carranza," The American Reviev/ of Reviews, LIII (February, 1916), 196, ^^Cline, The United States and Mexico, 124,

19 trying to suppress a series of revolts. It should have been evident earlier that the calm would be broken, for even before Madero's election arms importation continued at an unabated pace, and trouble loomed ahead, (in July, two months before the election, de la Barra, using his pov/ers as provisional president, issued a proclamation prohibiting the importation of weapons into 29 Mexico. The ban had little effect, however, for through El Paso alone five hundred guns and tv/o hundred rounds of ammunition passed into Mexico during the next month. "^ In November, the month of Reyes' insurgency, the flow of munitions through South Texas gained momentum. Reyes' San Antonio headquarters was preparing an attack on Mexico.

In Laredo, an American cavalry patrol captured

forty rifles and twenty thousand rounds, eighty dynamite bombs, and three unidentified Mexicans who v/ere attempting to cross into Mexico.31 An informer, Juan Meriga, directed the Americans to their find.

Four days later on November

23, a railroad car containing one hundred and sixty-one 32 cases of Winchesters v/as detained at San Antonio. Reyes' ^ % 1 Paso Times, July 23, 1911. 30Ibid.. , December 6, I9II. This information came to light at a trial in El Paso for violation of American neutrality. Probably much more equipment than that mentioned above escaped detection v/hen it crossed the river. 31 San Antonio Express, November 20, I9II. ^^Ibid., November 24, I9II.

20 rebellion was stopped almost before it began, as American officials enforced the neutrality laws, something they had neglected to do against Madero a year earlier, WTien the Reyes effort suffocated because of harass33 ment in the United States and a Lack of support in Mexico, hopes for Mexican tranquillity again rose; they vanished in ^et^f'^

icuxudiy, x^j.^, wiitiii uenKi-aj. ratjcuaj- urozco, angerea wiun

'' /uc^oi'r'^

Madero over a personal affront, declared against the government and led his army into the f i e l d ^ Once again the arms traffic gained momentum; however not all the shipments were reaching their intended destinations. (^On February 6, at a point some tv/enty-six miles west of El Paso, troopers of the Fourth Cavalry, commanded by Colonel E, Z. Steever, captured a band of thirteen armed Mexicans carrying "a large amount of ammunition" as they v/ere attempting to enter Mexico."^gy Three weeks later, Orozco's forces obtained a hundred rifles and ten thousand cartridges that had been shipped from American soil to the Madero garrison in Juarez,-^^/ The Orozco rebels ^^See : Cumberland, "Mexican Revolutionary Movements from Texas, 1906-1912," 301-324; Niemeyer, "Frustrated Invasion: The Revolutionary Attempt of General Bernardo Reyes from San Antonio in 1911," 213-225. ^^El Paso Times, February 7, 1912. •^^It was perfectly legal to ship v/eapons to forces of the recognized Mexican government. There v/as still no American policy to rule otherv/ise. Hov/ever, those shipping arms into Mexico for the Orozco rebels might be judged in violation of the ambiguous neutrality statutes.

21 seized them v/hen they captured Juarez on February 27, without firing a shot.^ The rifles were not all the rebels obtained, for according to the El Paso Times, "Juarez has a new mayor . . . and a couple of nice, new, machine guns."^'^ The mayor came from Chihuahua, the machine guns from the Colt Company of Hartford, Connecticut.

After Orozco's capture

of Juarez, Colonel Steever detained in El Paso a massive shipment of rifles and ammunition that had been consigned to James Smith in Juarez.^^

Obviously Smith was a ficti-

tious character. To counter the new rebellious threat, the Madero government began importing weapons.

Like the Diaz regime

before, it had little trouble importing war material because it possessed all the ports of entry save one.

In Nev/

York, Gustavo Madero, brother of the president, purchased from Francis Bannerman & Son two Catling guns and a large number of Mausers and ammunition of Spanish American War vintage.

39

Upon the shipment's arrival in Mexico, it was

discovered that the years of storage in a coastal climate had rendered most of the equipment unserviceable.

•^ El Paso Times, February 26, 1912. ^'^Ibid., February 28, 1912. ^ Ibid., March 8, 1912. -^^Bush, Gringo Doctor, l80.

22 Of course all the renev/ed conflict v/as not unnoticed in the United States,

President Taft searched for

a method to minim.ize American involvement and American loss of life and property.

On March 14, 1912, he placed

an embargo on munitions of war shipped to Mexico.^^^ From that day forward no Mexicans were to be able to bring weapons into their coimtry.l

The sieve-like border was to be-

come an impenetrable wall, forcing would-be smugglers out of existence. An reality, the embargo merely forced the gun runners to conceal better their operations on both

^

sides of the border and to take more elaborate precautions,^ One effect the embargo produced was driving prices for weapons and munitions up to prohibitive levels.

By July

1912, rebel remnants v/ere willing to pay fifteen cents per cartridge for ammunition smuggled into Mexico.^1 No longer hampered by the ambiguous neutrality laws, American border patrols and officials attacked the task at hand with vigor.

In just tv/o weeks an arms smuggling ring

^^Foreign Relations, 1912, 745-746, Taft's announce' ment took effect immediately, except for a special case. In Washington the Mexican ambassador, Gilberto Crespo y Martinez, delivered a note to Philander C. Knox asking for the release of several large arms shipments then being detained at Shafter, Marfa, and Presidio, Texas. Destination for the shipments v/as to have been the federal garrison at Ojinaga. "After some study, the State Department ruled that since these armaments had been ordered prior to the embargo and v/ere near delivery, they v/ere excepted from restrictions and passed into Mexico. ^ 1 E 1 Paso Times, July 5, 1912,

^

23 42 in El Paso was broken up.

At Marfa, two hundred miles

to the southeast, American agents seized two machine guns and two trunks of ammunition.^^^

Other arrests and seizures

were recorded all along the boundary.

Obviously, consider-

able amounts of munitions never reached Mexican hands. However, this is not to mean that the embargo was a complete success, for clearly some shipments were getting through, for the fighting still raged in Mexico. Meanwhile, Pancho Villa was faring none too well in his campaign to crush Orozco.^ Both February and March passed without substantial improvement in the situation in Chihuahua, and it seemed that Orozco might be successful. Early in April, though, Madero dispatched Victoriano Huerta northv/ard; v/ithin six weeks General Huerta had routed Orozco and crushed the rebellion. What were those individuals like, who smuggled for Madero and for Orozco, and who v/ould smuggle again later for Mexico?

The professional gun runners, those who

handled shipments on a large scale basis, were truly men without a country.

In the United States, if captured, they

faced confiscation, fines, and imprisonment.

The punish-

ment was more severe in Mexico; a man faced almost certain execution.

The successful smugglers were discreet.

42 El Paso Times, March 29, 1912. 43 Ibid., April 6, 1912.

24 efficient, and clever; the unsuccessful ones were impoverished, imprisoned, or dead. Clever though the professional smugglers must have been, their efforts paled in comparison to those of the ingenious individuals carrying contraband across the international bridges in full daylight.

The War Department

Annual Reports of I912 illustrates their inventiveness: Both men and women have been detected in carrying cartridges concealed under their clothing; special arrangements in the shape of belts, bags, pockets, and breech clouts, for containing the rounds, have been discovered . . . several hundred thousand rounds of ammunition and several hundred rifles have., been seized under the circumstances just indicated."^^ For those engaged in smuggling, getting their burdens out of America v^as not a simple task; they could not just go to a supplier in Texas, place and receive an order, and casually return to Mexico.

American and Mexican fed-

eral officials prevented this.

In Mexico, the federales

held nearly all the border cities, and in those not under their jurisdiction, American officials just across the river maintained a doubly strict surveillance.

However,

War Department Annual Reports, III (I912), 60. The italics are mine. It is not a common practice for customs officials to search persons leaving the United States, but this v/as an unusual period in border relations v/hen persons were attempting to smuggle contraband out of the United States, not in. There is no record stating v/hen the personal searches v/ere started, but it v/ould probably be safe to assum.e that they began after someone was accidentally discovered sneaking munitions across.

25 the long, scantily patrolled stretches between these outposts were truly a no man's land.

It was in those expan-

sive areas that the gun runners slipped across the boundary with their precious weapons. Ordinarily, these treks across the river were made several days after the purchase in Texas, and provision had to be made to store these illicit cargoes.

Two types

of storage were utilized; the weapons were secreted in the American home of a sympathizer, or they were buried in caches near the border.

Great care had to be exercised or

discovery and confiscation were likely to result. Following dissolution of the Orozco rebellion, the furious pace of all types of smuggling subsided, and the remainder of 1912 in Mexico was, with a single exceptiontranquil.45 Unfortunately, the peace did not carry far into the new year, for on February 9, 1913^ Mexico City erupted in battle, raising the curtain on a nev/ act of the revolution. Fighting raged in the streets, with the advantage seesawing from the government to its antagonists.

Neither

side was hesitant to use artillery or anything else at its command, and the Mexican capital saw much of itself 45 The exception v/as the abortive uprising staged in Veracruz during November by F^lix Dfaz, nephew of Porfirio The revolt was crushed and Diaz was imprisoned in Mexico City.

26 reduced to a shambles.

After more than a v/eek of bloody

fighting and intrigue, Madero and his vice president, Pino Suarez, were imprisoned, and Victoriano .Huerta occupied the presidential palace.

Within another week, Madero and

Suarez were murdered by order of the new provisional president.

In the northern states of Mexico, the storm clouds

of yet another rebellion--this time directed against Huertabegan building. All the events of February had not gone unnoticed in the United States, but the lame duck Republican administration of Taft seemed content to live out its last two weeks without taking any action regarding this nev/est change in Mexico.

The incoming administration belonged to

a Democrat, Woodrov/ Wilson, and despite pressure on many sides for immediate recognition of Huerta's government, the new president refused to extend even d£ facto recognition. As time passed and Wilson's disgust for Huerta and his methods turned to utter revulsion, Wilson recalled the American ambassador to Mexico and refused to appoint an-

46 other one.

He also restructured and reaffirmed the em-

bargo directed at Mexico, removing five classes of munitions from the restricted list. Despite the continued presence of an embargo, considerable amounts of arms and arajfiiunition were continuing

46Foreign Relations, I913, 873-875-

27 to arrive in Mexico from the north.

Often, American offi-

cials were powerless to halt the flow, as is illustrated by this letter from Sergeant M. W. Hines to the Texas Adjutant General: There is no doubt but what both sides are smuggling arms across the river below this place [Eagle Pass]. Those residing along the river say they are crossing the border all the time, practically, almost unmolested.^7 (^new

question was raised in April I913 when the

Ciudad Juarez garrison shipped more than a ton of grenades,

^ 48

rifles, and anmiunition to the Huerta garrison at Naco.

\^

The problem arose when it was discovered that the material had been shipped from Ciudad Juarez through the United States, then re-entering Mexico at Naco. Americans along the border v/ere outraged at this breach of the embargo. Nevertheless, the shipment did arrive at Naco, unfortunately too late to be of assistance, so it had the effect of v/eakening the Ciudad Juarez garrison. ; The loss of these munitions by Ciudad Juarez, coupled with the theft three days later of the firing pins of two machine guns and the breech blocks of both field pieces, crippled Huerta's defenders in that city. ^

It was first

^^Ibid., 1913, 877. The Adjutant General sent the message to the War Department, and from there it was forwarded to the State Department for its consideration.

48 El Paso Times, April 16, 191349 ^Ibid., April 19, 1913.

28 thought that the mechanisms had been hidden in El Paso^ but later Information told of their being delivered to Constitutionalist forces around Naco to repair captured 50 weapons.

mm mm I iPlfi iiiilii

I n 11 R' ' y :

The arms embargo began meeting with increasing resistance in the United States as I913 wore on. According to its critics, the ban was not achieving its intended goal--the gradual cessation of the Mexican conflict brought about by a lack of weapons.

In July, Senator Albert Fall,

a Republican from New Mexico, attacked the embargo as "farcical and suicidal" and declared that it was a reversal of the established policy of the American government; he continued by announcing that the embargo had cost "eighty American lives and many millions of dollars worth of property 51 belonging to Americans." The Huerta government also criticized the American policy in 1913. After the Constitutionalist capture of Naco, the Mexican Ambassador, in a note to the State Department, accused American authorities at Naco, Arizona,

^^Ibid., April 21, I913. The Constitutionalist faction had as its leaders, Venustiano Carranza, Pancho Villa, and Emiliano Zapata. 51„ A Free Gun Policy for Mexico, Literary Digest, XLVII (July 12, 1913)^ 42. The senator probably had but two things on his mind when he launched this verbal attack: the embarrassment of the Democratic Administration in Washington and the protection of his considerable personal holdings in Mexico.

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