Boundary Commission

I have already explained how this Commission came to be formed and how I was appointed and entered upon the duties as sole Commissioner on the part of the United States (Text, 207). I have also explained the relation of the Commission to the international dam for the equitable distribution of the waters of the Rio Grande, the subsequent Commission by protocol of Commissioner Osorno and myself for the same purpose (Text, 263), and the later Commission for the equitable distribution (Text, 273).

The duty of the International Boundary Commission, briefly stated, is to apply the principles agreed upon by the two governments in the boundary treaties to the varying conditions caused by the kaleidoscopic changes in the current of the Rio Grande.

The boundary treaties of 1848 and 1853 make "the middle of" the Rio Grande the boundary, while the treaty of 1884 provides that the boundary shall "follow the center of the normal channel * * * notwithstanding any alterations in the banks or in the course" of the river "provided that such alterations be effected by natural causes through the slow and gradual erosion and deposit of alluvium and not by the abandonment of an existing river bed and the opening of a new one." Article II of this same treaty provides that "any other change, wrought by the force of the current, whether by the cutting of a new bed or when there is more than one channel by the deepening of another channel * * * shall produce no change in the dividing line."

The treaty of 1889, which established the International Boundary Commission, provides that "when owing to natural causes, any change shall take place in the bed of the Rio Grande * * * which may affect the boundary line, notice of that fact shall be given by the proper local authorities * * * on receiving which notice it shall be the duty of the said Commission to repair to the place where the change hastaken place or the question has arisen, to make a personal examination of such change, to compare it with the bed of the river as it was before the change took place, as shown by the surveys, and to decide whether it has occurred through avulsion or erosion for the effects of Articles I and II of the convention of November 12, 1884."

The Commission was organized January 8, 1894, in the office of the Mexican Consul, in El Paso, as follows:

On the part of Mexico:

On the part of the United States:

The Commission recommended rules for its future government, which were approved by the Secretaries of State of both governments. Before we completed the first case referred to us, Commissioner Canalizo died, and F. Javier Osorno was appointed as his successor.

September 28, 1894, the full Commission again met at El Paso and proceeded to an examination upon the ground of the cases of Banco de Camargo, Banco de Vela, Banco de Santa Margarita and Banco de Granjeno.

These so-called bancos were formed by a combination of "slow and gradual erosion" coupled with "avulsion" in the following manner: Where the river passes through low alluvial bottoms with banks of fragile consistency and slight fall the channel continually changes from right to left, eroding the concave bank and depositing on the convex. This occurs in low as well as high water, though the changes are more marked during high water stages. These erosions are greatest where the water in a tangent from a curve strikes the bank atan acute angle, ceasing when the angle becomes so obtuse that the water is readily deflected by the consistency of the bank. When the curve forms a circle the radius of which is dependent on the consistency of the earth and the volume and velocity of the water, erosions practically cease and the river turns upon itself in a circle and forms a "cut-off," leaving the land thus separated (called a banco) somewhat in the form of a pear or gourd, with the stem cut by the river's current at the moment of separation. (See cut of the double Banco de Santa Margarita. Proceedings Boundary Commission, Vol. I, p. 191.)

In many cases through ensuing changes in the channel an American or Mexican banco would be entirely cut off even from the river and wholly surrounded by land within the jurisdiction of the other country.

The origin of these bancos was so different from our expectations that both the Mexican Commissioner and I, after deliberate consideration, concluded that their process of formation, their form and constantly changing character, could not have been contemplated by the conventions creating the treaties of 1884 and 1889. We both suggested to our governments the reconsideration of Articles I and II of the treaty of 1884, as far as they related to these bancos, to the end that provision might be made for transferring all such bancos to the sovereignty of the United States or Mexico according as they lay on the American or Mexican side of the present river channel, without disturbing the private ownership as it might be ascertained.

This treaty was negotiated and ratified in 1905 and has since then worked to the satisfaction of both governments and resulted in the "elimination" of perhaps 75 of these bancos and the maintenance of the international boundary line in the center of the running river.

Some of the difficulties under which the Commission did much of its work on the lower Rio Grande will appear from the following incident which occurred while the Commissionwas considering the case of the Banco de Granjeno, near Havana.

The day before the Congressional elections in Texas the Mexican Commissioner joined our camp on the river. Coming by carriage through Havana, he observed a procession of grotesquely clad Americans and Mexicans carrying a flag and beating drums. Mr. Osorno's first experience with United States election methods, the several hundred people in the little town of not more than 20 or 30 inhabitants excited his curiosity as to where all these people had come from. As Reynoca was a large city on the Mexican side, he suspected that many of them were from Mexico. A portly Mexican, much resembling Sancho Panza and clad very much after his style, carried the flag.

The Joint Commission had summoned nine witnesses to appear at our camp the next day at 9 o'clock and testify in the case. But the witnesses did not appear.

Two hours later a messenger from the village stated the witnesses were indisposed from the excitement of the night previous and would not be over until later in the afternoon. At 4 o'clock we observed a party headed by this identical flag-bearer. Not speaking English, he addressed himself to Mr. Osorno, stating that he had been summoned as a witness.

The Commission Regulations prescribe that the witnesses shall be sworn by the Commissioner representing the country of which the witness is a citizen. Asked to state his country, the flag-bearer said he was a Mexican citizen. Mr. Osorno looked astonished.

"Then, you a Mexican citizen?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," answered Sancho Panza.

"Did not I see you at Havana in Texas, yesterday, carrying an American flag?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

"How does it come that you would carry an American flag in Texas if you are a Mexican citizen?"

"Oh, it was election time."

"Election time," said Mr. Osorno; "what have you to do with elections in Texas?"

"Oh, we all go over there for elections!"

Understanding the habits of the frontier people better than Mr. Osorno, I suggested asking if he had voted. Rather reluctantly Mr. Osorno said:

"Did you vote in Texas?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

"Well, how can you be a Mexican citizen if you vote in Texas?"

"Oh," said Sancho, "if you don't believe I am a Mexican citizen I will show you a certificate of my consul!" pulling out a paper signed by the Mexican Secretary of the Boundary Commission, formerly Mexican Consul at Brownsville, certifying he was a Mexican citizen.

Though Mr. Osorno was a lawyer and well versed in international law and custom, he was much perplexed but finally administered the oath. During the course of the examination of the other nine witnesses examined we found six claimed to be Mexican citizens though admitting they had voted in Texas the day before, which explained the fact that although the registered voters in that county numbered but 650, the Democratic majority footed up over 1,200!

The population along this part of the river, on both sides, speak Spanish almost exclusively, and their habits, sympathies, and general characteristics are entirely Mexican. The people are the poorest and least progressive of any I have ever seen, except the North American Indians. The extreme drought for the seven preceding years had made them poorer than for generations, and their numbers were less than for the past hundred years. Most of our witnesses were unable to tell their ages, or where they had lived during particular years. Most claimed citizenship in Mexico, but voting rights in the United States.

The jurisdiction of the Commission included a great variety of cases involving questions as to location of the boundarylines as affected by changes in the channel of the river, "elimination" of the bancos, unduly projecting jetties or other obstructions in the channel of the Rio Grande, marking of international bridges, question of artificial cut-offs in the river channel, etc., etc.

The nature of the Commission's work can perhaps best be explained by treating two important and typical cases in some detail.

The Horcon Ranch case grew out of an artificial cut-off of the river channel. The Rio Grande at the Horcon Ranch near Brownsville, Texas, formed two loops. (Cut, 288.)

The natural course of the water appeared to be about to form a cut-off at A, whereby the upper loop would have been eliminated. The result would have been to deprive the American riparian proprietors on the upper loop of the water they had theretofore enjoyed for irrigation.

Among these was the American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company, which had a large pumping station at B, on the upper loop. To counteract the threatened danger the American proprietors, after vainly striving for months to prevent the cut-off at A by defensive works, dug an artificial channel at C, across the neck of the lower loop, straightening the river, relieving the pressure at A and averting the threatened disaster to the company's pumping station. This deprived Mexican riparian proprietors, on the lower loop, of the water they had been accustomed to use and to which they were entitled. The boundary treaties expressly forbid such artificial cut-offs and provide that they shall not affect the international boundary.

The Mexican Government brought the case to the Commission, which promptly held the cut-off a clear violation of the treaty. Not feeling clear as to its power to take the necessary remedial measures, the Commission reported its findings to the two governments and asked for instructions. The American State Department approved the findings, but thought the Commission had fully discharged its duty, and that subsequent proceedings should be taken in the ordinary courts. It asked the Department of Justice for an opinion. The Attorney General concurred in these views and at the instance of the State Department brought a suit in equity in the name of the United States against the American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company, asking a mandatory injunction to compel the defendant company to restore the river to its original channel, or, as an alternative, for the conveyance of land in the upper loop owned by the company to the Mexican riparian proprietors so they might have a river frontage, together with the payment of compensatory damages to these proprietors and both compensatory and punitive damages to the United States.

The President of the American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company, Mr. Edward C. Eliot, of St. Louis, and its general counsel, Mr. Duvall West, now a Federal District Judge, were men of the highest type. When the matter was brought to their attention they recognized the correctness of the position of the government. By agreement between the representatives of the Government and these gentlemen, the company admitted the cause of action and the truth of the material allegations in the government's bill, and submitted to the alternative relief prayed. An order was accordingly entered by the court which not only adjusted the matter to the satisfaction of the Mexican Government and the Mexican citizens interested, but brought home to the people of both countries along the river the intention and power of the two governments to live up to their treaty obligations. (For full particulars see the pamphlet published by the Boundary Commission,which gives all the important papers in the case, including the proceedings both before the Boundary Commission and before the Federal court.)

Horcon Cut-off.(Text, 286.)

Banco de San Margarita.(Text, 283.)

Further to illustrate the work of the Commission, I call attention toChamizal case at El Paso, Texas. The Chamizal tract is a body of land of some 600 acres south of the channel of the Rio Grande as it ran when surveyed by Emory andSalazar in 1853 and north of the present river channel. In 1894 the Chamizal case was referred by the Mexican Foreign Office to the Commission on the complaint of one Garcia, a Mexican citizen, who claimed to own land in the Chamizal tract which had been cut off from his holdings on the Mexican side by the change in the course of the river.

The question at issue, under the provisions of the boundary treaties, as formulated by the American Commissioner and accepted by the Mexican Commissioner at the session of the Commission on November 6, 1895, was "whether or not the river in its passage moved over the land by gradual erosion from the Mexican bank and deposited on the United States bank, as described in Article I of the treaty of 1884, or by sudden avulsion, by cutting a new bed or deepening another channel than that which marked the boundary."

The case was tried at El Paso by Commissioner Osorno and myself; Messrs. Maillefert and Happer being the secretaries of the Commission, and Messrs. Corella and Dabney consulting engineers. We limited the witnesses to four of the most trustworthy of the older inhabitants on each side. Their testimony showed there was no basis for any claim that there had been any avulsion or cutting of a new bed. The change in the channel was clearly erosive, although at certain or rather "uncertain" times and places during floods the erosion had been much more rapid than others, and had been visible to the naked eye, since as the lower substratum of sand was washed out, the upper layer of clay along the concave or Mexican bank would cave in, sometimes in considerable chunks. The building up of the convex or American shore, however, had always been imperceptibly gradual.

The Mexican Commissioner reduced his argument to the following syllogism:

"Major proposition: Any change other than slow and gradual does not alter the boundary line (Article I of the Convention of November 12, 1884).

"Minor proposition: Since the change of the river in thecase denominated 'El Chamizal'was not slow and gradual, but, on the contrary, violent and at periods of time of unequal intermissions (which has been fully demonstrated above).

"Conclusion: Thence, the change of the river at the lands of 'El Chamizal' does not alter the boundary line marked in 1852 by the International Boundary Commission (Article II of the Convention of 1884)."

I held that the treaty "clearly specifies but two classes of changes in the river," namely, erosive and avulsive, and that "any other unspecified change, as is implied in the major proposition of the syllogism of the Mexican Commissioner, we have no authority to consider, but that our respective conclusions must be in favor of one or the other, as specifically stated in the treaty."

I furthermore held that:

"The syllogism of the Mexican Commissioner must be rejected, not only because its minor proposition is not proven, but because it is abundantly disproven by every witness who testified in the case save Serna."

I further pointed out that in my opinion:

"* * * If the change at El Chamizal has not been 'slow and gradual' by erosion and deposit within the meaning of Article I of the treaty of 1884, there will never be such a one found in all the 800 miles where the Rio Grande, with alluvial banks, constitutes the boundary, and the object of the treaty will be lost to both governments, as it will be meaningless and useless, and the boundary will perforce be through all these 800 miles continuously that laid down in 1852, having literally no points in common with the present river save in its many hundred intersections with the river, and to restore and establish this boundary will be the incessant work of large parties for years, entailing hundreds of thousands of dollars in expense to each government and uniformly dividing the lands between the nations and individual owners, that are now, under the suppositions that for the past forty years the changes have been gradual, and the river accepted generally as theboundary, under the same authority and ownership; for it must be remembered that the river in the alluvial lands, which constitutes 800 miles, has nowhere today the same location it had in 1853."

Commissioner Osorno and I disagreed on the proper construction of the words "slow and gradual, erosion and deposit of alluvium" rather than on matters of fact. No decision could be rendered and the disagreement was reported to our governments, where the matter remained in a diplomatic state until 1910, when it was again referred to the Commission, enlarged for this case only by the appointment of a (presiding) commissioner, a Canadian jurist, to be selected by the two governments. The case was again brought to trial in El Paso in 1911, with the Commission constituted as follows:

Hon. Eugene Lafleur, of Montreal, Canada, Presiding Commissioner.On the part of Mexico—F. Beltran y Puga, Commissioner.E. Zayas, Consulting Engineer.M. M. Velarde, Secretary.On the part of the United States—Anson Mills, Commissioner.W. W. Follett, Consulting Engineer.Wilbur Keblinger, Secretary.

Hon. Eugene Lafleur, of Montreal, Canada, Presiding Commissioner.

On the part of Mexico—

On the part of the United States—

The two governments were represented as follows:

On the part of Mexico—Señor Joaquin de Casasus, Agent.W. J. White. K. C., of Montreal, Canada, Counsel.Seymour Thurmond, of El Paso, Associate Counsel.On the part of the United States—William C. Dennis, Agent.Walter B. Grant, of Boston, Mass., Counsel.Richard F. Burges, of El Paso, Associate Counsel.

On the part of Mexico—

On the part of the United States—

William C. Dennis.

Richard F. Burges.

Chamizal Arbitration Commission.Burges, Dennis, Grant, Mills, La Fleur, Puga, White, Casasus, Thurmond.

Chamizal Arbitration Commission.

Burges, Dennis, Grant, Mills, La Fleur, Puga, White, Casasus, Thurmond.

In the second trial, Mexico advanced a wholly different theory fromthat developed in the diplomatic discussions between the first and second trials. Mexico now maintained that the boundary treaties of 1848 and 1853 had laid down a "fixedline" between the two countries in the centers of the channel of the river as surveyed at that time by Commissioners Emory and Salazar, which boundary line remained immutable irrespective of any subsequent change in the courseof the river, whether erosive or avulsive, until this was changed for the future by the treaty of 1884. Mexico contended this latter treaty was not retroactive but applied only to river changes taking place after 1884.

Driven to concede that in this view the treaty of 1884 had really no meaning, Mexico insisted the two governments were under a misapprehension when this treaty was negotiated, that it was inoperative and that the general rules of international law governing river boundaries had no application because the Rio Grande was in a technically legal sense not a river at all, but merely an intermittent torrential stream.

The United States denied that the boundary treaties of 1848 and 1853 established a fixed line, and contended the treaty of 1884 was retroactive in any event, and applied to the Chamizal dispute, and that this treaty was merely declaratory of the general rule of international law. Furthermore, the United States claimed the Chamizal tract by prescription.

The case was argued during sessions of the Commission extending over a month. The presiding Commissioner, Mr. Lafleur, rendered an opinion holding squarely against the Mexican contentions with respect to a fixed line and the non-retroactivity and non-applicability of the treaty of 1884. His discussion of these subjects is detailed and masterly. After holding against the American claim based on prescription, he appeared to assume that the treaty of 1884 contemplated sometertium quidaside from erosion and avulsion, which might perhaps be called "violent" erosion and which had the same effect as an avulsive change, namely, to leave the boundary line in the abandoned bed of the river. Applying this latter doctrine he found the erosion at the Chamizal tract from 1852 to 1864 had been gradual within the meaning of the treaty of 1884, and therefore the boundary during this period had followed the river, but that the floods of 1863 brought about a violent erosion, whereby the boundary line was left in the middle of the bed of the river "as it existed before the flood of 1863." He therefore awarded that portion of the tract between the channel of 1852 and the channel of 1864 before the flood, to the United States, and the remainder to Mexico.

The Mexican Commissioner filed a separate opinion dissenting from that part of Mr. Lafleur's opinion relating to the fixed line and the retroactivity and applicability of the treaty of 1884. Overruled on these points, Mr. Puga felt himself justified in joining with the Presiding Commissioner in construing the treaty of 1884 and therefore united in the award dividing the Chamizal tract between the two countries along the line of the river bed as it existed before the flood of 1864.

I filed an opinion dissenting from that portion of the Presiding Commissioner's opinion construing the treaty of 1884. I held the Commission was not empowered by the two governments to divide the Chamizal tract but was called upon to render a clean-cut decision in favor of one or the other government. I recorded my conviction that it would be "as impossible to locate the channel of the Rio Grande in the Chamizal tract in 1864 as to re-locate the Garden of Eden or the lost continent of Atlantis." And finally I pointed out, as I had in 1896, the impossible situation which would arise if any attempt were made to apply the principles of the majority opinion in other cases, concluding as follows:

"The American Commissioner does not believe that it is given to human understanding to measure for any practical use when erosion ceases to be slow and gradual and becomes sudden and violent, but if this difficulty could be surmounted, the practical application of the interpretation could not be viewed in any other light than as calamitous to both nations. Because, as is manifest from the record in this case, all the land on both sides of the river from the Bosque de Cordoba, which adjoins the Chamizal tract, to the Gulf of Mexico (excepting the canyon region), has been traversed by the riversince 1852 in its unending lateral movement, and the mass, if not all of that land, is the product of similar erosion to that which occurred at El Chamizal, and by the new interpretation which is now placed upon the Convention of 1884 by the majority of this Commission, not only is the entire boundary thrown into well-nigh inextricable confusion, but the very treaty itself is subjected to an interpretation that makes its application impossible in practice in all cases where an erosive movement is in question.

"The Convention of 1910 sets forth that the United States and Mexico, 'desiring to terminate * * * the differences which have arisen between the two countries,' have determined to refer these differences to this Commission enlarged for this purpose. The present decision terminates nothing; settles nothing. It is simply an invitation for international litigation. It breathes the spirit of unconscious but nevertheless unauthorized compromise rather than of judicial determination."

Of course, I dissented from the award. When the award and the opinions of the three Commissioners were presented at the final session of the Commission, the United States agent made a formal protest on substantially the same grounds I had taken. My dissenting opinion and the protest of the American agent were sustained by the Department of State and the United States has declined to admit the validity of the award. The whole matter has therefore become the subject of diplomatic negotiations, which it is believed are progressing satisfactorily.

It is as much to the interest of Mexico as of the United States to reach an arrangement whereby the Chamizal tract divided from Mexico by the channel of the Rio Grande as it now runs, shall be definitively admitted to be American territory, because it forms an integral part of El Paso, upon which thousands of citizens have their homes.

During my service as Commissioner, Mexico was represented by four Commissioners: Mr. Canalizo, whose death hasalready been noted; Mr. Osorno, who participated in the first trial of the Chamizal case, and who subsequently resigned; Mr. Jacobo Blanco, who died after serving seven years, and Mr. Fernando Beltran y Puga, who sat at the second trial of the Chamizal case and remained with the Commission until our activity was suspended and he removed from office by the Madero government, leaving me the sole survivor of the four Mexican Commissioners.

These gentlemen were all equal in legal and judicial attainments to similar officials of our own government. They sought always to attain righteous decisions, and I think succeeded in the many cases that came before us.

Of my associates on the American section of the Commission, Messrs. J. A. Happer and Wilbur Keblinger, Secretaries, and P. D. Cunningham and W. W. Follett, Consulting Engineers, deserve special mention. Mr. Cunningham unfortunately lost his life in the service of the Commission through the overturning of his boat in the rapids of the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass in July, 1901. Messrs. Happer, Keblinger and Follett rendered invaluable service during many years, Mr. Follett in spite of a painful illness which would have incapacitated most men for work. Mr. Happer resigned to go into business in El Paso, where he has become a leading citizen. Mr. Follett died shortly after retiring from the Commission. Mr. Keblinger is serving with distinction as United States Consul at Malta.

Our proceedings were published in both languages, and the evidence, maps, plans and monuments were explained not only in scientific but in popular language, so that officials, surveyors, lawyers and judges of each country could readily understand the location of the boundary. (See Volumes 1 and 2, Proceedings Boundary Commission, Treaties of 1884 and 1889, and Equitable Distribution of the Waters of the Rio Grande, Roma to the Gulf, reports and maps, and many other reports on the same subject.)

I have presented copies of all my printed reports and mapsand all proceedings published by both governments with respect to the Chamizal Arbitration, to the El Paso Carnegie Library, together with many reports and maps of the Barlow Commission and the Emory Survey, with the understanding that they will be kept as reference books subject to the examination of all interested.

During the sixteen years of our active service (the revolution in Mexico in 1911 having put an end to our activities), the Commission tried over one hundred cases of all kinds, disagreeing only in the Chamizal case, and preserved the peace and quiet of the entire Rio Grande border for these long years to the satisfaction of both governments and the people of the two nations.

Late Saturday afternoon, January 31, 1914, without any previous warning, I received by messenger a letter from Mr. Bryan, the Secretary of State, peremptorily dismissing Mr. Wilbur Keblinger, the Secretary of the American Section of the Commission, and appointing as his successor John Wesley Gaines, a discarded member of Congress, the bare mention of whose name to his former colleagues proved "a source of innocent merriment."

Mr. Gaines presented his appointment as secretary to me on Monday morning, stating he had been appointed associate Mexican boundary commissioner with me, and that he had been directed by Mr. Bryan to act as chairman.

He suggested I turn my books over to him, after the manner of a policeman who seizes a suspected culprit in the hope of finding stolen goods in his possession.

I informed Mr. Gaines that, while I recognized the legality of his appointment as secretary, I had theretofore been allowed to choose the American secretary of the Commission. As I had not asked for him, I told him he could go home and I would send for him when I wanted him in that capacity. I would not acknowledge him as an associate commissioner, as I was the only commissioner authorized by treaty, and told him he could inform the Secretary of State I would have nothingto do with him in that connection or his attempted authority over me as chairman.

Mr. Keblinger and I had already been summoned to appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House at ten a.m. that day. I telephoned the Secretary of State for permission to take Mr. Keblinger with me as the official secretary. Mr. Bryan sent for me (it was the first time I ever saw him) and stated that there was no objection to my taking Mr. Keblinger as an individual, but I could not take him in an official capacity. I protested he had always appeared with me and greatly assisted me in my explanations to the committee; he was an honorable man and I felt the Secretary could not be aware of the great injustice he had done him. I told Mr. Bryan that Keblinger was too proud to appear voluntarily while under such unjust humiliation.

Finally the Secretary announced he might go with me temporarily in an official capacity. He turned upon me, and, "by questions dark and riddles high," charged me with prostituting my high public trust for purposes of private gain.

I told him I had served my government for fifty years as an army officer and in various capacities and in different departments of the government, and under eight of his successive predecessors in office—Secretaries Gresham, Olney, Sherman, Day, Hay, Bacon and Knox—without ever receiving from any one such language, and that I would not submit without resenting it. I invited him to put his best sleuths on my trail. While I was anxious to separate myself from official connection with him, I had been taught in the army it was not honorable to resign under charges. I told him I would not resign until he was able to state that his investigation found nothing wrong in my twenty years' administration under the State Department. I did not believe he could induce the President to dismiss me, and I told him I believed he had been deceived by such men as Dr. Boyd, who, during the administration of nearly all of his eight immediate predecessors had persistently made charges against me verbally, in writing and in publishedpamphlets. None of the Secretaries under whom I had served had thought it worth while even to notify me officially of these charges. I only learned about them in detail during the latter part of Secretary Knox's administration, when I found Dr. Boyd had several times been investigated by competent officers of the Department. Chief Wilkie, of the Secret Service, had reported him a dangerous man, when he had threatened in writing to horsewhip Secretary Hay. Thereafter he was denied the privilege of personal conferences with the Department.

Notwithstanding these explanations, Mr. Bryan appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee, with Mr. Gaines, on the 5th. After a two days' hearing, in which I was questioned and cross-questioned regarding all my transactions for twenty years as Commissioner, my hearing closed with the following, which is quoted from the official report of the hearing:

"Gen. Mills: Mr. Chairman, I crave about three minutes, in which I hope to clarify this whole subject.

"I have met you here for the last twenty years. I have met also the committee in the Senate. And I have always been treated with such courteous consideration by the Department of State that I was encouraged to believe that my work was satisfactory, and it was desired that I should continue, especially so as after about sixteen years' service I was selected without solicitation by the Department as a member of a high commission to arbitrate the Chamizal case, and also that my dissenting opinion from a majority of the judges in that case was approved by the Department and by the President in his message, and I believe it is still maintained by the Department that kept me here. Had I considered my own personal convenience I would have resigned long ago. For obvious reasons I intend now to separate myself, if I can do so with honor, from this commission, and shall not have the personal pleasure of meeting you again. I thank you very kindly personally, and as I can not anticipate or hope to meet you again officially, I bid you adieu.

"The Chairman: Gen. Mills, I want to say for the committee that nothing has been done or said by the committee to tend to reflect upon either the character of your work or your intentions in disbursing the funds in your hands.

"Gen. Mills: I appreciate that, sir.

"The Chairman: We all realize that you have done a valuable work down there, and you have done it splendidly, but certain matters developed here that we were not aware of, and that you had been led into by the State Department, and we thought it our duty to investigate them and right them, and no reflection was intended upon you or Mr. Keblinger.

"Gen. Mills: Mr. Chairman, I want to say to one and all of you that I have been treated with the utmost fairness in all of my intercourse. My troubles are not here, but in another direction." (See printed report of the committee, containing sixty-five pages.)

Notwithstanding this absolute acquittal by an American jury—there were twelve members of the committee present, all intensely interested—Dr. Boyd's old charges, rehabilitated by Mr. Bryan's apparent support, led Senator Thomas, of Colorado, to deliver a two days' speech on the floor of the Senate. (See Congressional Record of March 23 and 24, pages 5984 to 6006, inclusive.) He mentioned my name fifty-two times, including such references as "this man Mills," charging me with the most disgraceful conduct with which an American officer can be charged. Called to my attention several days after its delivery, I brought it to Senator Root's notice, asking him to confer with Senator Thomas and see if an amicable adjustment could not be had by Senator Root's explaining I had served under him while he was Secretary of State, and could not be guilty of such misconduct.

Senator Thomas stated he had his information from reliable authority, whereupon Senator Root had my rejoinder published in the Congressional Record. (See pages 13424 to 13426, inclusive, of the Record of July 18, 1914.)

Mr. Thomas replied on the floor of the Senate (see Record,July 20, pages 13479 to 13480, inclusive), admitting he obtained much of his information from Dr. Boyd. He added, "My information comes, however, from the State Department and, until I am satisfied of its incorrectness, I shall insist that my statements are in accord with the facts."

I asked the State Department what their records showed upon the point in question. The matter was handled in the Department by the Honorable John E. Osborne, Assistant Secretary of State. He could have informed himself by a telephone conversation with an accounting officer of the Department. But he referred my letter to Mr. Gaines, who was absent. Followed delay, evasion, equivocation and confusion of the issue, the giving of unsought information about matters not in dispute, and withholding information needed for my defense, which it was the duty of the Department to give.

When finally cornered, after a four months' correspondence, Mr. Osborne wrote me the Department did not know the source of Senator Thomas' information. Mr. Osborne may have deceived himself into thinking that there was technical justification for his statements, but no one who reads the correspondence can have any more doubt as to the real situation than Senator Thomas, or as to the complicity of State Department officials in Senator Thomas' attack upon me.

When I sent the correspondence to the Senator he wrote me as honorable a letter of apology as could be expected, doing his best to let the State Department down easy, presented all the correspondence upon the floor of the Senate and asked for its publication, which will be found on pages 272 to 275, inclusive, of the Record of December 16, 1914.

I cheerfully acquit the Senator of everything except bad judgment. He felt justified by the information he received from officers of the Department to which he, perhaps not unnaturally, gave a credence proportionate to their official status rather than to their actual knowledge.

Mr. Bryan, however, has never offered any explanation. Iam reconciled to the situation, believing he could write me nothing I would value in that connection.

The President accepted my resignation on June 24th, to take effect July 1st, on the conditions I stated, that the Department had found no evidence of neglect or wrong-doing on my part.

The President soon restored Mr. Keblinger to official favor. He suspended the regulations governing the Consular Service by executive order, in order to appoint this man, whom Secretary Bryan had summarily dismissed for alleged cause, as United States Consul at Malta, where he is serving with distinction, and where he was recently promoted. His defamers, Bryan, Osborne and Gaines, have returned, voluntarily or otherwise, to private life, while the Department of State is once more in the hands of gentlemen qualified by their training and ability to guide the foreign affairs of a great nation.

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