Will Warn Mexico, Won't Intervene.

New York Times 100 years ago today, December 21, 1912:
Taft Will Not Yield to Jingoes, but Will Send Firm Demand to Madero.
NEUTRALITY LAWS IMPOTENT
President May Recommend Revision — Arrests of Suspects May Be Unconstitutional.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, Dec. 20.— The jingo element in this country is again demanding interference in Mexico. The opportunity came with the fact that President Taft, Secretary Knox, and Henry Lane Wilson, Ambassador to Mexico, held a conference yesterday afternoon to consider the relations between the two countries. The prolonged state of disorder in the Northern States of Mexico, the continuing practice of outlaws and so-called revolutionists in seizing citizens of the United States living in Mexico and occupied as mining or ranch Superintendents, for ransom, and the constantly increasing number of Mexican suspects that are being arrested in the United States and confined in jail under the new interpretation of the neutrality sections of the penal code, all combined to emphasize the necessity of more decisive action than has hitherto been taken to put an end to the annoying condition of affairs along the international boundary.
    The reply given by the Mexican Government to the diplomatic representations made last September, is not satisfactory to this Government, and the conference yesterday was for the purpose of considering the situation and deciding the next step to be taken to impress on the Madero Administration the imperative necessity of restoring order in Northern Mexico. A note in reply to the last note from Mexico is now being prepared at the State Department. This note will make it more than ever clear to President Madero that the United States expects his Administration to take such steps as may suggest themselves to place enough troops in the area of outlawry to cope with the bandits and self-styled rebels and maintain order and bring about a cessation of the conditions that make it necessary for the United States Government to keep a strong patrol for several hundred miles along the Mexican boundary.
    The latest phase of the agitation for ending the revolution appeared in a demand made about two weeks ago by a Western Senator that the President should remove the border patrol and allow all arms and munitions of war to go into Mexico freely, in order that the revolutionists and the Government forces might fight out their contest to a finish, and one side or the other in the survival have the power to maintain order and afford protection to foreigners. This demand was not entertained for a moment by President Taft or his Cabinet as it was diametrically opposed to the policy to which they have been firmly adhering for the past two years.
    The latest report connected with these wild efforts at interference imputes to the President the intention of making the note that is now being prepared to the Madero Government an ultimatum which, if not satisfactorily answered and complied with, will be followed by a message to Congress setting forth the aggravating conditions that prevail along the international border and in Mexican territory and urging action by Congress to afford relief; the inference being that Congress will declare in favor of interference, which, of course, would mean war with Mexico, This report was denied at the State Department to-day.
    There is some ground for the expectation that, instead of sending a message to Congress likely to lead to intervention, the President will ask Congress to legislate in such a manner that it will be possible for the Executive to enforce neutrality along the border. The neutrality laws as they now stand were made over a century ago and apply to the seaboard and the practice common many years ago of fitting out filibustering expeditions for operations in Mexico and Central America. As applied to the conditions that now prevail in the Southwest, they are wholly ineffective, and it has been found necessary to interpret the penal code in such a way as to give the President power, as the commander-in-chief of the military forces of the United States, to apprehend Mexican suspects found on United States territory and put them in jail on the suspicion that they may undertake in the United States to organize revolutionary operations against the Mexican Government
    There are now in the jails of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico upward of 100 such suspects held under the military law. Arrests of such men have been made not without misgivings as to their constitutionality, and with the expectation that sooner or later, the questions involved will be taken to the Supreme Court with the probability that they will there be declared to be without sanction of law.
    This phase of the international conundrum with which the Government has been dealing will be the subject of the President's message to Congress rather than a recommendation for interference in Mexico. That Mr. Taft has for a moment given thought to the suggestion of leaving such a legacy to his successor, as is implied in the latest report, was most positively denied here to-day, and it is wholly inconsistent with the entire policy of the Administration from the beginning of the trouble in Mexico. At the same time it is the conviction of the President and Secretary Knox that the Madero Government has been lax in its efforts to maintain order along the international boundary and in the Northern States of Mexico, and wherever there are American investments in Mexico, and a firm and compelling demand will be made upon Madero to meet once for all the responsibilities that rest upon him and his Administration.