Envoy Submits Report.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 27, 1913:
Ambassador Wilson Told by Bryan to Write Facts on Mexico.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, July 26.— As far as outward appearances go, conferences today between Secretary Bryan and Henry Lane Wilson, the American Ambassador to Mexico, who arrived in New York yesterday and reached Washington this morning, have not produced any change in the Mexican situation. Mr. Bryan and Mr. Wilson had two conversations, but in neither of them was Mr. Wilson consulted as to remedies for bringing to an end the deplorable conditions in the southern republic. Nor was the Ambassador asked by the Secretary of State to explain any charges as to his official and personal conduct when serving as the American diplomatic representative in Mexico City.
    All that Mr. Wilson had to tell Mr. Bryan was in the line of information as to conditions in Mexico. The Ambassador was not asked to give his views as to mediation or intervention or any other course of action that had been suggested for this Government to pursue. At Mr. Bryan's request Mr. Wilson prepared a historical review of conditions in Mexico since the end of the Diaz regime. This was presented to President Wilson to-night, and will form the basis of a conference between the President, the Secretary of State, and the Ambassador on Monday.
    Ambassador Wilson did not see the President to-day, and will not see him to-morrow. It is doubtful, also, that he will have a Sunday conference with Secretary Bryan.

Wilson Says Huerta Rules.
    Mr. Bryan got information from the Ambassador that was at variance with the view commonly held here that the Huerta Government controlled only Mexico City and its vicinity and a few other districts in the country. Mr. Wilson told the Secretary of State that the Huerta Administration controlled practically all of Mexico, with the exception of two or three States. He said the only real revolution was in the State of Sonora and that the so-called revolutionary army elsewhere was composed of bodies of bandits without any regular leader in a position to show his authority.
    Coincident with the arrival of Ambassador Wilson in Washington there came to the capital another man fresh from Mexico, who, like the Ambassador, had two conferences with the Secretary of State. This man is Francisco Del Valle, of Los Angeles, formerly a State Senator of California, who had been in Mexico for the last two months..
    It had been reported that Mr. Del Valle was in Mexico on a confidential mission for President Wilson and Secretary Bryan. Although both Mr. Bryan and Mr. Del Valle declined to confirm or deny that report, it was made apparent to-day that Mr. Del Valle had been investigating affairs in Mexico at the instance of the State Department, and that in a measure he exercised the functions of a Special Ambassador. The apparent purpose in sending him to Mexico was to ascertain whether the military and political situation in the republic was as had been represented by Ambassador Wilson and the United States Consuls.
    Though Mr. Del Valle is reported to have recommended that Mr. Wilson should be withdrawn as the American Ambassador in Mexico City, it was brought out strikingly to-day that the views of Mr. Del Valle coincided to a marked degree with those of the Ambassador as to what the Mexican situation was. They agreed that the only revolutionary movement worthy of the name existed in the State of Sonora; that there was no substantial leadership of the Constitutionalists forces outside of Sonora, and that most of the so-called revolutionary army was composed of separate bodies of men that practically were nothing more than bandits.

Hastens to See Bryan.
    Going to the State Department a couple of hours after he alighted from the train on which he left New York shortly after midnight, Ambassador Wilson had a conference with Secretary Bryan that lasted less than an hour. It was in that conference that Mr. Bryan requested the Ambassador to put into writing a resumé of what had occurred in Mexico since Porfirio Diaz passed from power. Mr. Wilson remained at the State Department for four hours, dictating that statement to Robert F. Rose, who has done confidential stenographic work for Secretary Bryan since 1896. The Ambassador returned to the State Department in the afternoon and had a talk with Mr. Bryan that lasted two hours. There was brief mention of the Mexican situation in the hearing given to Secretary Bryan by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, but nothing important was suggested or decided on. Mr. Bryan went before the committee to explain the proposed treaty providing for an American protectorate over Nicaragua. When he was there the subject of Mexico was brought up. As an outcome of a little discussion in which Mr. Bryan participated, the members of the committee agreed there should be no repeal of the joint resolution of Congress adopted on March 14, 1912, that gave to the President of the United States the right to prohibit the shipment of arms and other munitions of war to any American country where conditions of domestic violence existed that were promoted by the use of war material procured from the United States. It was decided that to repeal that resolution, as had been suggested, might embarrass President Wilson in dealing with the Mexican situation. Altogether, the opinion of the committee was that the President would be in a much stronger position through having at his command the authority which the resolution conveyed.
    The committee did not discuss with Mr. Bryan the suggestion of President Wilson that an effort should be made to bring about an ending of Mexico's troubles through mediation.
    "I stand by what I have said in regard to the Mexican situation, except in so far as it has changed through changing conditions," said Ambassador Wilson to the Times correspondent. "I have nothing to go back on. I am standing pat. I nave not changed my mind in any particular. I still insist that President Huerta controls all of Mexico except two or three states. The only real revolution is in the State of Sonora, where the Constitutionalists control and are standing on the issue of State's rights. Elsewhere the revolutionary forces are practically composed of bandits.

Calls Carranza's Men Bandits.
    "I do not say that Gov. Carranza is a bandit. In fact, I have asserted emphatically that he was not a bandit. But I do say that his followers are pursuing a banditti warfare with the consent of their leaders."
    To Mr. Wilson was shown a newspaper statement in which he was quoted practically as given above, and in addition was made to say things that were not complimentary to the Mexican revolutionary cause. "That is about right," he said. The statement which .Mr. Wilson thus confirmed read as follows, after a reference to his assertion that Carranza's followers were pursuing a banditti warfare with the consent of their leaders: That is the only way these revolutions are kept going. If you say to a Mexican: "Come, fight for the honor of your country," they would not come, but if they say: "Come, here are stores to loot, women to ravish, food, and drink to be had," they gather a great force. Mr. Wilson said he wished to correct a statement attributed to him yesterday that he had asserted the suggestion of mediating the differences between the Mexican factions was rot.
    "I did not say that," he stated. "When I was discussing mediation in New York yesterday, somebody in the crowd said, 'Then it's a lot of bally rot,' but I did not indicate that I agreed with that assertion. What I do say about the suggestion of mediation is that it would have no force unless it came from the President of the United States. I had never heard of this mediation suggestion until I got to New York yesterday, and at that time I supposed it was a revival of the proposal made last February by John Barrett, the Director of the Pan-American Union, :hat mediation should be attempted in several of the American republics. Mr. Barrett is my personal friend, and I would not reflect on anything he proposed, but I did not agree with that suggestion. If the President proposes mediation, that is a matter which would carry considerable force and must receive careful and respectful consideration.

Thinks Mediation Is Dangerous.
    "I cannot discuss the question of mediation, except to say that it is believed to be impracticable in Mexico, and I feel sure that the Huerta Government would not receive a suggestion of mediation from the United States. I do not know what the President's views are on the subject. Until I know them I should not be able to form any opinion, except that in a general way such a proposition is dangerous, unless it is put forth by the President himself. Mediation would not be understood easily by either side in the Mexican troubles,
    "There was no discussion between Secretary Bryan and myself as to any charges against me. Of course not, for the reason that there are no such charges. Nothing whatever in the way of any formal allegation against me has been filed with the State Department. And there will not be.
    "Oh, yes, I believe it is true that some persons have written to the department that they had heard thus and so, but not one of them was able to make any charge on his own authority or the authority of anything except a lot of idle gossip. I resent any statement that I am to be interrogated, while I am in Washington, about my personal affairs."
    Mr. Wilson was asked what he knew of the mission of Mr. Del Valle to Mexico. He indicated that, although he had received the greatest consideration from President Wilson and Secretary Bryan in all other things, he felt he had not been treated fairly by the Administration in having Mr. Del Valle and William Bayard Hale, the magazine and newspaper writer, send reports as to conditions in the southern country.
    "One of these gentlemen, I am told," said the Ambassador, "had a copy of the secret cipher book of the State Department. It has been reported that I said I knew one of them possessed the secret code because he had asked the Secretary of the American Embassy in Mexico to assist him in its use I never said that. What I did say was that I had been told by a Secretary of Legation not in Mexico that Mr. Del Valle had asked him for assistance in connection with the use of the code.
    "I do not care to comment on the matter. Certainly. I would not comment on it in a way that might be taken as criticism by Mr. Bryan, who is my friend and who has treated me with the greatest courtesy and consideration. Mr. Del. Valle, who made the trip on the same steamer with me to New York, Is a very fine fellow, a very agreeable man.

Ready to Return to Mexico.
    "As to my movements in the future, I know nothing. If the President desires that I do so. I shall be able to start back for Mexico on Thursday.
    "Now, there is one thing attributed to me that I wish you would correct," the Ambassador continued. "It was reported here to-day that I had said jokingly that I would certainly hurry through with my business here, because I understand that my presence in Washington was costing Mr. Bryan $2,000 a day in the loss of lecture engagements. I didn't say anything of that sort, and would not say it."
    The attention of Mr. Wilson was called to the fact that reports from Mexico did not agree with his statements as to the dominance of the Huerta Government and the condition of the revolutionary forces.
    "Well," he said, "you know as well as I do that there is a very active and well-paid bureau here in Washington that is disseminating these reports of successes of the Constitutionalists."
    "But how do they have their reports sent from Mexico?" the Ambassador was asked.
    "Oh, you know it is easy to prepare statements in one place and date them from another." he replied.
    Mr. Wilson declined to discuss the statements he was reported to have made in New York yesterday with regard to the charge by Mrs. Francisco I. Madero, widow of the deposed and slain President of Mexico, that the Ambassador could have prevented her husband's assassination.
    "I will not engage in a controversy with a woman," he explained. "The best answer to what Mrs. Madero is alleged to have said about me is that I have a letter from Mrs. Suarez, the widow of the Vice President of Mexico, who was killed with President Madero, thanking me for the efforts I had made in behalf of her husband."
    "Do you think the situation in Mexico at this time is critical?" was asked of the Ambassador.
    "I would not say critical," answered Mr. Wilson, with a little hesitation, "but I regard it as very serious — very grave. The economic crisis and not the revolutionary movement is the important thing in Mexico now."

Pleased with Bryan Talks.
    The Ambassador said after each of his interviews with Secretary Bryan that he had been treated with the greatest courtesy and consideration by the Secretary of State.
    "I have heard that Mr. Bryan is not popular in certain places," said Mr. Wilson, "but I want to say that I found him to be a man of broad views — an open-minded man who had not reached conclusions before he had the facts.
    "He did not say 'I know all about this' or 'I have made up my mind on that,' but listened attentively to all that I had to say and showed in every way that he was anxious to obtain my views of the situation. I found him most agreeable."
    Although reticence was preserved by both the participants in the two Bryan-Wilson conferences, it was the understanding in Administration circles tonight that the Ambassador had painted a picture of economic conditions in Mexico that was little short of startling. Foreign exchange there, he said, was quoted at $2.40, which made it impossible to do business. The Banco Central, the bank of issue of the country, was in a bad way and likely to go under at any moment.
    The National Railways, not a Mexican institution, but financed, by foreign capital, had had a deficit for four months. The loss to French investors in the last sixty days through depreciation of property, was estimated at 500,000,000 pesos, or $250,000,000 gold.
    About 25 per cent. of the arable area of the country had not been put into crops, and the Government had had a deficit every month for the last nine months.
    It was said that in his talks with Secretary Bryan and in the report which he prepared for President Wilson this afternoon the Ambassador, in addition to making known the deplorable economic conditions of Mexico, backed up all he had said in regard to the strength of the Huerta Government and the alleged futility of the revolutionary movement in every part of Mexico except in the State of Sonora, where Gov. Pesquiera was in complete control. As to the American property losses, it was asserted that the American mining and smelting interests alone were losing a million dollars a day. All American industries in Mexico were reported to be shut down.

The Anti-American Feeling.
    Mr. Wilson, it was said, reported that the feeling against Americans in Mexico largely was artificial, but efforts to engender it had been made by most of the factions involved in the present revolutionary disturbances.
    The report of the Ambassador, which he dictated largely from memory between 10 o'clock this morning and 2 o'clock this afternoon, was said to be a remarkable summary of his previous reports and to contain a mine of information about every condition on which President Wilson desired light— physical, military, political, and economic.
    After his second conference with the Ambassador, Secretary Bryan said it had been most satisfactory in the respect that it had given him a vast amount of information. As to whether it yielded a more hopeful outlook of the course that might be pursued by the United States to end the perturbed situation in the southern republic, Mr. Bryan declined to express an opinion.
    He would not say whether he felt encouraged and he explained that his reticence was due to a fear that what he said might give rise to apprehension on the part of the Provisional President and the Republic of Mexico. He was willing to say that progress had been made toward the formation of a policy through his conferences with the Ambassador.
    Mr. Bryan was unwilling to tell whether the idea of mediation seemed to be indicated as the one that promised the best assurance of a successful result, or whether the Ambassador's disclosures had suggested any other plan of action.
    Of the two visits of Mr. Del .Valle to the State Department to-day Mr. Bryan would say nothing. He admitted that he had known Mr. Del Valle long enough to be well acquainted with him, and added that he had confidence in him. Mr. Bryan's answer to a question whether Mr. Del Valle was in possession of a State Department secret code book when in Mexico was that he was not prepared to speak on that subject. The conclusions that might he reached after the conference among President Wilson, Ambassador Wilson, and himself, said Mr. Bryan, would not rest exclusively on the statements made or to be made as to conditions in Mexico by the Ambassador. Representations that had come to the President and to the Secretary from other and all trustworthy sources no doubt would have their proper weight in the consideration of the whole subject, he added.

Bryan's Plans Uncertain.
    When asked if he would leave Washington on Wednesday to resume his lecture engagements, Mr. Bryan said he expected to remain here until the early part of next week, at least, and further than that he could not tell what his programme would be. He added, however, that he had no present purpose to leave Washington on Wednesday. It was his understanding, he said, that there would be no conference either in the White House or the State Department with Ambassador Wilson to-morrow, but that on Monday the Ambassador would meet the President.
    With reference to the statements purporting to have been made by Ambassador Wilson that Mrs. Madero, to injure him, had published or caused to be published letters that were forgeries and that the Madero family was maintaining a paid bureau in the United States to give publicity to false statements respecting conditions in Mexico, Manuel Perez Romero, confidential agent in Washington of the Constitutional Government, issued this evening the following:
    1. Mrs. Madero has never published nor caused to be published any letters relating to Henry Lane Wilson, and is at a complete loss to know to what Mr. Wilson refers in the singular interviews with him that have appeared in the press.
    2. The Madero family have contributed no funds whatsoever for the purpose of maintaining a bureau or agency of any kind for the purpose of procuring the publication of information relative to the situation in Mexico, political or otherwise.
    3. Perez Romero is a brother of Mrs. Madero and speaks from personal knowledge.

Del Valle Preparing Report.
    Mr. Del Valle is preparing a statement of his observations in Mexico, but he declined to say whether it was for the benefit of the Administration, although there seems to be no doubt that it was at Mr. Bryan's request Mr. Del Valle agreed to prepare a report.
    When the attention of Mr. Del Valle was called to a statement of Ambassador Wilson that he had been told Mr. Del Valle and William Bayard Hale possessed copies of the secret code book of the State Department, the Californian shrugged his shoulders and smiled before replying. Mr. Wilson had been quoted as saying he had been informed that one of the two men named had sought assistance in the use of the code from a Secretary of an American Embassy in Mexico City.
    That statement, also, was mentioned to Mr. Del Valle.
    "I do not care to comment in any way on what the Ambassador is reported to have said in that connection," Mr. Del Valle answered. "I will say, however, that I did not seek any assistance of any kind from the American Embassy in Mexico City or anybody connected with it, except that I requested the Embassy to forward some letters for me which it was better able to do than I."
    It was Mr. Del Valle, Mr. Wilson said later in the day, who had been named by his informant as the man who possessed the code book.
    "I have nothing whatever to say as to whether I was sent to Mexico as an agent of the President or the Secretary of State," continued Mr. Del Valle. "I went there in what might be called an individual capacity, in order to ascertain things, and I did not go there for pleasure.
    "I cannot talk at this time about my mission to Mexico — that is, as to the purposes of my going there. Whether I shall tell about it later is dependent on another person, whose permission I must obtain first before talking freely.

Has Campaigned for Bryan.
    "I have not had a close acquaintance with Secretary Bryan," said Mr. Del Valle, in response to a question, "but I have been campaigning for him for the last fifteen years. I had met him occasionally, and I saw him in Washington four months ago, when I came here in behalf of my candidacy for appointment as Ambassador to Mexico.
    "In my visit to the country I was in Mexico City and through the whole northern part of Mexico. I talked to at least a thousand persons there and have very full notes of what they told me. Many of the stories that come from Mexico about conditions there are exaggerations. That is particularly true of reports about anti-American demonstrations. I saw one of these so-called demonstrations from my hotel window. It was participated in by about 200 persons, and at least 100 of them were bootblacks and newsboys.
    "But nevertheless Americans in Mexico City are absolutely terrorized. They are afraid that there may be an outbreak against them at any minute. I talked with many of them and felt deeply sorry for them. They were glad to talk with, me as a fellow American and they gave me much information. The whole time I was in Mexico City I saw people from the moment I got up in the morning until I went to bed at night. Even while I was in my bath they interviewed me."
    Mr. Del Valle declined to talk about the condition of the Huerta Government. He spoke more freely in regard to the situation in the northern States of Mexico, where the Constitutionalists or revolutionists are supposed to be in control.
    "The only Mexican State that has a real Constitutionalist Government is Sonora," he said. "Gov. Pesquiera is in complete control of the situation there and has established order. There is no substantial leadership elsewhere among the Constitutionalist forces. This statement applies to Carranza. The revolutionary forces are made up of bands of from 75 to 100 men and are not united under one leader.

Facts Just Rolled in on Him.
    "I was fortunate while I was in Mexico in getting just the information I desired. It seemed to happen always that whenever I needed information along a certain line the very person who was in a position to give it to me would turn up and tell me exactly what I wanted to know. There was certain information of a particular sort that I desired to obtain in Mexico, but was unsuccessful. However, it turned out that I met on the steamer, returning to the United States, the very man who was in a position to give it to me. He talked freely to me, and here you see that I have no less than fifteen pages of notes of what he told me in this little note book.
    "There is no doubt that conditions in Mexico are deplorable. American interests have been injured severely. It is a pity that such a wonderful country cannot enjoy the prosperity to which it is entitled. As I passed through it I was struck by its beauty and fertility. It is a bountiful land and needs only American enterprise to make it wealthy and happy.
    Mr. Del Valle admitted this evening after a second interview with Secretary Bryan that he had been sending reports to Washington from all over Mexico for the last two months, but he wouldn't say to whom be had been sending them. In this connection it is known that President Wilson received Mr. Del Valle's reports through another person, supposedly Mr. Bryan.