Madera Americans Safe.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 25, 1913:
Six Families, Consul Reports, Are on Way to El Paso.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, July 24.— The acute situation at Madera, State of Chihuahua, Mexico, where fourteen families of Americans were said to be huddled in one room under siege by Mexican bandits bent on killing them in revenge for the shooting of two brigands by American cowboys, was relieved to-day by full advices from Consul Letcher in Chihuahua and Consul Edwards in El Paso. The Americans are on their way to the United States. At least six families from Madera are in the party. They are traveling to El Paso without molestation.
    Consul Edwards reported to the State Department that these six families were the only Americans supposed to have been in Madera last Sunday, when the story went out of the prospect of a massacre there. These persons were connected with the Madera Lumbering Company. They had plenty of food, rifles and ammunition. Railroad officials said there was a locomotive in Madera, with plenty of box cars, which the Americans could have used. For fully seventy miles to the north the road was in operating condition. There also was a power handcar which could have been used to escape.
    Mr. Edwards added that Gen. Villa, the Constitutionalist commander, proffered his services to protect any Americans in danger within reach of his troops. He has 1,200 men and is in control of the country from the border to Pearson, embracing the greater part of the Casas Grandes Valley. That reaches to within 100 miles of Madera. Gen. Villa offered to send a party there. Officials of the lumber company telegraphed to Consul Edwards and Gen. Villa that they did not consider it necessary.
    Consul Letcher reported Madera had been cut off from Chihuahua City since July 13, the day the Federal troops retired. There was no reason to believe, he said, that the Americans in Madera were in particular danger. There also was a dispatch from the Huerta Government saying the Federal commander would aid the party in Madera.
    Representative Smith of Texas urged the State and War Departments to-day to turn over to the Mexican Government commander at Juarez the 300 fugitives from Gen. Ojeda's Federals held in El Paso. Mr. Smith contended the prisoners were a burden on the American people and were not guilty of crime. The War Department is willing to send the prisoners to Galveston and put them aboard a Mexican ship if one turns up, as agreed, but it is not willing to set them free on the frontier. It was suggested to Representative Smith that a compromise might be arranged whereby the 300 Mexican warriors would be taken into the South Texas cotton fields and turned loose on condition that they hire out as farmhands to help pick this year's bumper cotton crop.