Americans Cry For Help.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 29, 1912:
Appeal Contains News of the Killing of a German.
    WASHINGTON, Aug. 28.— Grave concern over the situation in Nicaragua was expressed at the State Department to-day following the ordering of the Tenth Infantry to the unsettled Central American republic.
    A single direct dispatch from Nicaragua told of a serious situation in Matagalpas. The dispatch was sent by 125 Americans, and told of the killing of a German named Neilson, and appealed to the State Department for immediate protection. Lack of further dispatches from Nicaragua was a source of anxiety to the department.
    Prompted by the order sending infantry to Nicaragua, the revolutionary junta here to-day made an effort to open negotiations with the State Department with the object of ending hostilities. Angel Ugarte of the junta sought an interview with William T. S. Doyle, Chief of the Division of Latin-American Affairs in the department, to submit a proposal for the withdrawal of American troops and the submission of the issues of the revolution to an election. Mr. Doyle declined to receive Ugarte officially and advised him to submit any of his proposals through Señor Castrillo, the Nicaraguan Minister.
    A general Central American outbreak as a result of the Nicaraguan situation entered into the fears of the department tonight. A belated dispatch from Minister Weitzel refers to an irruption of refugees of the lato Zelayan régime from Honduras into Nicaragua. This was taken by the department to presage a widening of revolutionary operations, which might become general in Central America.
    Allegations of conditions bordering on barbarism. and acts even worse than those which took the troops of the united powers into China to quell the boxer rebellion, have been received at the State Department within the last twenty-four hours. The deliberate murder of two Americans, Dodd and Phillips, after they had been wounded and were helpless, following the massacre at Leon on Aug. 19, focused attention on the previous reports of burning soldiers, starvation of political prisoners held in dungeons and other alleged acts of cruelty
    Gen. Francisco Altschul, the representative of the revolutionist junta in Washington, denies the charges of barbarity brought against troops fighting the Nicaraguan Government. He alleges that the burning of bodies of soldiers was necessary to proper sanitation, and that it applied alike to the dead of both sides. He contends also that the American interests would not have suffered if no attempt had been made by American forces to prevent the capture and operation by the revolutionists of the railway between Managua and Corinto.
    The junta asserts that the railroad is a national institution and should not be classed as American property, except as it is being administered by Americans to obtain a loan by New York bankers.
    Reports that women were shot are condemned emphatically by Gen. Altschul, who says that the barbarous methods were employed by the Government forces when women were sent to the lines as ammunition carriers.
    Rebels firing upon flags of truce borne by loyal Nicaraguan troops as well as American marines is said to have been frequent within the last few days. New attacks upon women and children and other non-combatants are reported. In the rebel shelling of Managua during the first days of the revolution, American Minister Weitzel reported that the firing had been indiscriminate upon the section of the city occupied by the non-combatants, and that an American Collector of Customs, named Hamm, and several other Americans narrowly escaped injury by bursting shells.
    It is said there are fully 100 Americans owning plantations in Nicaragua who must be protected from attack and looting of their properties. Many demands that this Government protect American interests there have been registered at the State Department. A large number of New Orleans merchants, having Central American interests, only a few days ago went so far as to protest to the department against the attitude of Senator Bacon. They declared American prestige in Central America would suffer immeasurably if this Government failed to protect its citizens and their property. They even predicted the spread of the unrest through other Central American States if the situation were not promptly taken in hand.
    Senator Bacon virtually charged on the floor of the Senate that this Government's interference in Nicaragua had a connection with the failure of the loan convention by which Nicaragua was to have borrowed several millions from American bankers and under which treaty the Nicaraguan railroads, steamships, Custom Houses and National monopolies were to be administered by representatives of the American financiers.
    The Diaz Government, against which the present revolution is being directed, is said to have approved the attitude of the State Department in regard to the loan convention. Senator Bacon broadly intimated, in criticism of the State Department, that American forces were being used in aid of the political party which inclined to the department's views and against the party opposed to them.
    Reports from other sources have said that Relaya, the dictator exiled in Europe in 1909 after the murder of the two Americans, Cannon and Groce, was behind Gen. Mena, leader of the revolutionists. This, however, is denied by the prominent Liberals who support the revolution.