See Causes To Annex Lower California.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 4, 1912:
Has Strategic and Commercial Advantages for Us, Though Barren and Disorderly.
NATURAL PART OF OUR COAST
Acquisition Would Be Popular if Mexico Were Willing to Part with Territory to Satisfy Claims.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, Aug. 3.— The suggestion made yesterday informally in conversation by a Senator whose word carries weight in international matters, that this Government should take over Lower California in payment of American claims against Mexico,is taken here as a logical step in a discussion that has cropped up at intervals for many years. As far as can be learned, the State Department has taken no steps in the matter, and could hardly do so until some semblance of order is restored in Mexico. But if Mexico showed a willingness to part with the barren peninsula, the plan would at once receive strong popular support in this country.
    Ever since the acquisition of California and the Western territories, following the war with Mexico, it has been generally understood that the omission of Lower California from the lands ceded to us by Mexico was a mistake on both sides. As the Senator pointed out yesterday, it is a natural part of our coast, and is commercially valuable to us as affording control of the Colorado River through the last hundred miles of its course, which now passes through Mexican territory. It is strategically of importance to us on account of Magdalena Bay, which has long been used by our navy for target practice, and is absolutely worthless to Mexico. Outside of the capital of the State at La Paz. there are not a score of settlements in the whole peninsula.
    It has been almost impossible to keep order there. In the course of the Madero and Orozco revolutions minor outbreaks have taken place in Lower California, and scarcely an effort was made in either revolt to put down the disorders. It was in the peninsula that Americans were first maltreated. While Madero was fighting President Diaz in the east, a number of women and children were there imprisoned in a stockade and forced to undergo great privations. The revolution in Lower California has nothing to do with the political insurrections elsewhere. Where one man has fought another for the Presidency on the mainland, the rebels in Lower California, who are little better than bandits, proclaimed what they called a Socialistic Government. The irony of the situation, in which American women and children were forced to undergo such hardships, lies in the fact that the Californian insurrection was headed by an American "Captain," and most of his men were American renegades.
    At Magdalena Bay the navy practice has always caused a little town of booths and tents to spring up. But when the last gun was fired, the town disappeared, and by the time the fleet slipped over the skyline nothing was left but a few black fireplaces and a great many tin cans.
    The coast line is desert and the interior is little more than sand. Railroads are practically unknown, and all the settlements are on the coast, mostly for fishing purposes, except a few old Jesuit missions whose adobe walls in most cases have fallen to ruin.
    To the United States, of course, the final termination of the Magdalena Bay controversy would be the most important object in acquiring the peninsula. It is probable, if we acquired it, that we would make it a naval base and attempt to commercialize it by having there coal heaps for merchant ships going north and south. The bay is only 500 miles from our coast, but from the nearest strategic point in Mexico — that is, the western outlet of the Tehuantepec Railway — it is 750 miles distant.
    This strategic importance, of course, is greatly increased by the near approach of the opening of the Panama Canal. It would give anchorage far to the south of our main coast line for every ship of war we would have in the Pacific, even if we brought the whole Atlantic fleet through the canal. No such anchorage exists at Panama, and in case of large naval operations in the Pacific, such as would arise in a war with Japan, Magdalena Bay would be invaluable. Not only would it aid us in preventing the Japanese from landing there, but it would give a point of departure for warships cruising to the south to prevent Japanese aggressions against the canal fortifications.
    It will probably be some years before anything is realized in this plan. The minor claims which this country has against Mexico arise from the killing of Americans on American soil by bullets from Mexican Federals and rebels, and are already in rapid course of settlement. The major claims for damages, of course, will come from the great concessionaries who have suffered unmeasured loss in the last three years. Scarcely an American has been killed within the limits of Mexico, and American property has been particularly protected by both factions. But in spite of these precautions American losses have run into the millions, and it will not take many millions to buy Lower California. The claims of concessionaries would of course then be paid in cash by the United States.