I recommend that the scope of the neutrality laws of the United Arthur's request States be so enlarged as to cover all patent acts of hostility com- for legislation. mitted in our territory and aimed against the peace of a friendly nation. Existing statutes prohibit the fitting out of armed expeditions and restrict the shipment of explosives, though the enactments in the latter respect were not framed with regard to international obligations, but simply for the protection of passenger travel. All these statutes were intended to meet special emergencies that had already arisen. Other emergencies have arisen since, and modern ingenuity supplies means for the organization of hostilities without open resort to armed vessels or to filibustering parties.

I see no reason why overt preparations in this country for the commission of criminal acts, such as are here under consideration, should not be alike punishable, whether such acts are intended to be committed in our own country or in a foreign country with which we are at peace.

The prompt and thorough treatment of this question is one which intimately concerns the national honor.1

tions of 1895-1896.

An insurrection broke out in Cuba again in 1895. From the start Insurrection in the United States government realized that, as in previous wars, atCuba. Proclamatempts would be made by the insurgents to obtain active assistance from the neighboring shores of this country. In his message of December 2, 1895, President Cleveland refers to the contest as "arousing sentimental sympathy and inciting adventurous support among our people," and as therefore entailing "earnest effort on the part of this Government to enforce obedience to our neutrality laws and to prevent the territory of the United States from being abused as a vantage ground from which to aid those in arms against Spanish sovereignty." Although the insurgents had no standing in international law, the President had thought it proper to issue, on June 12, 1895, the formal proclamation of neutrality issued when two recognized nations are at war. This was followed, on July 27, 1896, by a second proclamation in which the President calls attention to the fact that the neutrality laws of the United States had, since the date of his former proclamation, been the subject of authoritative exposition by the judicial tribunal of last resort

1 Richardson's Messages, VIII, 235.

2A tabular list of the military expeditions set on foot in the United States to commit hostilities against Cuba from 1895-1897, together with the judicial proceedings instituted by the United States courts against the offenders, may be found in Carlisle, Report to the Spanish Minister, Don E. Dupuy de Lome, June, 1897.

Richardson's Messages, IX, 262.

4Ibid. 591.

Neutrality in Russo-Japanese war.

Proclamation of 1905.

Insurrection in

on the point as to what constituted a "military expedition or enterprise"; moreover, there was reason to believe that the citizens of the United States failed to apprehend the meaning and operation of the neutrality laws.2

On February 11, 1904, a week after the outbreak of the RussoJapanese war, a proclamation of neutrality was issued by President Roosevelt. After reciting the acts forbidden by the neutrality laws of the United States, as in the proclamation of President Grant during the Franco-Prussian war, the proclamation sets forth the rules relating to belligerent asylum, etc., embodied in President Grant's second proclamation of October 8, 1870.

In 1905, when the Dominican Republic was threatened with a revolutionary outbreak, the United States government sought to aid the authorities of the republic in preventing the import of arms and munitions into the country. After consulting the Dominican Republic, President Roosevelt issued, on October 14, 1905, a proclamation forbidding "the export of arms, ammunition and munitions of war of every kind, from any port in the United States or in Porto Rico to any port in the Dominican Republic." The proclamation was based upon the authority of a joint resolution of Congress passed at the beginning of the Spanish war, authorizing the President, at his discretion, to prohibit the export of coal or other material from any seaport of the United States. The joint resolution of 1898 was a war measure intended to conserve to the United States the supplies of war material manufactured in the country, and it had no connection whatever with the obligations of neutrality. Accordingly, it did not justify, except in the letter, the proclamation of 1905, applying it to totally different conditions.

In November, 1910, an insurrection broke out in Mexico, which is Mexico. Alleged still in progress [1913], though under changed conditions. Fran

violations of

neutrality.

cisco Madero, who had been imprisoned during the elections of the previous July, in which he was opposition candidate to President Diaz, was released from prison on October 9th and fled to Texas in disguise. He immediately collected a body of followers who were opposed to the administration of Diaz, and started a revolution to overthrow the government. On November 16, 1910, the Mexican

The decision referred to is that of Wiborg v. United States, 163 U. S., 632; see below, p. 87.

2Richardson's Messages, IX, 694.

3For the text of the proclamation, see App., p. 182.

4For the text of the joint resolution, see App., p. 182.

government complained that Madero and his friends were actively preparing from San Antonio, Texas, as a center, a movement directed against the Mexican government, and that arms supposed to be intended for this purpose had been located in American territory.1 On November 19th it was complained that bands of revolutionists were being recruited in various places along the frontier, especially at Naco, El Paso, Presidio, Boquilla and Eagle Pass. On November 23rd it was complained that an American agent of Madero had left St. Louis, Mo., with recruits for the rebel army in Mexico. On December 30th it was reported that an individual domiciled in Dallas, Texas, was directing shipments of arms between El Paso and Eagle Pass, Texas. On December 31st it was reported that an armed body of revolutionists was said to be located between Sanderson and Del Rio, Texas. Investigation was made of these and other specific complaints, but in most cases it was found that the complaint was without foundation. During the course of the insurrection the Mexican frontier bordering on the United States was frequently the scene of battle, and the United States government found it necessary to send troops to the Texan border in order to prevent hostilities from crossing the boundary line and to enforce the observance of the neutrality laws of the United States. While the rebel forces were in possession of Juarez, the border town immediately south of El Paso, Texas, a regular trade in arms and ammunition was carried on across the frontier. Men, women and children came over from Mexico to purchase arms from the United States and returned with them freely back to Mexico. Mexican merchants in sympathy with the rebels bought war supplies in the United States and had them shipped to Mexico like other merchandise. El Paso thus became practically a base of supplies for the rebel forces.

After conducting a guerilla warfare with varying success for six months, Madero succeeded in forcing Diaz to resign on May 25, 1911, and was himself elected president the following October. Less than three months after the inauguration of Madero a second revolution broke out, and under the leadership of General Orozco, a former lieutenant of Madero, the rebels successfully resisted the federal government. Juarez was captured by the rebels and again El Paso be

came the market for arms. On March 2, 1912, President Taft issued Proclamation of a proclamation directed in the usual terms against acts within the March 2, 1912. jurisdiction of the United States in favor of the insurgents.

Memorandum of the Department of State, March 14, 1912.

Joint resolution

But it was evident that legislation was needed to check the unreof March 14, 1912. stricted shipment of arms from the border towns of the United States into Mexico. Accordingly, on March 14, 1912, upon the motion of Senator Root, Congress passed the following joint resolution:

Proclamation giving effect to it.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the joint resolution to prohibit the export of coal or other material used in war from any seaport of the United States, approved April twenty-second, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, be, and hereby is, amended to read as follows:

That whenever the President shall find that in any American country conditions of domestic violence exist which are promoted by the use of arms or munitions of war procured from the United States, and shall make proclamation thereof, it shall be unlawful to export except under such limitations and exceptions as the President shall prescribe any arms or munitions of war from any place in the United States to such country until otherwise ordered by the President or by Congress.

SEC. 2. That any shipment of material hereby declared unlawful after such a proclamation shall be punishable by fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding two years, or both.

The joint resolution thus empowers the President to recognize the existence of conditions under which the act makes it unlawful to export any arms or munitions of war to the country designated. It is a distinct advance over the joint resolution of 1898, not only in that it was framed to meet the neutral obligations of the United States, but because it imposes a specific penalty upon offenders; and it thus takes its place as a permanent amendment to the Neutrality Act of 1818. In pursuance of the power conferred upon him, President Taft issued, on the same day, a proclamation announcing the existence in Mexico of the conditions described in the joint resolution of Congress, and the consequent applicability of the terms of the resolution.

In the preceding sketch of the historical development of the neutrality laws of the United States, and of the successive proclamations calling the attention of the public to the determination of the government to enforce them under the special circumstances, no attempt has been made to state the technical interpretation of the several acts by judicial decision, or to enter upon a discussion of the extent to which the neutrality laws of the United States are adequate to meet the present international obligations of the nation. Each of these subjects will be considered in separate chapters.

CHAPTER III.

THE AUTHORITATIVE INTERPRETATION OF THE NEUTRALITY
LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES.

In this chapter the attempt will be made to set forth the precise scope of the neutrality laws of the United States by an examination of the technical interpretation given them in the decisions of the federal courts, the opinions of the Attorneys General, the correspondence of the State Department with foreign governments, and other official documents. Before taking up the individual sections of the Revised Statutes, attention may be called to certain points of general criticism.

The neutrality laws, in so far as their provisions are penal in Rule of strict character, are subject to the rule governing all criminal statutes, that construction. they must be interpreted within the strict limits of the wording of the statute, and are to be construed in favor of the accused, who is given the benefit of any doubts as to their meaning. In the case of the Three Friends,' the District Court, in commenting upon an extension of the statute to a case to which it was clearly desirable to apply it, said: "This statute is a criminal and penal one, and is not to be enlarged beyond what the language clearly expresses as being intended. It is not the privilege of courts to construe such statutes according to the emergency of the occasion, or according to temporary questions of policy, but according to principles considered to have been established by a line of judicial decisions."

The principle is sound, although the application of it was overruled on appeal. The rule of strict construction does not, however, forbid a construction of the statute in connection with and in the light of other provisions of other statutes relating to international subjects, when such provisions throw light upon the probable intent of the language used. Moreover, since the authority of Congress to enact criminal statutes for the preservation of the neutral relations. of the United States with other nations is based upon the clause of the Constitution empowering Congress to define and punish offenses against the law of nations, it is permissible to resort to the rules of

178 Fed. Rep., 175; see also The Carondolet, 37 Fed. Rep., 799; The Itata, 56 Fed. Rep., 505.

2See The Itata, 56 Fed. Rep., 505.