WHEN U.S. ALLOWED MEXICAN TROOPS TO CROSS INTO TEXAS

By Juan Montoya
Few people know that Pancho Villa's March 9, 1916 invasion of Columbus. N.M. was not the only time that Mexican troops had crossed into United States territory.
In fact, there was another instance just eight years later when some 2,000 Mexican troops not only crossed into U.S. territory, but were transported from Naco, Az., to El Paso, Texas, and were able to do so at the request and with the approval of the the United States government.
This bizarre event came about as a result of a series of events which had their roots in the Mexican Revolution. During the Porfirio Diaz dictatorship, foreign corporations were allowed to purchase huge swaths of land in Mexico and controlled vast agricultural empires and oil-producing and mineral-rich lands. After Diaz was overthrown, subsequent governments were not so kind toward the foreign owners and investors.
After all, as historian John Mason Hart has observed, during the Diaz regime:

"Americans took over 100 percent of Mexico's infrastructure. They acquired 70 percent of the country's coastlines and frontiers. 28 percent of the nation's surface. That's 28 percent of 465,000,000 acres. 70 percent of all incorporated businesses. All of the copper. And with their Anglo allies, all of the oil. Internally, Mexico was characterized, politically, with a military dictatorship. When you look at the incorporated entities...and the copper and oil companies, they were characterized by segregated housing and labor, and even forced labor and slavery. Some of the companies involved are familiar names, Phelps Dodge, International Harvester, Pennsylvania Railroad, and so on."

And, further on, "..(The Mexican) peasants wanted their land back, including the 28 percent of the nation's surface that had been taken by big American capital...161 American entities owned 93,000,000 acres of Mexico...Overall (Americans) owned 130,000,000 (acres) [of Mexico's 465,000,000 acres]. And the British (owned) another 20,000,000 (acres).

The governments after Diaz passed edicts and embedded them in the Constitution of 1917.
One of these, Article 27, had to do with the subsoil deposits and decreed that all the minerals under Mexican soil belonged to the nation. Likewise, Article 123 dealt with the distribution of lands to the ejidos and impacted the American holdings directly. The U.S. government also objected to decrees issued by by then-president Venustiano Carranza during the years of 1915-1920 that it felt restricted U.S. interests.

The outcry from U.S. investors brought forth heavy repercussions from the U.S. government, first under President Warren Harding, and later under Calvin Coolidge. As a result, recognition of the Alvaro Obregon government (1920) was not forthcoming from Washington for the first three years of his administration. (He's the one lacking a right arm in graphic.)
U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, who served under both U.S. administrations, suggested that a Treaty of Amity and Commerce be signed by Obregon and the U.S. Dept. of State prior to any recognition by the U.S. In the "treaty," U.S. recognition would be withheld until the interests of U.S. investors would be protected and Articles 27 and 123 would not be applied retroactively to their claims of subsoil deposits (petroleum) or mines, and landholdings subject to appropriation under the country's agrarian reforms.
Hughes later went on to become a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
Obregon, governing a country whose economy had been wrecked by 10 years of revolution, desperately needed foreign loans to keep his administration afloat. Recognition by the U.S. would open up the coffers of other nations and international banks.
Mexico was mired in debt to international bankers, some of them American, and the U.S. was using the debt to demand that the proposed treaty be signed before recognition was granted. Instead, Obregon's Minister of Finance, Adolfo de la Huerta ably negotiated with the international bankers and removed that obstacle. As Governor of the northern state of Sonora, he led the Revolution of Agua Prieta that put an end to the presidency of Venustiano Carranza who was killed during the revolt. It was then that de la Huerta was appointed interim President by congress, a post he relinquished after Obregon was elected.
However, the American administration was not satisfied with the repayment of the debt negotiated by De la Huerta and wanted more.
Unbeknownst to De la Huerta, Obregon, through his Minister of Foreign Affairs Alberto J. Pani Arteaga, had agreed not only to meet and discuss the differences between the two countries, but also suggested that both sides meet in Mexico City to iron out their differences. The result was the Bucareli Treaties which exempted American oil and land interests from the Mexican Constitution.
The treaties could only take effect once the Mexican Senate approved, them and Obregon made sure that they did. His most vocal critic, Sen. Francisco Field Jurado, was murdered on the corner of Álvaro Obregón Ave. and Córdoba Street, very close to his home at 134, Colima Street in the Roma sector of Mexico City. The senator had been opposed to signing the Bucareli Agreements. Three other senators were kidnapped at the same time that Field Jurado was assassinated.
A few days earlier, in the Chamber of Representatives, the oil-related Bucareli Treaties were discussed. Luis N. Morones, the labor leader, was accused of being the intellectual assassin because he had, in previous sessions said “that the old, dust-covered men who display their anguished absurdity in the Senate chambers will suffer direct action.”

Obregon's acceptance and the Senate's coerced approval of the secret Bucareli Treaties touched off a firestorm.
Led by de la Huerta, nearly half of the generals in the Mexican Army defected to the rebellion and took arms against Obregon. For a while, the Obregon regime looked doomed. Desperate, he turned toward Washington for help and sought military assistance. Coolidge declared an embargo of arms to the rebels and sent military supplies to Obregon's forces.
He also ordered naval forces to maintain the ports open to international commerce to allow the arms to flow to Obregon and scatter the rebels who had established a blockade to starve Obregon of customs duties and military supplies. Included in the military assistance were 5,000 Enfield rifles, 1917 model, 10 million 30-30 caliber cartridges, and 18 4-cylinder Dehaviland planes that some historians claim Obregon used American pilot mercenaries to fly them and attack the resistance.

As the war threatened to topple Obregon, one part of his army in the north was besieged by De la Huerta's in his Sonora stronghold and was threatened with destruction. It was then that Obregon called for assistance from the U.S. government to remove them from Naco, Sonora, across the border toe Naco, Az., and then transport them on to Laredo or El Paso by rail. When Texas Gov. T.W. Davidson objected to their introduction to Texas territory, Hughes sent off an urgent telegram saying the move was necessary to insure stability in Mexico and protect American citizens and interests. Davidson relented and the troops came across the border.
And thus, on January 19, 1924, the Mexican army was allowed into United States territory in the U.S. government's efforts to protect Obregon (and the favorable rights granted Americans under the Bucareli Treaties) and defeat his enemies.