the acts which had prevented the carrying out of the defendant companies' said project," etc.1

The petitions, as printed in the Annex, bear every internal ear mark of the authorship of Dr. Boyd. The signatures of "many of the public officials and other prominent citizens of New Mexico" are not printed. It might be interesting to know who they were. The British Memorial proceeds:

"President Roosevelt referred the said petitions to various Departments of the Government, but the said petitioners' prayer was not granted until 1913 when the Secretary of State (Honorable William Jennings Bryan) instructed that such investigation be made. General Anson Mills resigned."

In connection with this statement, it should be said that Dr. Boyd's charges were investigated over and over again by various. Departments of the Government of the United States. Even the Department of State, after Secretary Hay very properly declined to investigate on the ground of lack of jurisdiction over General Mills as a witness in court, did in fact under subsequent Secretaries make repeated investigations. The result of one of these investigations, that made by Dr. James Brown Scott, when Solicitor for the Department of State, has already been referred to. In view of the reference in the Memorial to a subsequent investigation under Secretary Bryan, the United States has printed in the Appendix to the Answer the report made by the Honorable Cone Johnson, Solicitor for the Department of State under Secretary Bryan.3 Mr. Johnson, in view of the many previous investigations which had been made, did not waste very many words on Dr. Boyd's charges, but his findings are very much in point. After referring to the prejudice evinced by Dr. Boyd in the method of presenting his charges, Mr. Johnson says, in part:

"Sifting the charges, they may be grouped as follows: First, that General Mills was guilty of perjury and deliberate falsification respecting the characteristics of the Rio Grande and the flow of its waters; and, second, that he corruptly deceived the Government, the heads of departments, and the Congress respecting the respective projects for damming the Rio Grande near El Paso and in New Mexico, with a corrupt purpose of furthering the first of these

1 British Memorial, p. 38.

2 Id., p. 39.

3 The Solicitor for the Department of State to the Secretary of State, April 17, 1914. Appendix to the Answer, p. 590.

projects and of destroying the second, which was financed by an English company in which Doctor Boyd is interested.

"Careful consideration has again been given to the charges and the data and evidence offered to support them. The memoranda prepared under a former Solicitor, which is with the papers, contains extensive statements and excerpts from the records referred to by Doctor Boyd, and it is not deemed necessary to again state the facts. It is sufficient to say that the charges are not sustained, and that the facts offered in their support are wanting in probative force to show that General Mills was guilty in any of the respects charged in his adherence to the project of a dam across the Rio Grande near El Paso.""

Under date of February 12, 1914, General Mills, then in his eightieth year, tendered his resignation to Secretary of State Bryan. Being aware of the charges pending against him, he qualified his resignation so as to make it take effect

"provided the department is able to advise me that no evidence of neglect or wrong has been found in the administration of my office, otherwise I could not with self-respect voluntarily resign while under investigation."'2

After careful consideration, after Dr. Boyd had done his worst, after Senator Thomas had made his two days' speech, attacking General Mills, the Secretary of State accepted General Mills' resignation in the following letter:

"I am directed by the President to accept your resignation as commissioner on the part of the United States International Boundary Commission (United States and Mexico), tendered February 12 last; and in doing so I beg to express the appreciation of the President and of the Department of your services rendered in this capacity. Your resignation will take effect July 1 next."

Dr. Boyd has complained bitterly of the failure of President Wilson's Administration to dismiss and prosecute General Mills and 1 Id., pp. 590-591.

2 Gen. Anson Mills, Commissioner, to the Secretary of State, February 12, 1914. Appendix to the Answer, p. 580.

3 The Secretary of State to Gen. Anson Mills, Commissioner, June 24, 1914. Appendix to the Answer, p. 591.

4 See the following letters from Mr. Nathan Boyd, as printed in the Appendix to the Answer: To the Secretary of State, October 26, 1913, p. 579; to the Secretary of the President, February 24, 1914, p. 580; to the Assistant Secretary of State, March 19, 1914, p. 581; to the Secretary of the President, February 5, 1921, p. 611; to the Director of the Reclamation Service, March 11, 1922, p. 617, etc.

yet the reasonable inference from the paragraph of the British Memorial under discussion would be that General Mills had resigned as a result of the Boyd charges. Such was not the case.

"CREATING" EVIDENCE.

Third, the British Memorial contains the following passage:

"Looking to the creating of evidence to show that the flood waters of the Rio Grande flowing from above El Paso contribute substantially to the flow of the stream in the Gulf section (more than a thousand miles below El Paso), where it is assumed to be navigable in law if not in fact, the Government of the United States sent an expedition of engineers to measure the flood waters that flow down the river channel from above El Paso. The report of this expedition made plain that less than one per cent of such flood waters reach the so-called navigable section of the lower Rio Grande, such flood waters being lost by evaporation and seepage long before they reach the said Gulf section; and that the volume of the stream in such socalled navigable section is maintained by waters from large tributary streams flowing into the Rio Grande channel at points hundreds of miles below El Paso. Vide pp. 159 to 175, Exhibit B.""

It will be observed that this passage says that the report of the United States Government engineers "made plain that less than one per cent. of such flood waters reach the so-called navigable section of the lower Rio Grande." The reference at the end of this passage is pages 159 to 175, Exhibit B (not furnished by His Majesty's Government). Exhibit B is listed, on page 50 of the Memorial, as "Testimony in re El Paso Dam and Elephant Butte Dam submitted to the H. R. Committee on Foreign Affairs." Turning to pages 155 to 159 of the document answering to the description of Exhibit B, we find an interesting article from the Century Magazine, for January, 1901, entitled "Running the Canyons of the Rio Grande." This article describes a trip by Robert T. Hill, of the United States Geological Survey, through the canyons of the Rio Grande. It is a thoroughly readible account of a very creditable piece of exploration, but it does not appear to throw any light upon the question of the percentage of the flood waters from Elephant Butte which reach the lower river. It is presumed that the passage of the British Memorial under discussion relates to the expedition sent down the river by the International Boundary Commission, United States and Mexico, at the request of the Department of Justice, in an effort to 1 British Memorial, pp. 22-23.

procure the necessary information with respect to the effect on the claimant's proposed dam upon the navigability of the lower river. The energy and bona fides with which this expedition was insisted upon by the Department of Justice and carried out by the International Boundary Commission appears in the correspondence printed in the Appendix to the Answer of the United States.1

The detailed report of this expedition is contained in the volumes of the proceedings of the International Boundary Commission, which are submitted herewith as an Exhibit with this Answer; but the Agent for the United States is also unable to find in these volumes any evidence to sustain the statement with regard to the one per cent made in the British Memorial. It is submitted that His Britannic Majesty's Agent should furnish further evidence upon this point, if it be deemed material.

THE UNITED STATES JOINS ISSUE ON THE CONSPIRACY THEORY.

It is not intended in the slightest to minimize General Mills' interest in the proposed international dam at El Paso, which he believed to be the proper solution for the water problem of the El Paso Valley, or his opposition to the Boyd Elephant Butte Dam Scheme, which he believed would not afford any solution whatever for that problem, a belief in which, it is submitted, he was wholly correct.2 In fact General Mills always continued consistently opposed to the Elephant Butte Dam site even when the United States Reclamation Service years later determined upon the erection of the Government dam with wholly different engineering plans, and nearly ten times

1 See letters of the Attorney General to the Secretary of State, January 24, 1900, p. 355; the Secretary of State to Gen. Anson Mills, Commissioner, January 30, 1900, p. 357; Gen. Anson Mills, Commissioner, to the Secretary of State, February 7, 1900, and enclosure, p. 358; Messrs. Follett and Corella, Engineers, to the International (Water) Boundary Commission, February 12, 1900, p. 360; the Attorney General to the Secretary of State, March 2, 1900, p. 364; the Secretary of State to the Attorney General, March 2, 1900, p. 364; the Attorney General to the Secretary of State, March 14, 1900, p. 366; the Secretary of State to the American Legation in Mexico, March 14, 1900, p. 367; Gen. Anson Mills, Commissioner, to the Secretary of State, November 22, 1900, p. 408; the Acting Secretary of State to the Attorney General, November 24, 1900, p. 409; the Attorney General to the Secretary of State, November 30, 1900, p. 410; the Assistant Secretary of State to Gen. Anson Mills, Commissioner, December 7, 1900, p. 411; Gen. Anson Mills, Commissioner, to the Secretary of State, May 14, 1901, p. 426; the Acting Attorney General to the Secretary of State, May 23, 1901, p. 427; the Attorney General to the Secretary of State, October 11, 1901, p. 429; and Gen. Anson Mills, Commissioner, to the Secretary of State, December 17, 1901, and enclosure, p. 430.

2 The Director of the Reclamation Service to the Agent for the United States, March 31, 1923. Appendix to the Answer, p. 756; Dr. F. H. Newell to the Agent for the United States, April 10, 1923, Annex I to the Answer of the United States.

greater storage capacity, a short distance below the claimant company's dam site. General Mills continued to believe that the Elephant Butte site was not

"adapted to furnishing to the Mexican landowners in the El Paso Valley the water to which I have [he had always thought they were entitled by virtue of their prior rights.'”

In this he appears to have been mistaken just as Dr. Boyd and his associates were mistaken if they really believed that they could have successfully delivered water in the El Paso Valley from the dam which they had planned."

On page 691 of the Appendix to the Answer will be found a letter of the Assistant Attorney General of the United States instructing the United States District Attorney for the Western District of Texas to defend the official acts of General Mills. These instructions were given at the time of Dr. Boyd's suit against him, which was dismissed by the Court for want of jurisdiction. The United States is, likewise, prepared before this honorable Tribunal to defend the official acts of General Mills, as well as his official superiors, and it confidently asserts the integrity of these actions, and joins issue with His Britannic Majesty's Government on the conspiracy theory, in so far as that theory has been or may be adopted by His Britannic Majesty's Government.

History of the Suit.

FIRST TRIAL OF CASE.

The Government's suit was initiated on May 24, 1897, by the filing of a bill of complaint in the District Court of the 3rd Judicial District of the Territory of New Mexico. In the bill it was stated that the Company was about to construct a dam at Elephant Butte which would materially affect the navigability of the Rio Grande, and that the creation of such an obstruction was without authority of law and contrary to the acts of Congress of September 19, 1890, and July 13, 1892, since the Company had not obtained the approval of its project from the Secretary of War. It was further alleged that the Company proposed to create the largest artificial lake in the world, to obtain control of the entire flow of the Rio Grande in

1 General Anson Mills to Senator Elihu Root, June 25, 1914. Appendix to the Answer, p. 598.

2 See letters of the Director of the Reclamation Service to the Agent for the United States, March 31, 1923. Appendix to the Answer, p. 756; and of Dr. F. H. Newell to the Agent for the United States, April 10, 1923, Annex I to the Answer of the United States.