Of course, I dissented from the award. When the award and the opinions
of the three Commissioners were presented at the final session of
the Commission, the United States agent made a formal protest on
substantially the same grounds I had taken. My dissenting opinion and
the protest of the American agent were sustained by the Department of
State and the United States has declined to admit the validity of the
award. The whole matter has therefore become the subject of diplomatic
negotiations, which it is believed are progressing satisfactorily.
It is as much to the interest of Mexico as of the United States to
reach an arrangement whereby the Chamizal tract divided from Mexico by
the channel of the Rio Grande as it now runs, shall be definitively
admitted to be American territory, because it forms an integral part
of El Paso, upon which thousands of citizens have their homes.
During my service as Commissioner, Mexico was represented by four
Commissioners: Mr. Canalizo, whose death has already been noted; Mr.
Osorno, who participated in the first trial of the Chamizal case,
and who subsequently resigned; Mr. Jacobo Blanco, who died after
serving seven years, and Mr. Fernando Beltran y Puga, who sat at the
second trial of the Chamizal case and remained with the Commission
until our activity was suspended and he removed from office by the
Madero government, leaving me the sole survivor of the four Mexican
Commissioners.
These gentlemen were all equal in legal and judicial attainments to
similar officials of our own government. They sought always to attain
righteous decisions, and I think succeeded in the many cases that came
before us.
Of my associates on the American section of the Commission, Messrs.
J. A. Happer and Wilbur Keblinger, Secretaries, and P. D. Cunningham
and W. W. Follett, Consulting Engineers, deserve special mention.
Mr. Cunningham unfortunately lost his life in the service of the
Commission through the overturning of his boat in the rapids of the
Rio Grande near Eagle Pass in July, 1901. Messrs. Happer, Keblinger
and Follett rendered invaluable service during many years, Mr. Follett
in spite of a painful illness which would have incapacitated most men
for work. Mr. Happer resigned to go into business in El Paso, where he
has become a leading citizen. Mr. Follett died shortly after retiring
from the Commission. Mr. Keblinger is serving with distinction as
United States Consul at Malta.
Our proceedings were published in both languages, and the evidence,
maps, plans and monuments were explained not only in scientific but in
popular language, so that officials, surveyors, lawyers and judges of
each country could readily understand the location of the boundary.
(See Volumes 1 and 2, Proceedings Boundary Commission, Treaties of
1884 and 1889, and Equitable Distribution of the Waters of the Rio
Grande, Roma to the Gulf, reports and maps, and many other reports on
the same subject.)