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Show FAIL TO AGREE AT 1 FIRST CONFERENCE I MEXICANS DEMAND IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL OF TROOPS IN PURSUIT OF VILLA. Representatives of Mexican Government Govern-ment Told That if Evacuation is Insisted Upon the Conference Would Go Intoa Deadlock. El Paso, Texas. Two conflicting propositions developed immediately after the beginning in the Mexican customs house - in Juarez late Saturday Satur-day of the conference to decide the future disposition of the American expeditionary ex-peditionary forces in Mexico. They are understood temporarily to have increased the gravity of the negotiations. ne-gotiations. The initial meeting was held behind closed doors in the big green-tinted room which Francisco Villa used as his council chamber when he dominated northern Mexico and Juarez was his headquarters. Generals Hugh L. Scott and Frederick Funston represented the United States. The Mexican conferees con-ferees were General Alvaro Obregon, Mexican minister of war, and General Jacinto Trevino, military commander of the northeast district of Mexico. The progress of the negotiations was hot divulged, but from an authoritative authorita-tive source two things were learned. First, that the Mexican representatives representa-tives reiterated the wish expressed in General Carranza's recent note to the Washington government that the American troops should be withdrawn from Mexican soil at an early date. Second, that they were informed by the American officials that the latter were not empowered to discuss the withdrawal of General Pershing's columns. col-umns. It is understood the American representatives repre-sentatives told the Mexican conferees that If the de facto government insisted in-sisted on an American evacuation the conference would go into a deadlock and the whole matter would revert to a diplomatic discussion between Wash: ington and Mexico City. The Mexicans further were informed that the purpose of the present conference, con-ference, so far as the United States is concerned, is the development of a specific plan for the co-operation of the American and de facto armies in wiping wip-ing out the bandit groups that have spilled so much blood along the border and have repeatedly taken American life in the interior of Mexico. It is understood that General Obregon, Obre-gon, the Mexican minister of war, prior to the conference, openly expressed a disinclination to discuss any other subject sub-ject than withdrawal and that he carried car-ried this attitude into the initial meeting. |
