Our yet unexecuted reciprocity convention of 1883 covers none of these
points, the settlement of which is so necessary to good relationship.
I propose to initiate with Mexico negotiations for a new and enlarged
treaty of commerce and navigation.
In compliance with a resolution of the Senate, I communicated to that
body on August 2 last, and also to the House of Representatives,[6] the
correspondence in the case of A.K. Cutting, an American citizen, then
imprisoned in Mexico, charged with the commission of a penal offense in
Texas, of which a Mexican citizen was the object.
After demand had been made for his release the charge against him was
amended so as to include a violation of Mexican law within Mexican
territory.
This joinder of alleged offenses, one within and the other exterior to
Mexico, induced me to order a special investigation of the case, pending
which Mr. Cutting was released.
The incident has, however, disclosed a claim of jurisdiction by Mexico
novel in our history, whereby any offense committed anywhere by a
foreigner, penal in the place of its commission, and of which a Mexican
is the object, may, if the offender be found in Mexico, be there tried
and punished in conformity with Mexican laws.
This jurisdiction was sustained by the courts of Mexico in the Cutting
case, and approved by the executive branch of that Government, upon the
authority of a Mexican statute.
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