the extradition convention
of December 11, 1861, has been at various times the occasion of
controversy with the Government of Mexico. An acute difference arose in
the case of the Mexican demand for the delivery of Jesus Guerra, who,
having led a marauding expedition near the border with the proclaimed
purpose of initiating an insurrection against President Diaz, escaped
into Texas. Extradition was refused on the ground that the alleged
offense was political in its character, and therefore came within the
treaty proviso of nonsurrender. The Mexican contention was that the
exception only related to purely political offenses, and that as
Guerra's acts were admixed with the common crime of murder, arson,
kidnaping, and robbery, the option of nondelivery became void, a
position which this Government was unable to admit in view of the
received international doctrine and practice in the matter. The Mexican
Government, in view of this, gave notice January 24, 1898, of the
termination of the convention, to take effect twelve months from that
date, at the same time inviting the conclusion of a new convention,
toward which negotiations are on foot.

In this relation I may refer to the necessity of some amendment of
our existing extradition statute. It is a common stipulation of such
treaties that neither party shall be bound to give up its own citizens,
with the added proviso in one of our treaties, that with Japan, that it
may surrender if it see fit. It is held in this country by an almost
uniform course of decisions that where a treaty negatives the obligation
to surrender the President is not invested with legal authority to act.
The conferment of such authority would be in the line of that sound
morality which shrinks from affording secure asylum to the author of a
heinous crime. Again, statutory provision might well be made for what is
styled extradition by way of transit, whereby a fugitive surrendered by
one foreign government to another may be conveyed across the territory
of the United States to the jurisdiction of the demanding state.
A recommendation in this behalf made in the President's message of
1886[23] was not acted upon. The matter is presented for your
consideration.

The problem of the Mexican free zone has been often discussed with
regard to its inconvenience as a provocative of smuggling into the
United States along an extensive and thinly guarded land border.
The effort made by the joint resolution of Mar