No. 13.
Mr. Osborn
to Mr. Evarts.
Legation of
the United States,
Buenos
Ayres, February 23, 1880. (Received
April 17.)
No. 270.]
Sir: I have the honor to inclose herewith the reply
of General Roca to the request of the “peace committee,” to withdraw as a
presidential candidate (marked A), and also a printed despatch addressed by
General Roca, in reply to a letter, making the same request, of his personal
friend Hector Yarela, editor of a morning paper in this city, “El
Porteño.”
In his reply to the peace committee be claims that he is in the hands of his
party and that the peace committee should address the political centers of
the different provinces to free him from his candidature, but in his reply
to his friend Varela he appears to believe that the governor and the
province of Buenos Ayres are attempting to dominate the other provinces, and
that while he feels quite sure of almost the unanimous support of the other
provinces, he will not consent that tranquillity shall be purchased at the
expense of honor and liberty.
Governor Tejedor’s friends now refuse to accept his (Tejedor’s) renunciation,
and unless the peace committee shall be able to bring forward a candidate
acceptable to other provinces, as well as Buenos Ayres, the late arrangement
between the President and Governor Tejedor must result simply in a
truce.
I have, &c.,
[Inclosure A in No. 270.—Extract from the
Buenos Ayres Herald.]
The following is General Roca’s reply to a letter addressed to him
through Don Felix Frias, in representation of the peace committee,
begging him, “in order to prevent a scandal and a scene of blood in the
streets of Buenos Ayres” to resign his candidature.
“* * * Under existing circumstances I do not belong to myself, but of a
political party that is in the legitimate use of its rights, and that
believes itself to be following
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the movings of the purest patriotism, and that has, besides, from Buenos
Ayres to Jujuy, in every part of the republic, an executive center to
which all such petitions should be addressed asking them to withdraw my
candidature and replace it by another that shall have beforehand the
approbation of the governor of Buenos Ayres, who is the only one to
threaten the country with the horrors of civil war, and with the rending
of our constitution, before accepting the dictum of the lawful arbiter
in such a contest—the ballot.
“Only those centers could free me from those obligations which honor and
civic virtue impose upon me, and which make me one with the party that
has proclaimed my name as a candidate for the presidency of the
republic. I salute the president of the peace committee.
[Inclosure B in No. 270.—General Roca to
Señor Varela.—Translation.]
My Dear Hector:—The “tout
ensemble” of things is the better viewed from a distance. Not
only is that which passes in Buenos Ayres seen, but also what is
transpiring in the whole republic. What is being treated upon is not an
electioneering question, but it is an effort to prove whether or not we
are one of the many South American factions that are the scorn of the
world.
Those who hope to quiet the raging of the monster by throwing the corpse
of my candidature to it, exacting a voluntary immolation, will find
themselves very much deceived, unless there be a Theseus to free the
Athens of the Plata from the Minotaur that will continue purchasing for
her a shameful tranquillity with the tribute of her honor, dignity, and
liberties, for I am neither a virgin nor a boy.
With lasting gratitude for your noble sentiments, I thus answer your
telegram of yesterday.
