No. 13.
Mr. Osborn to Mr. Evarts.

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.,

THOS. O. OSBORN.
[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 [Page 18] 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.

“JULIO A. ROCA.”
[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.

JULIO A. ROCA.