No. 202.
Mr. Davis
to Mr. Sargent.
Washington, May 23, 1883.
Sir: Your No. 145 of the 28th ultimo has been received. The Department appreciates the embarrassment to which you have been subjected by the misrepresentation in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of your published report of January 1, on the subject of the impending prohibition of American pork imports in Germany.
[Page 386]It is quite evident that the embarrassments to which you advert were not due to the fact of an official publication of your report by the Department, but to what appears to have been a willful perversion of that fact by an unfriendly journal, which, if later telegraphic reports are to be credited, has been brought to admit the groundlessness of its main allegation, that you had corresponded on the subject with an American journal, and to admit that the obnoxious views it had attributed to you were in reality the views of the German press quoted by you.
The Department gives to the consideration and preparation for publication of the dispatches of its agents abroad every attention, with the object of guarding against the publication of their personal views, which might, if known, expose them to criticism or censure in the land of their official residence. On an examination of the blue books of other Governments, it is believed that far more care is here exercised in this respect than in other countries. It is, of course, impossible to prevent malicious or honestly mistaken perversions of such publications by outside parties.
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I am, &c.,
Acting Secretary.