No. 553.
Mr. Pratt
to Mr. Bayard.
Teheran, June 21, 1887. (Received August 1.)
Sir: I have the honor to report that I am constantly receiving letters from merchants and manufacturers in the United States asking to be recommended to reliable parties here with whom they can enter into business relations.
This legation knows of none such that it can take the responsibility to so recommend and in this connection I personally and officially consider it my duty to state that I am earnestly requested by Persians in the highest position, who sincerely desire to see the commercial relations between the two countries established on a sound basis, to advise that firms in the United States desiring to enter this market send over their own agent, or agents, to represent them, and that they, under no circumstances, choose as their representatives foreign or European adventurers on the spot, who, under the pretense of possessing peculiar facilities for doing business, and especially for obtaining contracts from the Government, shall, for the purpose of promoting private schemes of their own, seek to obtain the use of the names of the said firms as a sort of guaranty of respectability. That a lucrative trade can be established between the United States and Persia I am confident, but I am equally confident that to make it successful it must be originated and controlled by our own people at both ends of the line.
In the interest of American commerce I now, therefore, respectfully request, if approved by you, that the Department give the contents of the present dispatch to the press for publication.
I am, etc.,