[Inclosure.]
The Star and Herald reclamation.
I have but little to add in regard to this subject to the
well-reasoned exposition contained in the report which was presented
to you by the foreign office in your past sessions. Reading with
attention the antecedents of this reclamation you will be able to
comprehend the justice with which the Government, although it always
shows deference to the opinions of the Cabinet at Washington, denied
continually the pretensions of the Star and Herald Company to
reclaim by means of a diplomatic action a heavy indemnity for the
damages which it was said to have suffered on account of the
suspension imposed upon it by the civil and military officer of the
isthmus, Gen. Ramon Santodomingo Vila. The Government could not
accept the idea that a newspaper enterprise founded in Colombia and
in such a way attached to the part of Colombian territory where it
had its residence, that it could not exist outside of it, and which
in addition belonged exclusively to Colombian citizens at the time
when the reclamation was initiated, should have acquired the rights
of a foreign enterprise on account of the simple desire of its
owners, and should have a right to diplomatic protection against the
action of the Colombian authorities. And much less could this
exceptional position be accepted in favor of a periodical that had
constantly taken part in our internal affairs, that had acquired a
political character and had entered on prohibited ground, publishing
articles that favored the separation of the isthmus. This precedent
being established other newspaper enterprises in the Republic would
have made haste to incorporate themselves in some form
[Page 231]
in foreign countries, so
that they might acquire diplomatic protection whenever the
Government should apply to them the laws governing the press which
every nation has a right to pass, and thus we should have political
papers which would make use of the same right that our own papers
enjoy to discuss our political affairs and yet enjoy the privilege
of foreigners in order to escape the responsibility which their
conduct might impose upon them.
Neither was it permissible that they should desire to make the
National Government responsible for an act executed without its
permission or authorization by an agent whose conduct was
disapproved afterwards, so that in consequence of the Star and
Herald incident General Sandomingo Vila ceased to be civil and
military governor of the department of Panama. To give such an
extension to the responsibility of governments would have been but
little in conformity with what is established by the common consent
of natural right and the practice of nations. Finally, the
reclamation of the Star, which raised the damages to the sum of
$90,000, was notably unjust, because the enterprise did not suffer
on account of the suspension, which it knew how to escape,
publishing the same paper under another name; neither were the
damages, in case they existed, justly represented by so large a sum,
because in this case it would be necessary to give to the enterprise
a commercial value that it never had, as is proved by the price,
relatively high, which it brought at the auction which followed the
insolvency of the company.
The Government also had serious doubts whether there was any person
who had a legal right to present the reclamation of the former Star
and Herald company, because the enterprise went into insolvency and
all its goods and rights on the isthmus were sold at public auction
in 1893 to its present possessor, D. Gabriel Duque. The Hon. Mr.
Sleeper, in charge of the affairs of the United States legation,
presented this point in such form as to leave no place for doubt. In
a note of the 1st of April, 1897, he said the following: “Your
excellency, indeed, does not pretend that this claim was sold to the
person who is now publishing the Star and Herald; but to remove all
doubt I beg to inform your excellency that the said person has
placed on the files of the Department of State his authority to Mr.
Meyers to represent his claim.” It appears, then, by the official
testimony of the Government, which has sustained the claim, that the
rights which the Government may represent belong to Mr. Duque, owner
to-day of the Star and Herald. Now, this ministry possesses a
declaration given August 17, of last year, before the consul of the
United States of America by the said Mr. D. Gabriel Duque, an
American citizen and managing director of the Star and Herald and
Estrella de Panamá in which he states that neither he nor the
enterprise of which he is the manager have rights against the
Colombian Government coming from the claims made on account of the
suspension of the Star and Herald and Estrella de Panamá in the year
1886, neither as owner of the said rights nor by any other title
which has been used in the name of the enterprise of the said Star
and Herald in order to claim from the Government an indemnity, “to
which,” he adds, I renounce from the present time, because
conscientiously, as an honorable man, and as the principal member of
the said enterprise, I stated that it is not guided by anything else
than justice harmonized with those acts that are based in legal
right, with which the aforesaid claim is at variance in every
respect.”
The reasons set forth by the Government of Colombia in the course of
this long debate had sufficient force to demonstrate the fact that
the claim made on behalf of the Estrella has no foundation. If to
these reasons we add the decisive testimony that I have just cited,
it may be confidently sustained that this disagreeable claim has
been closed in a definite manner, because the American Government,
if it believed that it ought to favor a pretension that it esteemed
well founded, could not continue to give its powerful support to a
claim which, by the spontaneous manifestation of the person to whom
it is of interest to make it effective, it is in all respects unjust
and unfounded.
