Mr. Ames to Mr. Say.
Buenos Aires , May 5, 1903 .
Sir: I have the honor to inform you that the favorable reception given by the press of the United States to Doctor Drago’s note re the collection of public debts by force has occasioned general satisfaction here. When I last called on Doctor Drago he showed me some thirty or forty articles relative to his note clipped from leading papers of the United States and sent him by the Argentine minister in Washington. He was very much elated over their favorable tone and pointed out to me with manifest satisfaction certain of the more complimentary comments. The leading newspapers here have also expressed their gratification at the favorable reception accorded the note in question by our press and have published translations of various excerpts therefrom. La Nación, in its issue of Sunday, the 3d instant, published an editorial which embodied extracts from the New York Sun, the New York Daily Tribune, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, the Chicago Inter Ocean, the Boston Journal, the Atlanta Constitution, and other leading papers, and which concluded with the following paragraph:
The previous extracts, which are far from being all we have, show in an obvious manner the echo, which the Argentine note of December 29 has awakened in the American people and the support which the doctrine it expounds has found in that country for the most part. As time passes this support will become more general and it will eventually lead the American Government to declare itself definitely in favor of our doctrine. It is highly significant that among thousands of articles that have appeared in the United States there is not one that shows opposition to the propositions contained in the note referred to.
I can not but feel that this sentiment of satisfaction is reflected in a friendlier attitude toward America and Americans on the part of the general public here. Such impressions are, I know, often erroneous, but it seems to me that I notice a general increase of cordiality toward us. It may have no value commercially or otherwise, but it seems worthy of cultivation.
I have, etc.,
Chargé d’Affaires ad interim.