The Acting Secretary of State to Consul-General Stienhart.
September 10, 1906 .
Your cable received. Two ships have been sent, due to arrive Wednesday. The President directs me to state that perhaps you do not yourself appreciate the reluctance with which this country would intervene. President Palma should be informed that in the public opinion here it would have a most damaging effect for intervention to be undertaken until the Cuban Government has exhausted every effort in a serious attempt to put down the insurrection and has made this fact evident to the world. At present the impression would certainly be that there was no real popular support of the Cuban Government or else that the Government was hopelessly weak. As conditions are at this moment we are hot prepared to say what shape the intervention should take. It is of course a very serious thing to undertake forcible intervention, and before going into it we should have to be absolutely certain of the equities of the case and the needs of the situation. Meanwhile we assume that every effort is being made by the Cuban Government to come to a working agreement which will secure peace with the insurrectos, provided they are unable to hold their own with them in the field. Until such efforts have been made we are not prepared to consider the question of intervention at all.
Acting Secretary.