File No. 6775/132.
The President of Guatemala to President Roosevelt.
I have the honor to express to Your Excellency my full and sincere acknowledgment of the invitation you are pleased to address to me to send the delegation appertaining to Guatemala in the conference that is to be held in your capital among the representatives of the five Central American Republics, by virtue of the protocol signed by the duly empowered ministers of the said republics, to the noble end of insuring peace in the isthmus, a grand result for whose achievement Your Excellency deigns to put forth the good offices of a true friend with the cooperation of His Excellency the President of Mexico in whose name also comes the honorable invitation hereby answered by me. Guatemala will be very glad to take part in the Washington conference in November next and will, in good time, appoint its delegation to the said conference, always animated by the most genuine desire that peace, the rule and aim of its Government, shall ever be better secured in Central America and bear the desirable fruits of progress and welfare to which civilized and cultured nations must [Page 651] aspire. Your Excellency will permit me to express to you my warm thanks for all you were pleased to do in the cause of ideals so worthy of applause and at the same time to congratulate you most effusively for your effective efforts in demonstrating your sincere friendship and also to congratulate Central America on its entering the open path that is to lead it to a durable and perfect peace. The way to this goal is already opened by the engagement to maintain good diplomatic relations until the meeting in Washington of the conference, in which measures will be considered by which such differences as may be existing would be adjusted and a treaty drafted by which their general relations would be determined as Your Excellency is pleased to put it in your esteemed message. And for the very reason that Guatemala devotes all her energies to the development of her programme of peace and progress, which blessings she equally wishes for her sisters with whom she has at present no differences whatever, she will always greet with joy any stipulation that would insure those inestimable blessings. Reiterating to Your Excellency my most earnest thanks I have the honor to tender once more to you my high consideration and most distinguished regards.