File No. 6775/83.
President Roosevelt to the President of Mexico.
I duly received your telegram of August 31, in regard to the suggestion made by the minister of Nicaragua in Mexico concerning the place of meeting of the proposed Central American conference. While my own preference has been, and still is, for holding the conference in Mexico, I cordially adopted your intimation that the views of the other Central American States on that point should be elicited, [Page 644] and to that end caused the respective ministers in Washington to be informally sounded. It then developed that a most gratifying movement had originated among them on the suggestion of the minister of Costa Rica toward a meeting of the five ministers here, under authorization of their respective governments, to conclude a provisional protocol providing for a formal conference to assemble upon the concurrent invitation of the Presidents of Mexico and the United States; for the friendly assistance of representatives of the Presidents of Mexico and the United States at such conference; for the unanimous choice of its place and date of meeting; and for a solemn engagement on the part of the five Central American Republics to maintain a mutually pacific attitude pending such conference. This proposal has been most fortunately carried out by the signature of the projected protocol on the 17th instant, in the presence of the Chargé d’Affaires of Mexico and the Acting Secretary of State of the United States of America. Señor Godoy, who has been kept constantly informed of the movement, will have sent you the text of the protocol.
In view of this happy step, the way appears to be clear for you and me to address concurrently to the respective Central American executives the invitation we have had in view. I beg to submit to Your Excellency the following draft of a message which I am ready to send if you will do likewise, and I invite your suggestions as to its tenor and language:
I received in due course the gratifying response made by Your Excellency to my message of the 28th of August, in which I urged, concurrently with His Excellency the President of Mexico, the need of peaceable and harmonious relations between the five Central American Republics, and tendered my good offices toward bringing about the suggested peace conference among them.
I have been glad to see that the unqualified acceptance, by Your Excellency and by your Central American colleagues, of the friendly proposals made by the President of Mexico and by me, has been followed by a successful movement among the Central American representatives in Washington to open the way for such a conference by agreeing upon the place and date thereof and by concluding a mutual engagement that the good relations of the Central American States shall be maintained pending the meeting of the conference and its results.
Being made aware of the preliminary protocol signed by the duly authorized representatives of the five Central American States in Washington on the 17th instant, I now have the pleasure, concurrently with His Excellency the President of the United Mexican States, to invite Your Excellency—as I in like manner invite the Executives of the other four Central American Republics—to name a commissioner or commissioner to meet commissioners named by the other Republics of Central America, in formal conference, in the city of Washington, during the first fifteen days of November next, to discuss the steps to be taken and the measures to be adopted in order to adjust any differences which may exist among said Republics, or any of them, and for the purpose of concluding a treaty which shall determine their general relations.a