File No. 437.11UN3.

The Secretary of War to the Secretary of State.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of January 211 inclosing a copy of dispatch No. 567, dated January 14, 1911, from the American minister at Habana.

You invite my attention to that portion of the dispatch which refers to a statement made in the newspapers and attributed to me to the effect that the United States had claims outstanding against Cuba for the maintenance of our military forces during the intervention in that island from 1906 to 1909.

The statement to which the newspapers refer is doubtless the one which I made before the Committee on Military Affairs of the House of Representatives in a hearing on the Army appropriation bill, December 13, 1909. I beg to inclose a copy1 of so much of the hearing as pertains to this matter.

You will observe that this was a statement of my own views, and not made in such a way as to commit the administration to definite action in this regard.

J. M. Dickinson.
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