Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 3, 1912
File No. 817.00/1753.
The Secretary of State to the American Minister.
Washington, January 25, 1912.
Sir: I enclose herewith for your information a copy of a letter in regard to political conditions in Nicaragua, which General Emilia no Chamorro has addressed to the Department.
I am [etc.]
General Emiliano Chamorro to the Secretary of State.
Excellency: On account of the interest that the Government of which your excellency is a member has displayed toward Nicaragua and on account of the part I have taken in the events which have taken place here since October 11, 1909, I base my hope that my name may perhaps not be entirely unknown to your excellency.
With that hope for my only ground, I venture to bespeak your excellency’s attention to the points presented in this letter, of a confidential nature, which [Page 1018] is intended to lay before you the anomalous condition in which this country, for whose fate the Government of the United States has shown so much concern, is placed.
This being the first time I have had the honor to address your excellency, I beg your leave, before launching into the main object of this letter, to say that even before the opening of the Washington conference and therefore long before the revolutionary movement of October 1909 in which 1, as leader of the Conservative party, joined until it brought about the overthrow of the Liberal regime which your excellency most appropriately called “a blot on the history of Nicaragua”—long before these events, I say, there prevailed in the elements of the Conservative party, here and among the emigrados, a current of sympathy toward the American Government and people, born of the conviction that through them the reign of law and justice could be restored in this Republic.
This conviction assumed with the Nicaraguans the character of uncontrovertible truth when your excellency, pointing out the causes of the revolution, said in the memorable note1 addressed to Señor Rodríguez Mayorga, Chargé d’Affaires of Nicaragua in the United States, that your excellency’s Government was convinced that the revolution represented the ideals and will of the Nicaraguan people more faithfully than the Government represented by Señor Rodríguez; that it was a well-known fact that under the Zelaya régime republican institutions existed in name only; that public opinion and the press were throttled; that imprisonment was the reward of patriotism; and that it refrained from discussing the details of a regime which, unfortunately, has been a blot upon the history of Nicaragua.
The foregoing sentences in your excellency’s note summarized the grievances that compelled us on more than one occasion to adopt the painful recourse to arms, and justified the attitude of the Nicaraguan people, naturally peaceful and law-abiding; subsequently they have been the criterion of a policy on which the coveted reconstruction of Nicaragua is to be founded, at the cost of so many sacrifices, and especially securing to the Government of the United States the right it then reserved to itself in accordance with the aforesaid memorable note, to consider at the proper time the expediency of also stipulating that the Constitutional Government of Nicaragua should bind itself by a treaty to the advantage of all the Governments that might be concerned and as a guaranty of its faithful future support of the Washington Conventions and its peaceful and progressive aspirations.
In consequence thereof, when the Liberalism that had done so much harm to the country was overpowered, I did not hesitate about accepting the mediation of the Hon. T. C. Dawson, Special Commissioner of the American Government, “for the signature of four conventions, which remove certain difficulties which might stand in the way of the establishment of a constitutional regime in the country, that being the condition put by your excellency’s Government upon the resumption of official relations with this Government and the execution of the program which, with the powerful influence of the American Government would give prompt effect to the necessary political reforms demanded by this country. The first three parts of the compact, the first dated October 10, 1910. the second and third dated the 29th of the same month and year, were complied with by us; the last, under date of the 30th of the same month and year, awaiting execution at the proper time.
Mr. Dawson’s intervention in the negotiations culminating in the said compact was regarded by us as one of the means your excellency’s Government had reserved to itself for achieving the end it sought in the political and economic reform, and we always looked upon it as a pledge that the compact would be carried out under the guaranty of the Government he represented.
Your excellency can not be unaware of the events that have since taken place in Nicaragua, in view of which I decided to leave the country with the object of avoiding the use of my name as a standard of opposition to the policy consonant with the views of the American Government summarized in the Knox-Castrillo convention, in which, as above stated, we embodied the hopes of political and economic regeneration; and I did not return until recently when the loan contracts had already been approved, in the confident hope that they will be the means of giving effect to the political rights referred to in the above-cited Dawson compact, and that they would bring to a speedy end the anomalous conditions under which we live, with martial law now prevailing as under the long dictatorship [Page 1019] of Santos Zelaya and the economic calamity which in the year that is about to end has considerably increased the national debt and profoundly disturbed the business entered into with a prospect of an early restoration of administrative order. It is true that the presence, at the eleventh hour, of Messrs. Pedro Rafael Cuadra as Minister of the Treasury and Diego Manuel Chamorro as Minister of Foreign Relations inspired some confidence among the people, but the uncertainty of their continued presence, because of the anomalous conditions above mentioned, contributes toward impairing their labor of reform.
In spite of the expectation of improved conditions inspired by the approval of the loan contracts, it seems to have been frustrated by the strange and unexpected election of General Mena, by the Assembly, to the office of President of the Republic for the next constitutional term, in flagrant violation of the fourth of the Dawson conventions, which stipulated the manner of designating the candidate and contained the engagement of the signers to recommend to the people the election of him who should be the choice of the majority. The election above referred to perpetuates the system of the Liberal party in the seventeen years of its rule in this country, during which no attention was ever paid to public opinion in the solution of questions of interest to the people; nor is it entitled to the excuse that it is a reward for the approval of the loan contracts; that approval was brought about by the general wish of the country and not by any one person. I may assure your excellency that the leaders of the country, the educated classes, the landholders, and even the people themselves longed for the approval of the loan contracts and their annexes to the point of distinctly, influencing the Assembly to have it sanction them.
In my position as leader of the Conservative party, which necessity alone could involve in war and compel to sustain a long struggle, I am interested in removing every difficulty that may imperil the realization of the just cravings of the Nicaraguans for a fair and progressive government, that Will lead them to the prosperity they covet in consonance with the views of the American Government, by returning to the country its right to elect the executive of its choice. In the impossibility of gratifying this desire lay the main cause of the opposition to Santos Zelaya, because he excluded every hope of improving conditions by a change in the personnel of the Government.
Your excellency will permit me to call attention to the fact that I am not pleading the cause of any particular candidate but upholding the conservation of a principle which stands for the carrying out of a guaranty, since the candidate has not yet been nominated, and it would not be possible to say who would be selected; and also to the fact that compliance with the [Dawson] compact would do away with all occasion for discord. Indeed the elections as they have been conducted can achieve nothing more than to convince the people that violence is the only means by which they can regain their rights; this conviction, as your excellency will readily understand, cannot be encouraged by a party enjoying the standing and antecedents of the Conservative party.
On these grounds, and peace being fully recognized by your excellency’s Government to be a necessary element of progress for this country, 1 have not hesitated to address your excellency in the name of the Conservative party I represent, and to beseech you to exert your influence toward the full execution at the proper time of the part of the Dawson compact which bears upon the subject above discussed as the best mode of placing upon a substantial basis that public tranquillity which is the safest foundation for lasting and profitable peace.
I beg [etc.],
File No. 817.00/1753.
The Secretary of State to General Emiliano Chamorro.
Washington, January 22, 1912.
Sir: I have your interesting letter of December 11, 1911, regarding political conditions in Nicaragua, which was received at the Department a few days ago.
As you say, the Government of the United States takes a great interest in the welfare, peace and prosperity of Nicaragua.
I am [etc.]