File No. 123.G35/49.
The Minister of Cuba to the Acting Secretary of State.
Washington, August 31, 1912.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your courteous note No. 57 of the 28th instant, in which you inform me that the Chargé d’Affaires of the United States in Cuba, on entering the Hotel Miramar in the evening of August 27, was assaulted by a reporter of La Prensa who struck him with intent to do him bodily injury; and that the Department of State of the United States expects that the Cuban Government will promptly take energetic measures to punish the offender.
In reply, Mr. Secretary, I reiterate to you my regret, already verbally expressed to the Department of State, at so deplorable and unjustifiable a deed, and at the same time I inform you that my Government has instructed the Public Prosecutor’s Office to bring action for the public trial and punishment of the aggressor in accordance with the penal laws of Cuba, which in cases like this are as severe as those [Page 273] of the United States in punishing violators of the rules of international hospitality.
My Government further tells me that as soon as it learned of the act referred to in your note, besides taking steps for the arrest and punishment of the aggressor, it gave the Chargé d’Affaires complete satisfaction through the Secretary of State, who called in person at the Legation of the United States for that purpose.
I am sure that the courts of justice of Cuba, true to their honorable traditions, will not fail to inflict upon the offender the punishment provided by law, and I trust that the deed of an irresponsible man, unfriendly to the Government to the point of being denied admittance into the Department of State of Cuba, as you inform me in the note I am answering, cannot occasion any change whatever in the good and cordial relations existing between Cuba and the United States.
I avail [etc.]