File No. 711.21/191.
The Secretary of State to the American Minister.
Washington , September 29, 1913 .
The Department has received your form of offer1 and substitutes the following by direction of the President. You will submit it immediately to the Colombian Government.
The Government and people of the United States sincerely desire that everything that may have marred or seemed to interrupt the close and long-established friendship between the United States and the Republic of Colombia should be cleared away and forgotten. My Government therefore desires now to set at rest once and for all the differences that have arisen between it and the Government of the Republic of Colombia in connection with the question of the proper reparation for the losses, both moral and material, suffered by the Republic of Colombia by reason of the circumstances accompanying the acquisition of the rights now enjoyed by the United States on the Isthmus of Panama. I am therefore instructed to offer the sum of $20,000,000 in full settlement of all claims and differences now pending between the Government of Colombia and the Government of the United States and between the Government of Colombia and the Government of the Republic of Panama. I hope that this offer will prove acceptable to your excellency’s Government, and
I am [etc.]
- Not printed.↩