File No. 839.032/6.
[Inclosure—Translation—Extract.]1
As the land customhouses of Comendador and Tierra Nueva were
abandoned by the Assistants of the General Receiver in consequence
of the state of war, the United States Government resolved to
protect said employees by maintaining the Frontier Guard, in order
to prevent the customs receipts allotted to the payment of the
foreign debt from suffering any detriment.2
With this object, and in view of its contractual relations with the
Republic and its position as mediator between the Dominican Republic
and the Republic of Haiti in their boundary dispute3 the United States Government determined to consider
as a de facto provisional line between the two Republics, without
prejudice to the rights and obligations of either country and
pending the conclusion of a final settlement of the boundary
dispute, the line indicated on the map of Haiti and Santo Domingo
prepared by the Second Division (Military Information) of the
General Staff, Washington 1907 and 1908, sheet No. 6, of Monte
Cristi, and sheet No. 7, of Barahona, which you will find appended
to the Report on Foreign Relations.
Said measure, taken in order that the customs receipts might be duly
protected and that the provisional line thus determined might be
guarded and temporarily respected, was never carried out, for the
reason that the abnormal situation of the country and the
circumstances which occurred afterwards rendered unnecessary the
action of the American Government along this line.
The commission sent here by President Taft at the beginning of
September, 1912, after studying the situation not only with respect
to the official object of its mission—that is, the restoration of
the customshouses and of the Frontier Guard—but also with respect to
our domestic policy, withdrew some days before the resignation of
President Victoria, without the troops who came with it on the Prairie having to land at any point on
Dominican territory.
* * * * * * *
I deem it my duty to copy here, for the information of the Congress,
the messages which, under date of December 12, 1912,4 and January 23
last,5 I received from the President of the
United States in regard to the state of our domestic
[Page 418]
politics at the time, and to the
desire of that Government to guarantee the peace and prosperity of
the Dominican Republic. I will also copy the answer at the foot of
each document:
It is very distressing to me to know that your duties as
Provisional President have proved so irksome, but I
earnestly hope that you will continue to discharge them for
the allotted time, in the interests of humanity and peace;
and I can hardly doubt that every good element will join in
supporting the Provisional Government and thus perform their
patriotic duty toward the Dominican Republic, in whose
welfare the United States is so vitally interested. I assure
you that your efforts on behalf of the Dominican people will
receive from the Government of the United States the
sincerest and most earnest support.
Wm. H. Taft.
President Taft,
Washington:
Accept this expression of my gratitude for Your Excellency’s
message, received today. Like you, I hope that all good
Dominicans will fulfill their patriotic duty to the
Republic, which a long and cruel civil war has caused to
suffer greatly. I must trust to the good faith of my
fellow-citizens, who are well aware of the sentiment of the
great American people, pioneers of liberty and justice, and
of the desires of their Government.
The limit of my tenure will depend on circumstances, and it
is my fixed intention to leave it as soon as the whole
country is pacified.
In my name and that of the Dominican people receive, Mr.
President, the expression of the most sincere gratitude.
Adolfo A. Nouel.
The most sympathetic interest is felt by the President and
Government of the United States in your unselfish and
patriotic efforts to maintain lawful and orderly government
and to introduce needful reforms, thus assuring to the
Dominican nation the blessings of prosperity and peace. The
President and Government of the United States sincerely wish
that your patient endeavors may so succeed as to exclude the
possibility of a recurrence of such disorders as have
afflicted the Dominican people. Those disorders would by
their recurrence make more onerous the duty of the United
States under its conventional and moral obligations never to
be indifferent to the peace and order of the Dominican
Republic.
Wm. H. Taft.
President Taft,
Washington:
I am profoundly touched by the generous interest of the
Government and people of the United States and their hope
that my persevering efforts for the peace and prosperity of
the Dominican nation may prove so successful as to exclude
all possibility of a recurrence of the disorders that have
afflicted it.
Notwithstanding the obstacles which the former state of war
and its consequences have caused, I earnestly trust—and I
beg Your Excellency to share this trust—that the occasion
may not arise for the Government of the United States to
fulfill in a manner painful to the Dominican people its
moral obligations and those imposed by the Convention of
1907.
President Nouel.
