793.94/317½
President Wilson to the Secretary of State
My Dear Mr. Secretary: I think this excellent,22 and I think all that you have said ought to be said. It certainly can give no offense as you have put it, and may do good.
But I was thinking yesterday in Cabinet, as Lane was presenting his views, that the real weakness of our influence in this matter lay in the privacy of our representations to Japan with regard to it. I think, therefore, that it would be wise to say to the Japanese Ambassador that our position with regard to these important matters, of which treaties with China as well as our general interest in the position China is to take in the economic development of her resources give us a right to speak, has been so generally misunderstood and so misleadingly speculated about that we feel that it may become immediately necessary to make our views public, perhaps in conjunction with other nations whose interests and sympathies are equally involved; and that we are on that account the more anxious to have a perfectly clear and cordial relationship of mutual understanding [Page 418] between ourselves and Japan, so that it may be evident from the first that no friction from this source is involved so far as our two governments at present are concerned.
This, I am convinced, is the only means we have of reassuring China, our own people, and other governments at present less free than we to protest.
I think, too, that we ought to instruct Reinsch to assure the Chinese government that it has our sympathy in resisting any demands which too seriously impinge upon its sovereignty, its administrative independence, or its territorial integrity.
Faithfully Yours,
- No enclosure with file copy of this letter.↩