710.11/319⅙
President Wilson to the Secretary of State
My Dear Mr. Secretary: The answers to the important questions you here raise are reasonably clear to me. (By the way, I do not find among my papers here the Brazilian proposals you spoke of the other day).
If any one of the signatories to our proposed Pan-American treaty should become an ally of Germany against her European enemies, we would undoubtedly be bound to protect her against any loss of territory or any curtailment of her political independence that any of the Entente group might attempt; but we would be obliged to do that in any case, under the Monroe Doctrine.
Should any one of the signatories permit its territory to be used as a base of military or naval operations against us, it would manifestly be acting in contravention of the patent meaning of the pact and we would be free to act as if there were no pact.
As for “influences” and propaganda, we could not prevent them, any more than Great Britain has been able to prevent them in the United States, where they were very formidable, though they of course did not have the countenance of the Government.
I do not see that the other signatories would in the present circumstances be obligated to declare war on Germany. They would be obligated to come to our assistance with arms only when our political independence or territorial integrity were evidently and immediately threatened.
[Page 500]These questions do not seem to me to constitute difficulties of practical importance. If we can meet Brazil’s wishes sufficiently to get her adherence to the pact, I shall feel warranted in pressing on. It seems to me that this is the very time when such a league would make the deepest impression and have the greatest moral effect on both sides of the water.
Faithfully Yours,