711.21/331½

The Minister in Colombia ( Thomson ) to President Wilson

Mr. President: I am sending by this mail to the State Department a despatch about the Treaty and the reported hopes of the Germans here that our Senate will fail to approve it,—some, I am told, saying that when the European war is finished Germany will settle the Panama matter.

I venture therefore to call your attention to the importance of the approval of the Treaty by our Senate from this point of view. I need hardly mention the German wireless station at Cartagena, nor various other German concessions and ambitions in this Hemisphere, but I will mention a confidential report from this Legation of April 30, 1913,3 that a subordinate of the German Legation, here, speaking of the enterprise of the Hamburg-Colombian Banana Company in the Gulf of Darien, said that “the real reason . . . is . . .5 our desire to possess a coaling station of our own in the Carribean.” I desire [Page 515] also to call your special attention to a letter of November 29, 1912, addressed to the President of the United States by my predecessor, Mr. Du Bois, on file in the Department of State.6 Referring to the concession granted by the Colombian Government to this banana company of ten thousand acres, he says: “It is within easy access to coal deposits. The concession includes the widest privileges, railroads, telegraph, pier and wharf construction,—a very liberal banana concession,” and he suggests that “Only the future will disclose what there is in this concession and the disclosure may come at a time least expected and least desired”. Events since the beginning of the European war have emphasized the apprehension of Mr. Du Bois expressed nearly two years before that conflagration broke out.

On the directorate of the Banana Company appear the names of Herr Ballin, director of the Hamburg American Line, and of Herr Thomann, one of the largest stockholders of that line. Mr. Du Bois says that “during the first three months of 1912 the German Minister near the Colombian Government made an inspection along the Atlantic and Pacific Coast lines of Colombia, visiting every port and possible port; made a prolonged stay in the Gulf of Urabá; and secured statistics and photographs of the improvements being made at Puerto Cesar”.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The German activities in the Caribbean, it would seem, should be sufficient to emphasize the necessity for having the friendship especially of Colombia and Costa Rica to strengthen our national defenses. I am also reporting by this mail that the attorney who secured a concession for a coaling station in Cartagena Bay (not yet approved by Congress) is also acting as attorney for the German Legation here; and it appears to me certain that the Germans have been making preparations in this country to test the strength of our support of the Monroe Doctrine and extremely probable, in such an event, that if our Senate rejects the Treaty, Colombia will not oppose, if indeed it does not assist, the landing of German troops on its soil for an attack on the Panama Canal.

Without taking into consideration the commercial advantages to be derived from the settlement of a question that has caused so much friction between the two Republics, it occurs to me that the friends of the Treaty might gain a few votes by pressing this argument at the present time when the Nation is aroused to the necessity for preparedness. Most of our national legislators are in total ignorance of what has been transpiring on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

[Page 516]

One point in the Treaty which seems to meet with some opposition is the expression of regret by the United States; if it should appear that this endangered the entire Treaty, I would suggest that the Senate amend it so as to make the expression of regret mutual on the part of Colombia and the United States. The present Minister for Foreign Affairs informed me confidentially last year that he desired this from the beginning but that the other members of the Commission on Foreign Affairs refused it positively when the negotiations were in progress. I believe that an amendment making the expression of regret mutual would now be accepted by the Colombian Congress.

I have [etc.]

Thad. A. Thomson
  1. Not printed.
  2. Omissions indicated in original despatch.
  3. Not found in Department files.