File No. 817.00/2382.
Minister Hale to the Secretary of State.
San José , December 24, 1914 .
In accordance with Department’s December 18, I presented formal and emphatic request to President of Costa Rica. In his reply of four hundred words he says that one of the chief and most constant aims of his Government has ever been to preserve peace in Central America; and that in the seven years of existence of the Treaty of Washington it has complied strictly with all its stipulations; thus a clean record. But it takes a like pride in its observance of the law and constitution governing its interior affairs. The claim in the concrete case now formulated by the United States, he declares to be “in open opposition to the constitutional articles which guarantee, solely, on the clear and determined occasions provided by the law for them.” [sic] He permits himself to state, very respectfully, his “Government is not able to accede to your demand.”