File No. 711.21/316.
The Secretary of State to the Minister of Colombia.
Washington, April 23, 1915.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 17th instant in regard to false and calumnious statements which you state the enemies of the treaty between the United States and Colombia, signed at Bogotá on April 6th last year are circulating through the press to the effect that the treaty “was shaped in virtue of intrigues and influences of political persons and lawyers who took part in the settlement of the questions.”
Complying with your request for my testimony in this regard, I beg to say that in the negotiating of the treaty the United States was animated by no other motive than to restore the ancient friendship that had existed between the two countries by settling in a friendly, honorably [sic] and just way the differences between them arising out of the events which took place on the Isthmus of Panama in November 1903, and that the United States was in no wise, as all who are conversant with the negotiations are aware, influenced by any outside sources. I have no doubt that the negotiations on the part of Colombia were conducted with the game high motive and I have no reason to believe, and I do not believe, that the Government of Colombia, whose integrity is too well known to be doubted, had any other object or aim. As you correctly state the treaty was negotiated and concluded without “there having been at work any influence of political personages or lawyers or any other class of persons.”
Accept [etc.]