File No. 818.00/187
[Inclosure—Translation]
manifesto or proclamation by general tinoco on
july 11, 1917
Convinced of the vitality of the patriotism of Costa Rica which in
supreme moments has always given certain proofs that it is of the
same temper as in the time of our elders, I appeal with all my
energy to the national conscience in these times when evil enemies
of the Constitutional Government are seeking by means of bastard
machinations and perverse intrigues to surprise the good faith of
the people, taking advantage for this purpose of the present bad
financial situation which is not the work of the present
administration but the heritage of the past and the fruit in part of
the war which is moving the world with tragic fervor.
With a foreign debt of 31 million colones and an internal debt of 14
millions which made on the morning of the 27th of January last a
total debt of 45 million colones, with the fiscal revenues terribly
reduced by the violent decrease of Importations; with the English
markets because of the unholy submarine campaign suddenly closed to
our exports of coffee and bananas, the most valuable products of our
public wealth; with banking and commercial transactions almost
paralyzed; with exchange in a state of constant feverishness; with
internal fiscal credit broken into pieces; with economic lack of
confidence reigning as master and mistress wherever one looked, in
this condition, fellow citizens did I find the Republic when I took
charge of its Government by virtue of the most popular political
evolution registered in all our history.
The honorable ex-Designate, Don Alfredo González Flores, had left
unpaid urgent obligations of the value of three million colones
which the new administration had to pay without delay; and while
surrounded by the best and most honorable persons in the country I
was consecrating myself with unwavering faith in struggling for the
cause of the general welfare; while the State was being reorganized
upon a constitutional basis and the Costa Rican family, laying aside
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rancor and political
differences, was being fraternally consolidated with the aspiration
of completing the labor of harmony and peace, that ex-Chief of
State, and the ex-Minister in Washington, Lie. Manuel Castro
Quesada, and a group of cronies of his, blinded by hate because of
their just defeat in the fields of law, conspired in foreign parts
against the autonomy of the fatherland which saw their birth. These
unpatriotic confabulations of spite and evil have not been and will
not in any manner be an obstacle to obstruct the serene progress of
the country along the lines of its improvement nor to close the road
of action by my Government which is traveling unvaryingly along the
broad road of the law, without other object than the happiness of
Costa Rica nor other power than that lent by popular will and
without other creed than that of our glorious tri-colored flag.
But as the severe financial crisis imposes sacrifices upon us all and
demands of the Government that it adopt extraordinary and radical
measures in the different branches of activity which affect private
interests, the malcontents exploit to their taste the effects of a
state of things which in general are due to factors wholly alien to
the desires of the ruler, whose most lively wish is that of solving
the existing difficulties and to this very object are tending the
united efforts of the Executive and the Legislative branches and of
a chosen group of personalities, skilled in finance and matters of
State, who hour after hour are cooperating in the solving of the
problem by practical and rapid means, upon the invariable principle
of adjusting all proceedings to the sole judgment of what is true
and effective protection of the public.
Normalized as international exchange will be to the benefit of the
cheapening of articles of greatest or most indispensable
consumption; once the immediate placing in the market of the
agricultural products is guaranteed because of my refusal to import
food supplies from abroad on account of the Treasury, it being a
fact that the farmer of the nation should not be exposed to risks
with respect to the fruit of his labors and that our fertile soil
can and should suffice us for the satisfaction of our necessities;
the customs tariff being already on the road to revision in the
direction of reducing duties on all those articles most preferred by
the public; the fields and shops being stimulated by the beneficial
effects of order under which vast plans will be developed always to
the profit of the unprotected classes of society, who are the ones
who most rudely suffer the consequences of the crisis as they are
the ones who would be the first to suffer the tremendous evils of
anarchy and slavery to which they are invited by the wolves in
sheep’s skins; with speculation manacled without prejudice to the
well understood liberty of commerce; and vanquished at last with a
well-aimed blow the vulture of rapine which never satisfies its
voracity nor its covetousness, better days will come for the Costa
Rican people, which, devotedly patriotic as it is, will consolidate
itself with my Government in this hour of bitter struggles in which
men of truth will take pride in showing themselves strong, tranquil
and full of redeeming hopes.
For this reason I do not doubt for an instant, fellow citizens, that
I shall find you ever alert and ready at your posts which duty has
pointed out for us and that in listening to my present words of
warning against the activities of my ill-wishers, whom I brand
before public opinion not in those terms but as audacious and
cowardly enemies of the fatherland, you will feel vibrate in your
hearts the same aspiration which animates me as Chief of the State
and as a citizen and which is nothing else than that of maintaining
in all its integrity the independence and sovereignty of the
Republic by means of the virile and conscientious effort of its
sons, by their love of peace and labor, seeking in this way by the
diligent energy of the Costa Rican people to obtain the glory and
happy future of the Nation.
Federico Tinoco
Presidential Mansion
,
San José
,
July 11, 1917
.
