File No. 710.11/375
The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in Salvador (Long)
You are instructed to convey to President Meléndez the following message transmitted to him through the Department of State by President Wilson:
Your Excellency’s very generous letter of the 4th of July has just been placed in my hands and I am availing myself of the earliest opportunity of expressing to you the very deep appreciation with which it was received and read. It is delightful to feel that a mutual understanding is being established among the nations of the Americas which promises to constitute a genuine and permanent foundation of friendship, and I beg Your Excellency to believe that the speech to the Mexican editors, to which you so kindly refer, came without premeditation from my very heart. I wish you also to know that it expressed something very much more than my own personal feeling and policy, for I believe that it expressed the real attitude of the people of the United States and the policy which they would always wish to see their Government adopt and pursue, I join with you in looking forward with the highest hope and confidence to such a union of minds and purpose in America as will lead to abiding peace and friendly cooperation.