File No. 710.11/375

The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in Salvador ( Long )

[Telegram]

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.

Polk