File No. 861.77/55
The Secretary of War (Baker) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 2.]
My Dear Mr. Secretary: This morning at a meeting of the Council of National Defense, Mr. Stanley Washburn made an address in which he urged the importance of the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Russia and likewise urged the importance of Russia in the European war. He suggested that the sending of some expert railroad operators from America to Russia would be an effective aid to that country’s transportation system and would be accepted by the Government and people of Russia as an evidence of our sympathetic desire to cooperate with them.
Mr. Daniel Willard, President of the Advisory Commission,1 warmly supported the idea, and offered to undertake to send to Russia a small group of experienced and competent railroad men to go over this railroad, analyze its needs, and return to this country with a report which would show just what, in material and men, is needed to increase the efficiency of its operation.
I suggested that before such a thing were done, the President’s judgment should be taken; and I therefore conferred with the President, and he asks me to request you to send to the American Ambassador at Petrograd the following despatch.
[Here follows the text of telegram No. 1288 of April 2, 1917, from the Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Russia, post, page 184.]
I have [etc.]
- Of the Council of National Defense.↩