File No. 867.48/619
The Spanish Ambassador ( Riaño ) to the Assistant Secretary of State ( Phillips )
[Received March 28.]
My Dear Mr. Secretary: Referring to our informal conversation upon the subject of the relief of Christians in Syria, I beg to inform you confidentially that, according to advice received from Madrid on March 11 ultimo, His Majesty the King of Spain had been asked by His Holiness the Pope to cooperate in the work of relief of Christian prisoners in Palestine, and especially of those at Mount Lebanon and Jerusalem, of which more than a hundred thousand have perished from hunger.
In spite of the great difficulties of this undertaking, His Majesty the King and His Government have decided in principle to give it their earnest support, on the condition however, that the committee formed in the United States for the relief of these Christians shall give its moral and material support to the enterprise.
I was therefore instructed to get in touch with this committee and to ask if it was prepared to give the moral and material support in question; and, acting upon my instructions, I suggested that money and foodstuffs might be sent from the United States to a Spanish port, and thence transhipped to a Spanish bottom which would take them to Asia Minor.
Up to the present time I have not succeeded in obtaining a categorical reply to my question, either from the Joint Distribution Committee of 52 William Street, New York, or from the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, of 1 Madison Avenue, New York, with both of which I have corresponded; and as I [Page 542] understand that a great part of the relief work which was previously carried on by these Committees has been taken over by the American Government, I am taking the liberty of addressing to you the question which I put to them, with the request that you inform me of your views in regard to the proposition which I made on behalf of my Government.
Believe me [etc.]