882.51/990
The Assistant Secretary of State ( Phillips ) to the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury ( Rathbone )
My Dear Mr. Rathbone: I am in receipt of your letter of the 12th instant regarding the credit of $5,000,000 established by the Treasury Department in favor of the Government of Liberia and have taken due note of the opinion expressed by you that, as the act authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to establish credits in favor of foreign governments requires that these credits be established for the national security and defense and to aid in the prosecution of the war, it would seem necessary to limit the advances to Liberia from the credit heretofore established in favor of the Government of that country to the amounts and for the purposes as to which the Government of the United States has already obligated itself.
[Page 488]In reply I beg to inform you that relying on the assurances contained in the letters of October 17 and 25, 1918, from the Treasury Department,33 the Secretary of State, on behalf of the Government of the United States, has, in fact, entered into obligations to make to Liberia the advances referred to in those letters.
I am [etc.]
- Letter of Oct. 17 printed in Foreign Relations, 1918, p. 543; letter of Oct. 25 not printed.↩