033.1132/19a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Brazil (Morgan)87
64. Formal announcement was yesterday made by the President that he has designated the Secretary of State to visit Brazil on his [Page 231] behalf to return the visit here of President Pessoa. Referring to the visits to this country of President Brum and President Pessoa, the President made the following statement:
“The history of the relations between the United States and the friendly republics in South America was marked in the years 1918 and 1919 by two incidents of the most agreeable character and outstanding significance. I refer to the visit to this country in August 1918, of His Excellency, Dr. Baltasar Brum, now President of Uruguay, and at the time of his visit Minister of Foreign Affairs of his country, and in the year 1919 to the visit of His Excellency, Dr. Epitacio Pessoa, now President of Brazil, and at the time of his visit the President-elect to that exalted office.
“Both these visits called forth demonstrations on the part of the people of the United States of the utmost cordiality and good will toward the distinguished visitors and the friendly nations whom they represented, and every thinking person in this country was impressed with the potency of such visits as instruments for cementing the sincere attachment and deepening the genuine intimacy between the self-governing democracies of the western hemisphere.
“I have, therefore, directed the Secretary of State, on my behalf and in my stead, to visit both Brazil and Uruguay and to extend to the peoples of both those countries, through their respective governments, the most emphatic assurances of the esteem and friendship of the people of the United States and of the desire felt in this country for the strengthening of every tie that binds our respective peoples in mutual good will and cordial intercourse.”
Please inform the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the above in order that announcement may be made by the Brazilian Government of the approaching visit of the Secretary of State, and obtain publication of the pertinent paragraphs from the President’s formal announcement above quoted. The date of the Secretary’s departure has not yet been definitely determined, but it is feared that he will not be able to arrive at Rio de Janeiro until early in December.
- Similar telegrams were sent on the same date to the representatives in Argentina (no. 128) and Uruguay (no. 47).↩