811.73/219a
The Secretary of State to President Wilson
My Dear Mr. President: I deem it important to invite your attention to certain serious difficulties that have arisen between the authorities of the Government and the Western Union Telegraph Company.
The Company desires to land a cable at Miami, Florida, which will connect at the Island of Barbados with a cable belonging to the Western Telegraph Company, a British cable company which has a monopoly of cable facilities in Brazil, to the rigorous exclusion of competing American lines. There has been much complaint from Americans doing business in territory served by this Company, that private messages have been postponed in delivery and their contents revealed, to promote British interests at the expense of American.
It has been held by the Attorney General, and his opinion has been sustained by the lower Federal Courts, that, in the absence of congressional legislation, the President has the power to control the landing of foreign submarine cables on the shores of the United States, and that he may prevent the landing or permit it on conditions which will protect the interests of this Government and its citizens.
The Department of State has received information that the Company is proceeding with a view to making a connection at Miami without obtaining the required permit. It is important that appropriate [Page 687] steps be taken to prevent such a violation of the law, and I believe it will be in the interest of the Government to impose important conditions on the landing of a cable. The Company is evidently seeking to avoid such conditions.
I therefore recommend that you authorize the cooperation of the Navy Department, the War Department, and the Department of Justice with a view to preventing the Company from landing a cable in defiance of the law.
Faithfully yours,