812.00/26098

General Obregon to President Harding

[Translation33]

Honorable and Distinguished Friend: A few days ago34 Mr. Summerlin delivered to me your personal letter dated the 21st of July last, by which I have realized that Mr. Dover was right when he suggested that it was possible to arrive soon at a thorough understanding in regard to the points in which our Governments do not concur for the moment, through a frank and direct exchange of views between yourself and me. In fact, the frankness with which you define and express these points, your categorical assertion that, in so expressing and defining them, the United States is not acting in the interests of any particular group of American citizens, and your expressed intention not to expect from me, as President of the Republic of Mexico, anything except that which may be just and in accordance with the laws of my country,—all indicate that the time is not far off when doubts will be cleared and diplomatic relations between the two countries resumed.

It is fortunate for the resumption of these relations that between the date of my previous letter and that of the present one, and in conformity with the plan of reconstruction which I have announced from the time of the electoral campaign, and which, since my election, I have been endeavoring to carry out, the Government of Mexico has taken several important steps, along the lines indicated in your letter, that in a practical manner shed the fullest light upon those matters which have occasioned distrust to the Government of the White House. I refer to the invitation extended by Mexico to [Page 425] various countries to appoint mixed commissions to appraise the responsibilities of the Mexican Nation for damages caused to foreigners, and to the deliberations of Congress and of the Supreme Court of Justice, where the nonretroactivity and nonconfiscatory character of article 27 of the Constitution will be promptly determined. I consider these steps all the greater in importance as they coincide with the observations in your letter in regard to the decisive effect they would have upon the uncertainty of the present international situation.

Therefore, since the Government of Mexico has already invited the Government of the United States to appoint a mixed claims commission, I hope that as soon as article 27 has been regulated by our Congress or interpreted by decisions of the Supreme Court of Justice, the abnormal state of official relations between Mexico and the United States, so detrimental to the material and spiritual interests of the two peoples, will be ended.

In conformity with your wishes, and confident that the best channel for our exchange of views is the officials of the Department of State of the United States and the Department of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, I am sending this letter to Mr. Téllez, our Chargé d’Affaires in Washington, in order that he may deliver it informally to you with the expression of my sincere esteem.

A. Obregon
  1. File translation revised.
  2. On Aug. 4.