815.00/2396: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Minister in Salvador (Schuyler)

37. Your 70, July 28, 3 p.m.18

Legation Tegucigalpa informs Department band of 60 men entered town of Santa Elena from Salvadorean territory afternoon of 28th, capturing the commandant and robbing two stores.

You will inform President Meléndez that this Government has been very much disturbed by the repeated reports regarding such activities along the border between Salvador and Honduras. The Department fully realizes the difficulty of controlling the situation along the frontier between the two countries, but it feels that the repeated invasions of the territory of Honduras, and the resulting danger to the peace of Central America, calls for very much more energetic action than the Government of Salvador has yet taken. It, therefore, expects the Salvadorean Government to intern those engaged in such operations, and to take such other steps as may be necessary to put a definite end to the operations of Honduranean revolutionists on Salvadorean territory. The Department is constrained to add that a failure to take these steps must be regarded as an indication that the Government of Salvador is either unwilling or unable to perform the obligations resting upon any civilized government.

[Page 572]

You may informally point out to the President, in this connection, that the Treaties of 1907 provide that revolutionists of one country could not be permitted to live in the Provinces of the other countries bordering on their country of origin.

Hughes
  1. Not printed.