817.00/5127
The Nicaraguan Minister (César) to the Secretary of State
Excellency: I have the honor to enclose with this note a press report which appeared in the New York Times of October 26, 1927,1 concerning which I take the liberty to invite Your Excellency’s attention.
Although I am certain that Your Excellency’s Government in no wise authorized those reports or assumed any responsibility for them, I trust that Your Excellency will appreciate the deep concern with which my Government has viewed the appearance in the serious press of the United States of communications emanating from Washington which might be interpreted as the official expression of the attitude of the American Government and which would indicate a tendency to favor one of the political parties in Nicaragua against the other. Your Excellency can easily realize that the voters of Nicaragua are more likely to be impressed by information in the responsible press of the United States regarding the attitude of Your Excellency’s Government than by any information they could receive from other sources.
I should deeply regret to increase by petty criticisms the difficulty of the task, already difficult enough, which Your Excellency’s Government consented to assume when it promised the people of Nicaragua free elections in 1925 [1928].2 However, I should fail in my duty if I did not make known to the American Government the significance and possible effects of certain manifestations of sympathy which the press of this country has ascribed to certain prominent Americans in favor of the probable Liberal candidate, General Moncada.
A gesture, which perhaps was nothing but a message of greeting or friendship from one high political American person to one of my fellow-countrymen might perhaps have an influence in the elections in favor of one party and against the other. Sometime ago Colonel Stimson thought it opportune to send a telegram to General Moncada, which perhaps was nothing more than an expression of cordial sympathy, but which was worded in such a way that it did not fail to create in Nicaragua the impression that the Government of the United States favors General Moncada as a candidate.
On several occasions high officers of the American Navy in Nicaragua have praised General Moncada in public speeches. Such manifestations of sympathy might perhaps have been appropriate in any situation other than the present one, in view of the character of supervisor [Page 374] of the elections which Your Excellency’s enlightened Government has agreed to assume. In the present situation in Nicaragua there is no doubt that the slightest evidence of cordiality beyond the point of mere forms of courtesy would be able to create among the people of Nicaragua the impression that the American official who is uttering the praise, in a manner, expresses the sentiment of his Government.
Your Excellency is well aware of the political meaning attached in the United States to the manifestations of sympathy expressed by the Chief Magistrate of the Nation in favor of a candidate, and the phrase “official candidate” is well understood.
I am convinced that Your Excellency is fully aware of the demands of perfect neutrality in supervising the elections, demands which will perhaps suggest the advisability of dispelling the erroneous impression that there may be in Nicaragua an official candidate for the forthcoming elections.
I beg to repeat that I have fully understood that Your Excellency’s Government is in no wise responsible for the manifestations of personal sympathy that Colonel Stimson or several other high American officials may have seen fit to express to General Moncada, but nevertheless it is evident that a person who has represented the American Government at such a recent date on a high official mission in Nicaragua must be considered there, in all that relates to the politics of Nicaragua, as the spokesman of the Government of the United States.
I indulge the hope that Your Excellency will regard with leniency my earnestness, which may appear to be excessive, realizing the importance, in the acute crisis through which my country is now passing, of appearing “neutral in words as well as in deeds”,3 according to the eloquent phrase of your illustrious President Wilson.4
Accept [etc.]
- File translation revised.↩
- Not printed.↩
- See letter from President Coolidge to President Diaz, p. 353.↩
- The Spanish reads: “neutral tanto en palabras en hechos.”↩
- “We must be impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another.” Foreign Relations, 1914, supp., p. 552.↩