711.5212Anti-War/37: Telegram
The Ambassador in Spain (Hammond) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 14—1:40 a.m.]
76. I saw Primo de Rivera on August 9 and explained discreetly point of view outlined in your telegram No. 51, August 1, 2 p.m. … At the conclusion of the interview the Minister said that he “was resigned but not convinced”, and that he would give me a memorandum the next day (August 10) which would place Spain’s position in the matter on record. Translation of memorandum follows:15
“Mr. Ambassador: I am anxious to make a brief and precise reply to Your Excellency’s conversation last night which was in the nature of a reply from Mr. Kellogg, Secretary of State of the United States, to the negotiations undertaken with a view to including Spain among the signatories of the proposed pact to outlaw war. I must nevertheless preface my reply with the expression of my sincerest gratitude for the high proof of consideration for Spain and of affection for me which is manifested by your having undertaken a journey of more than one thousand kilometers, leaving Mrs. Hammond ill at San Sebastian, in order to give me a personal account of the negotiations regarding this matter.
A knowledge of the truth of the situation and the decorum of the country which I govern prevent me from insisting in my request which would not have arisen except for the error or misunderstanding of our Ambassador in Washington that the Government of the United States would look with favor upon and therefore initiated this distinction for Spain which would thus be admitted to the concert of the great powers as is only fitting on account of its glorious past and its present position of cultural prestige and peaceful intentions.
I must immediately report that I have desisted in my request to the Governments at Paris and London which, faithful to the friendship which binds them to the Madrid Government, had supported this aspiration of ours.
But permit me, Mr. Ambassador, without in any way insisting in the matter, to point out to you that neither the indiscretion attributed to the use of [the] press, which merely published an incidental and episodic report regarding a matter upon which the whole world was commenting, nor that of the resulting attempt on the part of other countries to be included with the great powers as an original signatory in case Spain were, have any foundation since Spain’s situation is unique in the world and it is a great and notorious injustice which in no way profits the concert of the great powers to exclude Spain, forgetting its services to humanity, its verbal [sic] and spiritual fertility to which so many and so great peoples owe their civilization and culture and which they consider and love as a mother.
[Page 142]Whether it is this or another occasion, and none better could have been seized than the present, Spain’s place among the nations will one day have to be determined, for it cannot be alone in its group and it is much more unjust to attempt to classify it as a second-class power than to include it among the great powers. For even the happy circumstance of its neutrality during the last war reserves to it a role among them which no other nation can play.
No nation could better take the initiative in this matter than the United States, which, for the very reason that they were our last adversaries and appreciated our bravery and loyalty in the war on land and sea, worthy of their own and of the nobility with which, forgetful of bitterness, we rapidly reestablished political and commercial relations which are today of such great cordiality and importance, should be the nation to propose to the powers of its own rank and prestige that Spain in this advance towards peace represented by Mr. Kellogg’s proposal and in every act that signifies collective and international action among themselves, be considered as one of the group of great nations, with the assurance that Spain will be able to discharge the obligations laid upon it and be, as always, worthy of its glorious name.”
- Quotation not paraphrased.↩