832.113/42
Press Release Issued by the Department of State on October 23, 1930
Statement by the Secretary of State
Some accounts in the press this morning reported that our action in placing an embargo upon the sale of arms and munitions to revolutionists in Brazil was unprecedented. While it is true that this is the first occasion where the United States has placed an embargo on the shipment of arms and munitions to a South American country, it is misleading to call it an unprecedented action, as it is our regular action under similar circumstances. We have placed embargoes on the shipment of arms and munitions on various occasions when there were conditions of domestic violence in Central America, Mexico, Cuba, and the Orient.11 It just happens that a situation requiring the application of this principle has not hitherto come up in South America, and there has therefore hitherto been no occasion for applying the general principle. There is nothing unprecedented in the principle which we have applied many times before. It is very important that people should not misunderstand it as a new principle. It is important for the reason that the revolutionists who may be hurt by our action in placing an embargo may assert that we are taking sides for some ulterior reason with one or the other of the combatants. Instead of that, we are acting according to general principles of international law. Those principles declare that where we are in friendly relations through diplomatic channels with a government which has been recognized as the legitimate government of a country, that government is entitled to the ordinary rights of any government to buy arms in this country; while the people who are opposing and trying to overthrow that government and are not yet recognized as belligerents are not entitled to that right. It is not a matter of choice on our part, but is a practice of mankind known as international law. We have no personal bias and are doing nothing but attempting to carry out the law of mankind.
- See joint resolutions of April 22, 1898, March 14, 1912, and January 31, 1922, 30 Stat. 1769, 37 Stat. 1733, and 42 Stat. 361. See also proclamations respecting: Dominican Republic, October 14, 1905, 34 Stat. 3183; Mexico, March 14, 1912, 37 Stat. 1733; Mexico, February 3, 1914, 38 Stat. 1992; Mexico, October 19, 1915, 39 Stat. 1756; Mexico, July 12, 1919, 41 Stat. 1762; China, March 4, 1922. 42 Stat. 2264; Mexico, January 7, 1924, 43 Stat. 1934; Honduras, March 22, 1924, 43 Stat. 1942; Cuba, May 2, 1924, 43 Stat. 1946; Honduras, May 15, 1924, 43 Stat. 1950; Cuba, August 29, 1924, 43 Stat. 1965; Nicaragua, September 15, 1926, 44 Stat. 2625; Mexico, July 18, 1929, 46 Stat. 3001.↩