837.00/2809
The Ambassador in Cuba (Guggenheim) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 27.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to my confidential despatch No. 221 of May 28, 1930,1 and to state that since my last report to you I have had numerous conversations with President Machado, Colonel Mendieta and other leaders of both the Government and the Unión Nacionalista. My aim has been to encourage cooperation between them, so that the reforms to which both the President and his opponents are committed in principle might be the more readily carried out. The arguments that I have used to both parties to bring about this compromise were those of patriotism and enlightened self-interest. I think the President would be favorably disposed to the inclusion of members of the Unión Nacionalista in his government. However, the Unión Nacionalista has as yet been unwilling to consider any compromise that does not include an agreement on the part of President Machado to hold a new presidential election within at least three years. I have consistently refused to have anything to do with this proposal, and the insistence of the Unión Nacionalista upon this point has made it thus far impossible to reach any satisfactory conclusion.
Nevertheless, the general situation has improved since my last report. The satisfactory settlement of the telephone controversy (see my despatch No. 247 of June 4, 1930),1 the procedure along strictly legal grounds of the investigation of the Artemisa affair,2 the firmness with which the Government has refused to tolerate any seditious movement and, at the same time, the moderation with which it has evidently conducted its relations with the press, all have contributed to create a distinctly better atmosphere in Cuba. With the one exception of comments on the American tariff, the newspapers have been singularly free in the past two or three weeks from violent criticism or attacks of any kind, and it is obvious that a calmer and more optimistic attitude toward Cuban economic and political conditions prevails.
I have [etc.]