838.00 Commission of Investigation/132

The President of Haiti ( Borno ) to the High Commissioner in Haiti ( Russell )4

[Translation5]

Mr. High Commissioner: Yesterday at noon the Chargé d’Affaires of the United States delivered to me on your behalf a note in English in the following terms:

“The President’s Commission has suggested that the various elements comprising the opposition to the present Haitian Government should organize a group of delegates satisfactory to themselves and designate some neutral and nonpolitical candidate, satisfactory also to President Borno, who should then receive their votes and also be elected regularly. The President thus chosen will call a popular election at the earliest possible date and present his resignation to the new legislature, so that it will elect the President for the regular term. [Page 202] This plan has the approval of President Hoover and has been accepted, in principle, by both [of] the Haitian sides. Details have to be worked out. The Commission has no candidate to present.”

The French translation of this text is the following:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I wish to say, Mr. High Commissioner, that neither do I have a candidate to present. My term ending on May 15th next, I cannot contemplate the political plan recorded above except in the sole part that I have the constitutional duty to assure its execution, that is to say the election of my successor by the Council of State on April 14 next.

It remains understood, however, that I have not given my approval of the above plan except on the formal condition that the plan will be executed in conformity with the Constitution of Haiti6 and the treaty of 19157 which binds our two Governments.

I renew [etc.]

Borno
  1. Copy transmitted to the Department as an annex to a confidential memorandum of the President’s Commission, dated March 26, 1930; not printed.
  2. Translation supplied by the editors.
  3. For Constitution of June 12, 1918, see Foreign Relations, 1918, p. 487; see also amendments to the Constitution of 1918, ibid., 1927, vol. iii, p. 48.
  4. Treaty between the United States and II aiti relating to the finances, economic development, and tranquillity of Haiti, signed September 16, 1915; for text, and supplementary agreements and protocols signed in 1916, see ibid., 1916, pp. 328338; for additional act extending the duration of the treaty, signed March 28, 1917, see ibid., 1917, p. 807.