852.01/31: Telegram
The Ambassador in Spain ( Laughlin ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 2:10 p.m.]
25. I have just received from the new Minister for Foreign Affairs Lerroux a note dated yesterday addressed to me as Ambassador of which the following is the text in translation.
“By a spontaneous act of respect for the people’s will the sovereign power represented in Spain by Don Alfonso XIII has yielded to national sovereignty, the King ceased to be a sovereign voluntarily abandoning the throne and the country to establish his residence abroad.
The nation which has plainly expressed its state of mind by universal suffrage in the municipal elections held on the twelfth instant on finding itself master of its own destinies and without a government to rule them has proclaimed the Republic.
In representation of the people who exercised their rights as citizens at the polls with insuperable vigor and enthusiasm and have publicly manifested their will with a discipline and unanimity undisturbed by any excess whatsoever and without encountering opposition or resistance, effective possession of authority has been taken over by a government in which the entire national democracy is unitedly represented under the presidency of the illustrious patrician Don Aniceto Alcalá Zamora.
The fundamental principles which will inspire the policy of the new regime under the government which it is initiating are stated in the informal note given out for publication and of which a copy is attached.
In informing Your Excellency of these well known facts which constitute an unexampled event in the political evolutions of nations I am discharging a duty imposed upon me by official courtesy together with the regard with which our respective countries have maintained their traditional relations of cordial confraternity as is appropriate for the two nations and which have jointly contributed to the prosperity of its representatives and the peace of the world. With the ardent desire that in these relations there should arise no other interruption than is necessitated by the execution of these reciprocal obligations I earnestly address to Your Excellency the fervent request that in transmitting this communication to the Honorable Government you represent you will find it appropriate to recommend the desirability of recognizing with the greatest urgency this new form of government as applied by the Spanish nation in the exercise of its sovereignty, exalting, in an exemplary manner as a demonstration to the entire world of its eminent capacity, the procedure most in accord with the moral and juridic progress of civilized nations.”