817.011/91

The Nicaraguan Chargé (Debayle) to the Secretary of State

No. 89

Excellency: In accordance with instructions I have just received from His Excellency President Moncada, I have the honor to present herewith a letter addressed to Your Excellency, which for your convenience, I have accompanied by a translation into English.

Accept [etc.]

Luis M. Debayle
[Enclosure—Translation]

The President of Nicaragua (Moncada) to the Secretary of State

Dear Mr. Stimson: Before anything else, in answer to your last kind letter, let me say that I regret that I did not speak clearly to Mr. Hanna, or that he did not understand me, when I talked with him about the reform of the Nicaraguan Constitution, and gave him the memorandum you know of.

From boyhood I have always respected the rights of others and since my rise to the Presidency I have affirmed both orally and in writing that the Nicaraguan people gave me their votes for four years, which period ends December 31st of the present year.

All my life I have kept my word and I shall do so in the case of the promise I gave to the Conservative candidate Benard, in the letter which you are kind enough to recall to me,4 translated into English. Mr. Hanna himself has heard these words on various occasions; and for that reason, because I had no thought of extending my term, I said nothing of this to you, either in the memorandum referred to or in my letter of October 14, 1931.5

But I did indeed say to Mr. Hanna, in taking leave of him, that Nicaragua is a poor country, that cannot afford elections every four [Page 768] years; that a reform of our Constitution to prolong the presidential term to six years or more, if possible, is necessary; but these words did not at all embrace the idea of my own continuation in office; but that my successor should enjoy a longer term in virtue of a reform in the Constitution.

On the other hand, I sent you the arguments in favor of the case. I have always believed that the present Constitution is a dead letter; I do not feel convinced to the contrary by the arguments you present; but I do admit that a discussion of this point is not as essential as other matters of greater importance and gravity for my country.

I come to the point: If you will be kind enough to reread my letter to Mr. Benard and recall some of my statements in Tipitapa,6 you will remember that I spoke then to you of the necessity of supervision for more than two election periods in order to accustom the people to honest and free elections. I said the same in the last part of the first paragraph of my letter of October last, of which I have made mention.

I did not reckon, and I do not think you did either, on the change of public opinion in the United States; and did not think that, in 1933, we would be forgotten by the hand of God and exposed once more, by the abandonment of this policy, to civil war, which from the time of our independence to the present, has cost us so many tears, so much loss of life, property and honor. Civil war has created our bandits. They are adventurers from other countries and people accustomed to not working and to living off the property of others.

Furthermore, could you assure me that opinion in the United States will not change again and that, in the case of a civil war, there would not be another intervention?

If the marines go away, why not look for a middle course that would allow us to live in peace and would be a justification, for you and me, of our agreement in Tipitapa, when you solemnly declared that that date—May fourth—marked an era of peace for Nicaragua?

I have always been candid. I have always said that neither Conservatives nor Liberals, by themselves, would give us free elections. If I have gone to war, which I so much detest, for any reason it was to secure liberty of suffrage. It was my one urgent demand at Tipitapa and it came from the bottom of my heart.

When you told me, in one of your letters, that the marines would withdraw in 1933, I thought with sorrow of all the blood that had been shed, from the Rio Grande to Managua, and that, after my administration, would again flow over our fields and cities, because the hatred and passions of our two parties has not disappeared.

[Page 769]

For these reasons and fears I conceived the idea of the reform of the Constitution so that the two historic parties could live together in peace on a basis of proportional minority representation, secured by the Statutes of the Liberal Party.

The idea was accepted most willingly by the principal men of the Conservative party on the 17th of the present month, and public opinion continues favorable to it.

We could make arrangements similar to those of the Dawson Agreements of 1910,7 which provided for a Constituent Assembly and a Constitution.

But the arrangements should this time, in my opinion, tend towards a constitutional reform so that minority representation in all public offices of popular election be established, as I have said above, in the Fundamental Charter. This is a principle of representative republican government, which would allow the losing party to get along with the winning one and would promote harmony in the Republic.

If the signature of a Delegate from the Department of State be added to the agreements as mediator, it would be the means for the parties of beginning the new era of which you spoke in the present Villa Stimson, because our parties are so weak that they need a prudent hand to help in the development of the Republic, and because the mediation of the American Legation in each Presidential election would be sufficient to guarantee the observance of these agreements and of the Constitution.

My reasons are fundamental. The United States cannot abandon the Monroe Doctrine.8 If there is civil war, there will be intervention again and the difficulties and struggles of the United States and Nicaragua with world opinion will reappear.

I trust, my dear friend, that you will never regret having expressed the hope that I would not forget my word. I desire most strongly that the marines supervise the election of representatives of the Constituent Assembly and therefore I received Admiral Woodward with most cordial goodwill and requested his appointment by the Supreme Court, and I am now taking the first steps to further his task.

With nothing more for the present, I beg to remain,

Very truly yours,

J. M. Moncada