550.S1/1035: Telegram
The Assistant Secretary of State (Moley) to the Acting Secretary of State
For immediate transmission to the President of the United States.
(Statement to the press by Assistant Secretary of State of the United States Raymond Moley upon reaching London, June 28th, 1933).
“The interest manifested in my arrival prompts me to make clear my purpose in coming. My mission is simple. It can best be described in President Roosevelt’s own words to the press last Tuesday when upon giving me his final instructions he said (I quote)
‘Assistant Secretary Moley is sailing tomorrow for London at the request of the President. He will act in a sense as messenger or liaison officer on this short trip giving the American delegates first-hand information of the various developments, congressional, et cetera, in this country since the delegation left and conveying the President’s views of the effect of these developments on the original instructions given delegation before they sailed.
Assistant Secretary Moley will stay in London only about a week and will then return to give the President full information of the Conference up to that time.’
Under these instructions and in pursuance of the plan made before the Conference began that I should go to London during its sittings I am bringing to my present chief, Secretary of State Hull, to my former wartime chief, Governor Cox, and to the other gentlemen of the American delegation a report of the latest economic and legislative developments in America. My associate in this mission by direction of the President and at my own request is Herbert Swope.
I look forward eagerly to seeing and hearing of the great common effort under way here in London to bringing into equilibrium and stabilization economic life of the world. This is an unusual and unprecedented endeavor. Being without precedent lacking charts of previous experiences it is inevitable that explorations and as the President phrased it ‘bold experimentations’, are necessary before final formulae are adopted for action. The danger is not that we shall go too far but rather that we shall spend our efforts working toward showing economic orthodoxy.
In America intelligent opinion to which I should like to add my own regards the Conference as being on the path toward ends helpful to each nation and so to all the world.
The American delegation informed and equipped by weeks of preparation at home and representative as it is of the vital substance and integrity of the American life has straightforwardly proposed on the floor of the Conference in accordance with the original program of procedure a series of concrete resolutions looking toward the improvement of economic relations.
The open debating of these in candor and good will cannot fail to help clarify the problems facing each country big and little. Happily [Page 657] in at least some of the states definite signs of betterment are to be observed. Each nation has a contribution to make and each will make it for the good of itself and for the good of all”.
Please acknowledge at once with corrections if any.
- Repeated to President Roosevelt, aboard U. S. S. Ellis, June 26, 9:20 a.m.; paraphrase sent to the American delegation at the Monetary and Economic Conference.↩