837.00/3555a: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to President Roosevelt, at Sea
4. Ambassador Welles reports the probability that he will receive in the very near future the agreement of all the various opposition factions to accept his mediation in their controversy with the Cuban Government. You may recall that President Machado has already made known his willingness to confer with the opposition leaders in an effort to work out a satisfactory solution of the present political difficulties. Welles is of the opinion that the great mass of the Cuban people desire that these discussions, which should begin shortly, produce a settlement.
Welles believes that a message from you, delivered propitiously, at the outset of these discussions, would be of the utmost value for the success of the negotiations, and would have a most helpful effect on public opinion. I have drafted the following as a suggestion for such a message for Welles:
“It is very heartening and the source of much satisfaction to me to know that the Cuban people now believe that a peaceful discussion of their country’s problems is the most satisfactory means of determining their country’s destinies, and that the best way of reconciling their political difficulties is to be found in the peaceable and orderly process of frank but constructive discussions. I wish the Cuban people every success in these discussions for I am convinced that the restoration of political peace is a necessary and essential preliminary step on the way to Cuba’s economical recovery. The representatives of all factions may rest assured that the moral support of the American people will be behind these attempts at the peaceable adjustment of Cuban problems through the orderly procedure of Constitutional Government.”