724.34119/1386: Telegram
The Provisional President of Paraguay (Paiva) to President Roosevelt
[Received 4:56 p.m.]
I have had the great honor of receiving Your Excellency’s radiogram in which you inform me that the Government over which Your Excellency worthily presides considers that it is an obligation and a duty of friendship to urge the acceptance by Paraguay of the proposal which is presented at this time by the Peace Conference for the solution of the boundary problem which, for some time past, has been dividing us from Bolivia. I hasten to state to Your Excellency that this and all the other efforts of the honorable members composing the mediating organ have been duly appreciated in my country and that the Paraguayan Government and people cannot hesitate to accept the proposal of solution which is announced, if the proposal, as Your Excellency states, is just, takes into account the indisputable rights of my native land and guarantees security and peace for Paraguay. And if that should not be the case, we ought not because of that give way to discouragement in view of the fact that having as we do have the warmest desire to see the American peoples living together in true peace and friendship we are certain that over all the difficulties the American principle must prevail of the settling by peaceful means of international disputes, a principle which Paraguay has respected and must respect as is proved by the fact that she signed and ratified the Protocol of June 12, 1935, at a time when the victorious national army was recovering the territory improperly and violently usurped by neighboring countries.
In assuring Your Excellency that we shall spare no efforts for achieving the peace longed for, I have the honor [etc.]