File No. 822.124/312.
The Secretary of Stale to the American Minister.
Washington, October 22, 1913.
The MacArthur Bros., of New York, have advised the Department to-day that they are prepared to undertake the work and will send [Page 518] a representative immediately to Guayaquil if assured of a reasonable time after his arrival to investigate the situation and submit bids.
You will confer with President Plaza in the following sense:
That the President of Ecuador should seek to connect the railway case, now on the point of going to arbitration, with the wholly distinct question of the sanitation of Guayaquil is regretted by this Government. If it were permissible to treat these matters as being in any way interdependent, it would be appropriate to contrast the frank and friendly manner in which this Government has met the wishes of the Government of Ecuador in the matter of the railway arbitration with the course which that Government pursues in closing the door to the friendly cooperation of this Government and its citizens in a matter in which they have a deep, immediate and enduring concern. By reason of the physical relation of Guayaquil to the Isthmus of Panama, the sanitation of Guayaquil is of interest to the entire world, but it specially affects the west coast of South America and most vitally concerns this Government as the constructor and operator of the Panama Canal. The true interest of Ecuador is in reality identical with our own. The Government of the United States has not asked for any favors in the matter and has not expected any to be extended either to itself or to its citizens. On the contrary, it has in the first place suggested in the interest of Ecuador herself that she secure the assistance of Isthmian Canal Commission officials in the sanitation of Guayaquil in accordance with the report which Colonel Gorgas made at her own request, this plan insuring the lowest rate of cost for work actually done and the observance of the highest scientific standards. Should this apparently ideal plan prove to be unacceptable to Ecuador, this Government has requested and desired fair opportunity for American engineers and contractors to submit competing bids on the same basis as the engineers and contractors of other nations. The mutual interests and friendship of the two countries would seem to require at least as much as this.