File No. 830.00/1245.
[Untitled]
Santo Domingo, May 25, 1914, 6 p.m.
The Dominican Government to-day requested me to ask the American Government’s cooperation in protecting the treaty of 1907 so that the obligations of both countries under the same may be fulfilled.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs desires me to state that the country is being ruined by an insurrection; that the revenues of the Government will not permit the use of sufficient force to end the struggle and that the country is accumulating a debt which destroys every hope for the future. The present Government is alarmed at the disastrous consequence of a prolonged conflict. The success of the revolutionists would mean either anarchy or the domination of [Page 233] Arias and would mean the defeat of the ballot and triumph of the professional revolutionist. He further pointed out that the revenues of the customs were decreasing at such an alarming rate that there is danger of not being able to meet the payments imposed by the convention. In fact this condition now threatens, to say nothing of the current obligations of the Dominican Government. In these circumstances the Dominican Government proposes that on the precedent established in the Morales rebellion when an American officer prevented fighting in Puerto Plata and by the greater right and obligation established under the convention that the American Government take the necessary steps to prevent any and all insurrectionary activities in port and customs towns and to lend protection to the constitutional election now called, that the Dominican Government, freed from the tyranny of their revolutionary chiefs, may proceed with the peaceful and honorable work of meeting its responsibilities at home and abroad. The Dominican Government asks that the American Government make such further suggestions as may relieve this unhappy country.