File No. 818.00/426
President Gonzalez of Costa Rica to President Wilson
Excellency: I have the honor to bring to your high knowledge the following proclamation hereinbelow quoted which, as Constitutional President of the Republic of Costa Rica, I issued at 8 o’clock in the morning of this 8th day of May 1918, in which under the Costa Rican Constitution I should turn over the Executive power to the person who should have been elected by the people of Costa Rica:
This day marks the end of the normal period of the presidential term to which I was elected by the Congress on the 1st day of May 1914; on this day I should turn the lawful power with which I was vested on that day to him who should have drawn it from the same popular source under our Constitution. To accomplish that peaceful transfer of power would have brought to my soul the highest satisfaction of my life, for the honest ruler experiences greater pleasure in relinquishing than in assuming the Executive power. But the events which on January 27, 1917, plunged the country into mourning have suspended the whole constitutional life of Costa Rica by making it impossible for the lawful power to perform its function and thereby preventing the performance of its first official act in lawfully turning over all the public affairs to the new ruler. A usurpation born of treachery seized the management of the daily business and held it for a period of months, without the consent of the people who have led a life of unrest and without the concurrence of the great countries which form the family of nations. The unlawful act has had for consequence that the country after so many years in the peaceful enjoyment of liberty and legality has been in a state of confusion at home and abroad is ignored, out of the pale of international law.
Under those circumstances I can not turn the power over and it would be unpatriotic to relinquish it. To turn it over would be to legalize a condition born of violence; to relinquish it would be tantamount to leaving it vacant and [Page 261] so bringing about a state of anarchy. I am harboring no personal desire to hold for another day the high office to which I was called by my fellow citizens; on the contrary I shall consider myself as having resigned it from the day when being again in position actually to wield the power in Costa Rican territory the third designado for the office of President, Licentiate Don Francisco Aguilar Barquero, may enter upon the duties of the office. But it is my duty as Chief Magistrate and citizen to watch over lawful order at home and respectability abroad, as a member of the family of nations, for my country. These being my only wish and purpose, in the exercise of the constitutional powers and duties that I may use under the necessity of saving the country,
I Resolve:
- First: The presidential term inaugurated on the 8th of May 1914 is extended until a new President of the Republic shall have been elected or some other legal authority shall have qualified to take the place of the outgoing administration.
- Second: All the acts performed or that may be done by those who unlawfully hold the power shall be null and of no value whatever.
- Third: As soon as the de jure Government may assume power, the third designado to the office of President of the Republic, Don Francisco Aguilar Barquero, shall be considered to be called upon to exercise it within the constitutional provisions with the sole object of performing the acts strictly necessary for the lawful transfer of power.
- Fourth: This resolution shall be communicated to the citizens of Costa Rica and the representatives of the foreign nations in such manner as may be allowed in the anomalous conditions created by the coup d’état of January 27, 1917.
- Fifth: The defects in form of this resolution, due to the anomalous conditions created by the coup d’état, shall be remedied as soon as the existing state of rebellion comes to an end.
Signed in the City of New York, at eight o’clock in the morning of the eighth of May, one thousand nine hundred and eighteen.
Alfredo Gonzalez
With assurances [etc.]