839.00/2786: Telegram
The Commissioner in the Dominican Republic (Welles) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 18—5:11 p.m.]
4. Since an active propaganda has been initiated by certain elements in both parties in different sections of the Republic to the [Page 619] effect that the Government of the United States is supporting the candidacy of one or the other of the two Presidential candidates, I request your authorization to issue a brief statement comprising the following points: That the candidacies of General Vasquez and of Señor Peynado are equally agreeable to the Government of the United States; that the election of either would in its opinion constitute a guarantee that the coming government of the Republic would devote itself to safeguarding the maintenance of constitutional government in the Dominican Republic, to the continuance of peace and order and to the commercial and economic development of the nation; and finally that the sole interest of the United States in the coming elections is that the Dominican people have the opportunity to indicate with the utmost freedom their choice between the two candidates for the Presidency and that the candidate declared elected be installed as Constitutional President as soon thereafter as the terms of the Plan of Evacuation may permit.2
- The Commissioner was informed on Jan. 21 that the statement was authorized. For text of plan as amended and signed Sept. 18, 1922, see Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. ii, p. 54.↩