882.01 Foreign Control/620a
The Under Secretary of State (Phillips) to President Roosevelt
My Dear Mr. President: The Secretary has asked me to take up with you our policy towards Liberia and to ascertain whether it meets with your renewed approval. I hesitate to bother you with a long letter on the subject, but inasmuch as there are various points involved, it seems better to give them to you in writing for your consideration.
There is a division of opinion as to the attitude which should be adopted by this Government in its present relations with Liberia. The Department is being criticized by one group on the ground that we are selling out Liberia for the benefit of the Firestone interests. These critics include a number of aggressive negroes, including Dr. Dubois, the Editor of the Crisis, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Mr. Murphy, the Editor of the Afro-American, as well as certain groups such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the Foreign Policy Association.
On the other hand, our policy has the present strong backing of the Advisory Committee on Education in Liberia, a group which spends $250,000 annually in Liberia and contains the Colonization Society, the Phelps-Stokes Fund, and the Boards of Foreign Missions of the Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran and Baptist Churches. It also has the approval of the more conservative negro elements, such as Dr. Moulton, [Page 925] President of Tuskegee, Mr. Schuyler, a negro journalist writing for the Pittsburgh Courier … and several other prominent negroes, such as Dr. Johnson of Fisk University, and Mr. Walton.55
We seem faced with three general alternatives:
- (a)
- To assume a preponderant control over Liberia. This would probably involve us more deeply than is desirable in African affairs. It has been advocated by the Firestones, who have pressed us for years to send a warship. We have consistently declined.
- (b)
- To let Liberia severely alone. This would be violently criticized as a betrayal of our historic interest in the country. General Winship reports that conditions in the country are deplorable, that the present Government is oppressing the great majority of natives, that sanitation, education, et cetera, are sliding back and might become a menace to the neighboring countries. If the United States withdrew all interests in Liberia, it might well be that the country would be absorbed by its two neighbors, France and Great Britain.…
- (c)
- The third alternative, which the Department has been following for some years, is to take part in a cooperative movement with the League of Nations whereby the League, with our cooperation, would agree to supervise the rehabilitation of the country. The help of the League was requested by Liberia following the slavery investigation in 1929.
A plan has now been worked out and unanimously accepted by the League Committee, which has not, however, as yet received the approval of Liberia. General Winship, to whose appointment as Representative of the President on Special Mission to Liberia you agreed prior to your inauguration, following his visit in Monrovia, went to Geneva and played an active role in the negotiations. The League has informed Liberia that it is now a “take it or leave it” proposition and has implied that if Liberia does not accept the League plan, it will disinterest itself from the problem. General Winship is now on his way back to Monrovia, together with a representative of the League of Nations, in an endeavor to persuade the Liberians to accept the League plan. We have also been told privately that unless Liberia accepts this plan the missionary organizations are seriously considering withdrawal from the country. The missionaries on the spot, as opposed to the more theoretical elements in the United States, are convinced that it is the only practical solution of the question.
It is not necessary to go into the details of the plan. They involve (a) a question of the use of revenues with priorities between running expenses, payment for the Advisers, interest to the Firestones, beneficiary advantages to Liberia, et cetera, and (b) the appointment of a Chief Adviser and several assistants to run the country. Our experience with [Page 926] Advisers has been that unless their authority is adequate, it is vain to send them to a backward country.
This scheme involves (a) a slight readjustment downward of the Firestone contract, and (b) the advance of new money by the Firestone interests. No money was found available from any other source, either here or in Europe. An appeal was, therefore, made by the League Committee to the Firestones to finance the plan as proposed by the League. This gives our critics one of their chief grounds of complaint. In return for the modification of the contract and the advance of this money the Firestones have demanded that the Chief Adviser be an American, although they agree that he shall be appointed by the League and responsible to it alone. There has been opposition both in the League Committee and outside League circles to the appointment of an American, a citizen of a country having no interests in Liberia or contiguous territory being preferred. Our critics allege that an American will be a tool of the Firestones; our supporters say that only in this way can American rights be preserved and a fair deal be secured. Mr. Stimson’s position on this matter was that while he would not insist on an American, none the less he could not ask the Firestones to modify a contract legitimately entered into and to advance new funds unless they were satisfied that their interests were being protected.
Would you be so good as to indicate whether the policy which the Department has been and is pursuing meets with your approval. This policy is for General Winship to continue to urge that Liberia accept the League plan, (in return for which we are prepared, jointly with the British, to recognize the Barclay regime), and to continue our cooperation with the League in order that there may be a joint responsibility for Liberia rather than that the United States should assume exclusive responsibility.
Personally, I am strongly of the belief that a radical change in our present policy would be interpreted as an abandonment by the United States of cooperation in an international attempt to rehabilitate Liberia and would be considered as a “let down” by the League Committee, with which the Department has worked for the past two years.
Perhaps I should also add that the Liberian plantation, which is from all accounts one of the best rubber producing units in existence, is our only major source of rubber independent of the Far East and hence a very important consideration in our national defense.
Faithfully yours,
- Lester Aglar Walton, newspaper editor and correspondent at sessions of the International Liberian Committee at Geneva.↩