852.00/2741
The Uruguayan Minister (Richling) to the Secretary of State
Mr. Secretary: I have received instructions from my Government to deliver to Your Excellency the following telegraphic despatch dated in Montevideo the 15th of this month and signed by the Minister of Foreign Relations of Uruguay, Dr. José Espalter:
“In the face of the civil war which bleeds the Spanish fatherland, the nations of the American continent, discovered and civilized by its genius, can not remain impassive spectators. War by itself has no end, as we ourselves learned in terrible struggles of other times, and it has no end because even though after much blood had been shed, and ruin and infinite pain inflicted, one of the parties in the struggle should impose its will on the other, the ferments of hatred and vengeance which remained alive would be such that the struggle would soon commence again with all its evils. If wars between nations, in which the contendents are animated by antagonistic aims and between which there is no sentiment which draws them together, can terminate in conciliatory solutions, it must not be thought that the same thing can not happen in the cases of civil wars in which, in the last analysis, all the combatants are inspired by adhesion to a common fatherland. [Page 491] With this in mind, I have the honor to consult Your Excellency with reference to a cordial mediation to be offered to Spain by the American countries which, to this end, might act jointly either in Washington within the Pan American Union, or in any other American capital which might be chosen. I greet Your Excellency with my highest consideration.”
I should be very grateful to Your Excellency if you would inform me of your views concerning this matter in order that I may transmit them to my Government.
I have [etc.]