File No. 819.00/409.

The American Minister to the Secretary of State.

[Extract.]
No. 141.]

Sir: Referring to my despatch No. 134 of the 20th ultimo, I have the honor to report that the supervision of registration has been proceeding satisfactorily and is expected to be completed about the 15th instant.

Registration in Panama City and Colon closed on the 31st ultimo. The supervisors in both places had little difficulty in maintaining order.

Party spirit is running high throughout the Republic, although the excitement in Panama City would seem to have diminished somewhat since the close of registration here. The Government, assisted by the Unión Patriótica, is doing its utmost to secure the election of Don Pedro Díaz, using all the various means at its command, especially the police. Cases of alleged oppression of Porristas in numberless different ways and of their arbitrary arrest fill the Porrista press and have been presented lately in considerable numbers to the committee.

The committee has merely filed these cases until recently, when it received corroboration of the active political meddling of the police in Chiriquí from one of the supervisors, Lieutenant Conger. The committee thereupon decided to address Señor Chiarí, Minister for [Page 1146] Foreign Affairs, in this matter, requesting that steps might be taken to prevent the police from “any participation in the actions of either political party.”

In this connection I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the Department’s telegram of June 6, quoting certain telegrams received from Don Rodolfo Chiarí lately Acting President of the Republic and one of the Porrista leaders, as well as the Department’s reply thereto. Señor Chiarí’s description therein of the political situation is undoubtedly exaggerated, although some foundation for each of his statements exists, as will be noted from the foregoing. So far, at all events, the committee is not prepared to recommend to the Department the adoption of Señor Chiarí’s suggestion that American intervention should be extended to the control of the police.

The committee is now taking steps to secure the necessary supervisors of voting, who will have to be about 180 in number, in order to provide two for each polling place. On the 25th ultimo Colonel Goethals addressed a telegram to the War Department inquiring whether Army, Navy, and Marine Corps officers could be furnished for this purpose. Meanwhile the committee, aided by Lieutenant Colonel Hodges, acting chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission, is selecting such men here as are available and appear suitable for this purpose. I have also prepared for the committee’s consideration a draft of the instructions to be given to these supervisors.

The committee has decided and the Government has agreed to publish in the Gaceta Oficial all such of the committee’s acts, including the foregoing, as it may desire. This was considered desirable by the committee, both to give these acts greater publicity and to show the Government’s acquiescence in them.

I have [etc.]

H. Percival Dodge.