File No. 816.00/153.

The American Minister to Salvador to the Secretary of State.

[Extract.]

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of a copy of an instruction which the Department addressed on the 12th ultimo to the American Minister at Guatemala on the subject of President Estrada Cabrera’s activities in the internal political affairs of the neighboring republics, the Department adding in its instruction to me that the action contemplated by the Department and spoken of in the concluding paragraph of its instruction to the American Minister at Guatemala is dependent on whether or not the hostile movement by Guatemala against the Government of Salvador ceases, and directing me to keep the Department promptly advised as to such movement. I am therefore availing myself of the first outgoing mail to render a report upon the situation in question.

On the 1st ultimo I received a telegram from the American Minister at Guatemala informing me that the Guatemalan Minister for Foreign Affairs had written to him saying that the rumor of mobilization toward the Salvadoran frontier is entirely false, and that the Government of Guatemala has not considered such action. The before-mentioned note of the Guatemalan Minister for Foreign Affairs was evidently in response to an inquiry addressed to him by Minister Hitt asking if there was any objection to informing him of the object of the recent military activities on the southern frontiers, as a possible deterrent to Estrada Cabrera’s intrigues.

At the time of the receipt of Minister Hitt’s telegram of the 1st ultimo, containing the denial of the Guatemalan Minister for Foreign Affairs of the mobilization of troops along the Salvadoran frontier, I considered it of sufficient importance to bring the subject matter of the said telegram to the attention of the Salvadoran Government, which I did informally in a conversation with Dr. Castro Ramírez, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. * * *

On the 3d instant, in a conversation with President Araujo at the presidential mansion, the Minister for Foreign Affairs also being present, I took occasion to inquire about conditions on the Guatemalan frontier, when the President informed me that the Government of Guatemala, instead of having withdrawn from the frontier any of the troops which had been concentrated there during the past five or six months, had increased the number to about 4,000 men, which, the President added, was equal to the entire strength of the Salvadoran Army. * * *

On retiring from the presidential mansion I asked if the Minister for Foreign Affairs would not have the kindness to prepare and hand me a memorandum of the most salient points of the conversation that had taken place between himself, President Araujo and me, which he gladly consented to do, and I inclose herewith a copy and translation of this memorandum.

I have [etc.]

William Heimke.