File No. 818.00/448
The Chargé in Costa Rica ( Johnson) to the Secretary of State
Your June 3, 4 p.m. In my telegram referred to by you I meant that strengthened feeling arising from declaration of war taken together with reports from Nicaragua which are no longer alarming in spite of just grievances of Nicaraguan Government and of presence [Page 266] of Volios and Castro Quesada there, and together with length of time required to carry out financial measures designed to enable Tinoco to appropriate sufficient money for himself, renders his departure less probable in spite of Joaquin’s reiteration on the 25th ultimo referred to in my telegram. Joaquin has called twice since my telegram and said nothing further in regard to going. As I have attempted to show in my reports for nine months past, moral pressure and financial difficulties will not of themselves force him out. He is not sustained in office by public opinion but by his troops, and revenues can not become insufficient to pay these. The moment his fears of any particular threatened military movement from within or without are for the moment dispelled his inclination to withdraw vanishes. He was willing to discuss leaving only when he feared physical effect of publication of Department’s declaration of policy, and again when rumors were plentiful of threatened trouble from the Nicaraguan Government and from Costa Rican exiles in Nicaragua. There is no possibility of moral suasion from Costa Ricans nor of an armed internal uprising.