763.72119/3194: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in Panama ( Price )7

Repeat to Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras.

Department’s November 29, 3 p.m. For your own information in order to place you in a position to answer any inquiries which may be made of you by the Government to which you are accredited in regard to its representation at the Peace Conference, but not for formal communication to the Foreign Office, the Department sends you the following:

The American Mission in Paris regards with sympathy the desire of the South and Central American States which declared war on or broke relations with Germany to be represented at the Peace Conference; and while no assurance can be given in advance of the preliminary [Page 233] meeting of the delegates of the Great Powers, the American Commission will, at the appropriate moment, extend its good offices in behalf of its Latin American neighbors falling within the foregoing categories.

If your advice is asked, the advisability might be informally suggested to the Foreign Office of sending one or more delegates to Paris to be on the spot in case the country to which you are accredited is to be accorded representation at the Conference.

Polk
  1. The same telegram, except for the first paragraph, was sent Jan. 8, 1919, 7 p.m., to the Minister in Peru with instructions to repeat to the Legations in Ecuador and Bolivia, and to the Minister in Cuba with instructions to repeat to the Legation in Haiti.