714.1515/725: Telegram
The Minister in Guatemala (Geissler) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 19—12:25 a.m.]
88. Legislative Assembly convened today. President’s message which refers only to the boundary matter says in part that “the Executive receives favorably the high-minded suggestion of the Department of State;” that it has not been possible to solve the controversy directly between the parties nor through the friendly mediations of the United States; that at the conferences at Cuyamel presided over by Mr. Davis it was possible [impossible?] to come to a friendly agreement; that the present situation is intolerable and calls for an efficacious remedy; that in advising arbitration the Department of State “incorporated in its proposition the reservations consistently put forth by Guatemala” so that the economic, commercial and political interests of the country “must not be affected by the frontier adopted;” that nevertheless under the Constitution it is for the Assembly “to determine the bases and explain the subject matter of the arbitral proceeding” and that he makes his own the words of the last paragraph of the note of Secretary of State Kellogg, which paragraph he then quotes.
It is generally believed that the Assembly may consider the subject for from two to four weeks.
The Foreign Office expresses confidence that the Assembly will grant authorization without reservation but there is much talk among the deputies of a reservation providing that Guatemala’s boundary shall at least go to the crest of the Merendon.
Referring to the last paragraph of the Legation’s telegram of June 15, 11 a.m.34 It is no longer probable that such answer as the Department may deem opportune in response to the note of Honduras would complicate the situation in Guatemala. Repeated to Honduras.
- Not printed.↩