439.11c Colom, Eduardo/32

The Minister in the Dominican Republic (Schoenfeld) to the Secretary of State

No. 1531

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the Department’s instruction No. 241 of March 27, 1934 (File No. 439.11[c] Colom, Eduardo/25 [27])and its two enclosures, regarding the murder in the Dominican Republic of Eduardo Colom y Piris, an American citizen, and instructing the Legation to present to the Foreign Office a formal claim for the death of Colom in the sum of $5,000.

In accordance with the Department’s instruction, I have transmitted a note, No. 162 of April 4, 1934, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, together with copies of the two enclosures to the Department’s instruction. A copy of that note is enclosed herewith,26 but without its enclosures since they are in the files of the Department.

[Page 205]

When I discussed with the Minister of Foreign Affairs yesterday the matter of the presentation of a formal diplomatic claim in this case, Lcdo. Logroño showed great concern. In referring to my instructions to present the claim, I told the Minister that it was a source of personal regret to me to be obliged, for the first time during my service at this post, to make such a demand upon the Dominican Government, intimating at the same time that the necessity for doing so was the more deplorable in view of the circumstances in which Colom was murdered. The Minister’s concern seemed to have reference, however, rather to the general moral effect of this incident upon the prestige of General Trujillo’s administration and upon its credit in pending financial negotiations in the United States, than to contrition for the inherent brutality of the crime itself and the possibility of its constituting a revelation of the methods sometimes said to be used here in suppressing what is deemed to be political opposition either in act or speech.

Respectfully yours,

H. F. Arthur Schoenfeld
  1. Not printed.