INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OP AMERICAN STATES. 



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w 

 on 



loth, rugs, carpets, etc., a brewery turning out 

 very line product with the best machinery 



cnown, and a cigar factory where the guests were 



reated to boxes of cigars rivaling those produced 

 Cuba, and then they were taken farther down 



ic coast to a great coffee plantation, at which a 



imptuous banquet was prepared for them and 



icre was music and good cheer. 

 When the conference reconvened in Mexico city, 

 the president announced the receipt of a tele- 

 gram from President Castro of Venezuela, reply- 

 ing to the offer of the conference to mediate in 

 the conflict that appeared inevitable between that 

 country and Colombia. This offer of mediation 



v&s one of the first acts of the conference, made 

 on the motion of the delegation of the Argentine 

 Republic, seconded by those of Bolivia, Brazil, 

 Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. Chile looked 

 upon this as a determined plan on the part of the 

 above-named countries to establish a precedent 

 by which an analogous mediation could be pro- 

 posed in her questions on the Pacific with Peru 

 and Bolivia, and consequently the motion was 

 earnestly opposed by her delegates, who spoke 

 one after the other against it, notwithstanding 

 which it was adopted. Accordingly, a telegram 

 was addressed to the presidents of each of the 

 countries, tendering the good offices of the con- 

 ference for the settlement of their difficulties. 

 President Castro's telegram replied brusquely that 

 his Government acted with a clear conscience in 

 their affairs, understanding their own duties ; and 

 that the conference had no right to undertake 

 to meddle in the differences between Venezuela 

 and Colombia. Although this reply was received 

 by President Raigosa during the adjournment 

 of the conference, it was so carefully guarded by 

 him that no word or hint of it was given out till 

 the reassembling of the conference, when it was 

 read in secret session, w r ith the result that it fell 

 upon the South American combination against 

 Chile like a shower of cold water, while Chile re- 

 garded it as a triumph for her. 



The strained feeling between the other South 

 American countries and Chile culminated a 

 little later, when, in a long essay by Cecilio Baez, 

 of Paraguay, setting forth the opinions of his 

 delegation in regard to obligatory arbitration, 

 the most striking part of which was the lament- 

 ing of the terrible effects of war, and while ad- 

 mitting that there were wars called to diffuse 

 civilization and to assure the reign of liberty 

 and independence of a people, it was declared that 

 there were others which nations carry on with 

 the\)bject of extending their frontiers or merely 

 because they feel themselves strong and wish to 

 put down their weaker neighbors. This declara- 

 tion fell as a shot aimed directly at Chile; but 

 when the secretary treated it as a digression from 

 the order of the' day by announcing that the 

 discussion of the report of the Committee on 

 International Bank and Monetary Exchanges was 

 before the session, the Chilean delegate, Senor 

 Matte, declared that he saw with pleasure that 

 practical discussions w r ere to begin, leaving aside 

 platonic ones that were calculated to sow dis- 

 cord within the conference; that inasmuch as the 

 delegation of Chile had come with the intention 

 of giving preference to questions that were cal- 

 culated to unite, and not divide the members 

 of the assembly, it could only applaud the pro- 

 posed resolutions offered by the Committee on 

 Banking; and he urged that the congress should 

 keep aloof from all digressions, limiting itself to 

 the discussion of purely practical questions with 

 effective results. To this Sefior Bermejo, of the 

 Argentine Republic, replied that, in his opinion, 



arbitration was the main question to be treated 

 by the conference; and that, in his opinion, it 

 could not be said that any time had been wasted 

 in listening to the Paraguayan's interesting 

 speech. As it was evident that the South Ameri- 

 can opposition to Chile did not intend to let the 

 matter be passed over, Senor Walker-Martinez, 

 for Chile, made a few remarks which brought 

 forth at once requests to be heard by delegates of 

 Chile, the Argentine Republic, and Paraguay, 

 whereupon the president announced that the hour 

 fixed for adjournment had elapsed, and the ses- 

 sion was adjourned. This day's proceedings 

 promised to disturb the peace and harmony of the 

 deliberations, if not to result in the withdrawal 

 of certain of the delegates; but in the interval 

 between the adjournment' and the following ses- 

 sion other delegates used their influence upon 

 those who were desirous of continuing the dis- 

 cussion, and at the following meeting Seiior Baez, 

 on taking the floor, said he understood that both 

 the chairman and the delegates desired the in- 

 cident closed, and therefore he renounced his right 

 to the floor, and regretted that any remarks by 

 him should have given rise to any unpleasant- 

 ness; and thus the incident was closed, the other 

 members who had asked the floor withdrawing 

 their requests. 



A gloom was cast over the conference by the 

 sudden death of the first vice-president, one of 

 its most esteemed members, the Brazilian dele- 

 gate, Senor Jos6 Higinio Duarte Pereira. The 

 Hall of Sessions the morning after his death was 

 draped in mourning, and resolutions were adopted 

 adjourning the assembly till after the funeral. 

 The body of the dead delegate was taken to the 

 hall, where it lay in state a day and a night, 

 covered with floral wreaths and decorations, 

 tributes from the various delegations. Members 

 of the press joined with the delegates in taking 

 their turn guarding the body during the long 

 hours of the night, and on the following day it 

 was interred with becoming ceremony by the 

 Mexican Government, President Diaz in person 

 leading the funeral cortege. 



It was the expectation of many of the delegates 

 that the conference would finish its labors by the 

 middle of December, thus enabling them to re- 

 turn to their homes for the Christmas holidays, 

 but the middle of December found them with little 

 actual work accomplished. There was a general 

 feeling that the United States delegates should 

 have taken more of an initiative in advancing the 

 work. One of the Latin- American delegates even 

 declared on the floor that it was useless to con- 

 tinue the discussion of the committee report on 

 the project before the assembly unless the posi- 

 tion of the United States was clearly defined upon 

 the subject. This lack of initiative on the part 

 of the United States delegates was the result of 

 President Roosevelt's instructions, which instruc- 

 tions, contrary to the advice of Mr. W. C. Fox, 

 acting director of the Bureau of American Re- 

 publics, were not made public. The delegates 

 themselves objected to the instructions being made 

 public, and later brought their influence to bear 

 upon Mr. Fox to have him reverse his opinion as 

 to the advisability of their publication. President 

 Roosevelt, in these instructions, after pointing out 

 that the chief interest of the United States in re- 

 lation to the other republics was the safety and 

 permanence of the political system that under- 

 lies their and our existence as nations, and that it 

 should be the effort of our commission to impress 

 upon the representatives of our sister republics 

 that above all we desire their material prosperity 

 and their political security, said that " it is not, 



