Under date of March 10, 1905, Secretary Hay sent the following letter to Minister Bowen, at Caracas: "I have to acknowledge the receipt of your 385, on the 5th ulto. in regard to the pending negotiations between the United States and Venezuela. "In reply I have to say that the Department approves your opinion that we should not make a general arbitration treaty with Venezuela until all pending questions between the two governments have been settled in conformity with the Department's instructions heretofore given. In the light of President Castro's statement to you, contained in the note of the minister of foreign affairs of February 2, 'The very fact of submitting to an arbiter the decision as to whether a question is diplomatic or not would be not only a proof that it was not, but even prejudicial to the exact investigation of the questions by the chancelleries that are to discuss them.' This language of the President completely demonstrates the futility of proposing or discussing the formation of an arbitration treaty for the purpose of deciding the question whether a case is diplomatic or not. "In short, the language quoted shows the inability of this government to accede to any arbitration of the question proposed. Taking the Bermudez Asphalt Company case as an example, if the question were submitted to a tribunal to decide whether or not the case is diplomatic, it would involve the presentation before an international tribunal of many details in connection with prosecutions instituted against the Bermudez Company which this government would wish to be spared the necessity of presenting. Incidents such as have characterized the successive prosecutions of the Bermudez Company were fully considered by the Department of State before it determined whether or not the government ought to intervene with the Venezuelan government for the protection of the company. Once its decision to intervene is taken and an arbitration arranged, the case then goes to the tribunal on its merits, and it would be very inconvenient, since it might lead to recriminations creating resentments, if the intervening government had to show the many serious charges and proofs adduced that the Executive had overawed the courts and by removals and imprisonments of judges and of attorneys, and by interposing other obstacles to the due and impartial administration of justice, had thus finally convinced the intervening government of the propriety and necessity of its action. Expositions and discussions of this nature would not conduce to the maintenance of that mutual respect and friendship which should continue in spite of serious controversies between differing governments. "The revision of the Olcott award could not have the serious consequences supposed in the note of the minister addressed to you on February 2. The protocol for the revision of that award would be so drawn that the action of the reviewing tribunal would have no effect on the previous protocol and awards. It would have the effect, however, and this the Department asks, that the tribunal might fairly and fully reconsider the whole case and render to Mr. Olcott that justice which appears to have been denied by the award given under the previous protocol. "The attitude of the Venezuelan government toward the government of the United States and toward the interests of its citizens who have suffered so grave and frequent wrongs arbitrarily committed by the government of Venezuela require that justice should now be fully done, once for all. If the government of Venezuela finally declines to consent to an impartial arbitra tion, insuring the rendition of complete justice to these injured parties, the government of the United States may be regretfully compelled to take such measures as it may find necessary to effect complete redress without resort to arbitration. The government of the United States stands committed to the principle of impartial arbitration, which can do injustice to nobody, and if its moderate request is peremptorily refused it will be at liberty to consider, if it is compelled to resort to more vigorous measures, whether those measures shall include complete indemnification, not only for the citizens aggrieved, but for any expenses of the government of the United States which may attend their execution." This brought forth a reply, under date of March 23, 1905, from Alejandro Ybarra, Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Relations, as follows: "I limit myself to acknowledging the receipt of your Excellency's note of the 19th instant and of the enclosure of his Excellency, Mr. John Hay, of the 10th, because I believe, with good foundation, that the Venezuelan government has in reality no pending questions with the government of the United States, it being an evident fact, supported by every kind of evidence, that the Venezuelan government arranged in Washington, by its protocols signed in 1903, the subjects that could be matters for discussion and that were decided by the Mixed Commission that afterwards met in Caracas. "As, on the other hand, one of the matters which is treated by his Excellency Mr. Hay is found contained in those decisions, which is the same as if we should say that it has already the potency of things adjudicated, and because the Venezuelan government would consider it as an offence to the honor of the Dutch nation and of the Dutch umpire, Mr. Harry Barge, who decided the Olcott claim, acquiescence could not be given to such an unreasonable request without failing in the respect which is due to that which has been agreed upon, and it would be at the same time even a reason for believing that not even a new agreement, judgment, or arbitration could be executed; so with the matter of the New York and Bermudez Company, his Excellency Mr. Hay ought to know that by its nature it is one of the cases that belong to the ordinary courts of the country, to which the laws now existing remit the case, and to which are subject all those of foreign nationality who come to reside or make contracts here. "The Provisional President of the Republic charges me, then, to say to your Excellency, in order that you may in turn communicate to his Excellency Mr. John Hay, that this government, in order to consider his note, needs to know at once and for the aforesaid reasons whether the matter in question relates to the sovereignty and independence of this Republic, — that is to say, whether or not the government of the United States respects and reveres the legislation of this Republic and the nobility of its tribunals, and whether it respects and reveres equally the agreements and arbitral decision which it, representing the Venezuelan government, concluded." CHAPTER XX SUNDRY ARBITRATIONS BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND LATIN-AMERICAN COUNTRIES T O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason. SHAKESPEARE: Julius Cæsar. HE following are the principal arbitrations between the United States and the countries of Latin America, Mexico excepted. The results of these arbitrations constitute a failure of justice such as can have no parallel in the history of the world's judiciary. I. PANAMA RIOT AND OTHER CLAIMS UNDER THE CONVENTION OF SEPTEMBER 10, 1857 The massacre of American citizens at Panama on April 15, 1856, is described in another chapter. President Franklin Pierce seemed disposed to ignore or minimize this atrocious crime against defenceless men, women, and children. In his Message to Congress in December, 1856, President Pierce referred to this affair, but his language was brief and perfunctory. Instead of seeing to it that justice, summary and dreadful, was meted out to the perpetrators of that awful carnage, and that swift financial redress was awarded to the victims or their representatives, the State Department (administrations of Pierce and Buchanan) drifted along for about a year and a half, until, on September 10, 1857, a convention with New Granada was executed at Washington to submit to a Board of Commissioners all claims against New Granada “which shall have been presented prior to the 1st day of September, 1859." An additional year or two was spent in the exchange of "ratifications" by the two governments, but finally the Commission met, in Washington, on June 10, 1861. Elias W. Leavenworth, of New York, was the Commissioner for the United States; José Marcelino Hurtado, for New Granada; and N. G. Upham, of New Hampshire, was selected as umpire. The Commission, after having spent much time over questions of procedure and other technicalities, began in December, 1861, to call the calendar of claims. Some of the quibbles raised by New |