This despatch concludes as follows:
On Mr. Bayard’s observing that the United States Government was anxious to do anything in their power to facilitate a settlement of the difficulty by arbitration, I reminded his Excellency that although Her Majesty’s Government were ready to go to arbitration as to a certain portion of the territory which I had pointed out to him, they could not consent to any departure from the Schomburgk line.
It now became plainly apparent that a new stage had been reached in the progress of our intervention, and that the ominous happenings embraced within a few months had hastened the day when we were challenged to take our exact bearings, lest we should miss the course of honor and national duty. The more direct tone that had been given to our despatches concerning the dispute, our more insistent and emphatic suggestion of arbitration, the serious reference to the subject in the President’s message, the significant resolution passed by Congress earnestly recommending arbitration, all portended a growth of conviction on the part of our Government concerning this controversy, which gave birth to pronounced disappointment and anxiety when Great Britain, concurrently with these apprising incidents, repeated in direct and positive terms her refusal to submit to arbitration except on condition that a portion of the disputed territory which Venezuela had always claimed to be hers should at the outset be irrevocably conceded to England.
During a period of more than fourteen years our Government, assuming the character of a mutual and disinterested friend of both countries, had, with varying assiduity, tendered its good offices to bring about a pacific and amicable settlement of this boundary controversy, only to be repelled with more or less civility by Great Britain. We had seen her pretensions in the disputed regions widen and extend in such manner and upon such pretexts as seemed to constitute an actual or threatened violation of a doctrine which our nation long ago established, declaring that the American continents are not to be considered subjects for future colonization by any European power; and despite all this we had, nevertheless, hoped, during all these years, that arrangement and accommodation between the principal parties would justify us in keeping an invocation of that doctrine in the background of the discussion. Notwithstanding, however, all our efforts to avoid it, we could not be unmindful of the conditions which the progress of events had created, and whose meaning and whose exigencies inexorably confronted us. England had finally and unmistakably declared that all the territory embraced within the Schomburgk line was indisputably hers. Venezuela presented a claim to territory within the same limits, which could not be said to lack strong support. England had absolutely refused to permit Venezuela’s claim to be tested by arbitration; and Venezuela was utterly powerless to resist by force England’s self-pronounced decree of ownership. If this decree was not justified by the facts, and it should be enforced against the protest and insistence of Venezuela and should result in the possession and colonization of Venezuelan territory by Great Britain, it seemed quite plain that the American doctrine which denies to European powers the colonization of any part of the American continent would be violated.
If the ultimatum of Great Britain as to her claim of territory had appeared to us so thoroughly supported upon the facts as to admit of small doubt, we might have escaped the responsibility of insisting on an observance of the Monroe Doctrine in the premises, on our own account, and have still remained the disinterested friend of both countries, merely contenting ourselves with benevolent attempts to reconcile the disputants. We were, however, far from discovering such satisfactory support in the evidence within our reach. On the contrary, we believed that the effects of our acquiescence in Great Britain’s pretensions would amount to a failure to uphold and maintain a principle universally accepted by our Government and our people as vitally essential to our national integrity and welfare. The arbitration, for which Venezuela pleaded, would have adjudged the exact condition of the rival claims, would have forever silenced Venezuela’s complaints, and would have displaced by conclusive sentence our unwelcome doubts and suspicions; but this Great Britain had refused to Venezuela, and thus far had also denied to us.
Recreancy to a principle so fundamentally American as the Monroe Doctrine, on the part of those charged with the administration of our Government, was of course out of the question. Inasmuch, therefore, as all our efforts to avoid its assertion had miscarried, there was nothing left for us to do consistently with national honor but to take the place of Venezuela in the controversy, so far as that was necessary, in vindication of our American doctrine. Our mild and amiable proffers of good offices, and the hopes we indulged that at last they might be the means of securing to a weak sister republic peace and justice, and to ourselves immunity from sterner interposition, were not suited to the new emergency. In the advanced condition of the dispute, sympathy with Venezuela and solicitude for her distressed condition could no longer constitute the motive power of our conduct, but these were to give way to the duty and obligation of protecting our own national rights.
Mr. Gresham, who since the fourth day of March, 1893, had been our Secretary of State, died in the latter days of May, 1895. His love of justice, his sympathy with every cause that deserved sympathy, his fearless and disinterested patriotism, and his rare mental endowments, combined to make him a noble American and an able advocate of his country’s honor. To such a man every phase of the Venezuelan boundary dispute strongly appealed; and he had been conscientiously diligent in acquainting himself with its history and in considering the contingencies that might arise in its future development. Though his death was most lamentable, I have always considered it a providential circumstance that the Government then had among its Cabinet officers an exceptionally strong and able man, in every way especially qualified to fill the vacant place, and thoroughly familiar with the pending controversy—which seemed every day to bring us closer to momentous duty and responsibility.
Mr. Olney was appointed Secretary of State early in June, 1895; and promptly thereafter, at the suggestion of the President, he began, with characteristic energy and vigor, to make preparation for the decisive step which it seemed should no longer be delayed.
The seriousness of the business we had in hand was fully understood, and the difficulty or impossibility of retracing the step we contemplated was thoroughly appreciated. The absolute necessity of certainty concerning the facts which should underlie our action was, of course, perfectly apparent. Whatever our beliefs or convictions might be, as derived from the examination we had thus far given the case, and however strongly we might be persuaded that Great Britain’s pretensions could not be conceded consistently with our maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine, it would, nevertheless, have been manifestly improper and heedless on our part to find conclusively against Great Britain, before soliciting her again and in new circumstances to give us an opportunity to judge of the merits of her claims through the submission of them to arbitration.
It was determined, therefore, that a communication should be prepared for presentation to the British Government through our ambassador to England, detailing the progress and incidents of the controversy as we apprehended them, giving a thorough exposition of the origin of the Monroe Doctrine, and the reasons on which it was based, demonstrating our interest in the controversy because of its relation to that doctrine, and from our new standpoint and on our own account requesting Great Britain to join Venezuela in submitting to arbitration their contested claims to the entire territory in dispute.