Mr. Bryan to Mr. Hay.
Petropolis, Brazil, July 3, 1901.
Sir: I have the honor to report that serious disturbances occurred in Rio de Janeiro on the night of Saturday, June 18, and thereafter almost continuously until the night of Wednesday, June 22, when quiet was at last completely restored.
Under the terms of its contract recently concluded with the Government the São Christovão Street Railroad Company, one of three large companies operating street-car lines in the city and suburbs of Rio de Janeiro, raised its fares. Its lines serve the commercial and the poorest residental portions of the city, and this increase of fares met with [Page 31] determined and forcible resistance. Attacks were made on the cars on the night of the 18th, and some of them were burned. A large body of police succeeded in dispersing the crowd of rioters, but on Sunday the disturbance continued, and on Monday six cars were burned in the Largo de São Francisco, which was finally cleared by the police only after several persons were wounded. On Tuesday, the 22d, barricades were built in the Ouvidor and other important business streets in the vicinity of the Largo de São Francisco, which is an important square in the heart of the city, and the streets were kept clear only by repeated charges of both cavalry and infantry. On Wednesday much the same sort of occurrences took place as on the preceding day, but before nightfall quiet had been restored by the company’s announcement of a return to the old schedule of fares.
During the five days’ disturbance at least five people were killed and the number of wounded is variously estimated at from one hundred to over two hundred. In spite, however, of the serious nature of the disturbances, any attempts that may have been made by disaffected elements in the community to swell them into a revolutionary movement were entirely abortive. Popular indignation against the company limited itself to sporadic attacks on the company’s property and seemed not to concern itself with the Government’s connection with the matter. The police roused almost universal protest by their recklessness and severity, but the only demonstrations against them were entirely unorganized and almost puerile. They were apparently directed, too, against the police as individuals rather than as constituted Government authorities, and the only legal questions as yet growing out of the disturbances have been suits instituted against individual police officers and men for undue violence. The fact that order was completely reestablished immediately upon the reinstatement of the old fare schedule is sufficient proof that the disturbances had no political significance whatever.
I have, etc.,