837.73/32: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in Cuba (Long)
16. Your 8, January 11, 5 p.m.
Department desires you to communicate the following orally and informally to the President:
In reply to questions addressed to him at a session of the Senate Committee regarding the landing by the Western Union Telegraph Company of the cable at Cojimar, the Acting Secretary of State stated substantially that the Government of the United States had not felt at liberty to request the Cuban Government to suspend the landing permit because of the fact that the granting or the refusal of this landing permit was, of course, a matter within the sovereign rights of the Cuban Government; that although it would be objectionable and detrimental to the interests of the United States if such cable in violation of the policy of the United States and of the landing permit granted on November 20, 192020 by the United States to the Western Union Company, regulating the operation of its [Page 817] cables between Key West and Cojimar, were used for transmitting through messages from the United States to Barbados and thence to Brazil, in which latter country the connecting Company enjoys monopolistic privileges, the Department had not felt justified in requesting the Cuban Government to assist in a controversy between the United States and an American corporation. I am authorized to say, however, that my Government reserves the right to protest to the Cuban Government later on, if the Cuban landing permit is once more granted to the Western Union Company, and it should be later ascertained that the landing of this cable in Cuba was used by the Company as a subterfuge and as a means of violating the conditions under which messages are permitted to pass between Key West and Cuba.
- Not printed.↩