Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1924, Volume II

711.192/9

The Secretary of State to the Panaman Minister (Alfaro)

Washington, February 20, 1924.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note No. D–58, dated February 5, 1924,⁷ in which you were so good as to inform me that the Panaman Government had appointed a Commission, over which you will preside, to discuss and conclude with a similar Commission, to be appointed by the Government of the United States, an arrangement to supersede the agreement, known as the Taft Agreement.

Due note has been taken of the composition of the Commission,⁸ and I shall be pleased to receive the members thereof upon their arrival in this capital.

It gives me pleasure to inform you that the President has appointed a Commission on the part of the United States to meet with the Commission appointed by the Government of Panama to conduct negotiations for an arrangement to take the place of the Taft Agreement as embodied in the Executive Orders, issued by direction of the President on December 3, December 6 and December 28, 1904, January 7, 1905, and January 5, 1911.⁹ This Commission is composed of myself, as Chairman, and of the following members: Mr. Francis White, Chief of the Division of Latin American Affairs, the Department of State, Mr. Joseph R. Baker, Assistant Solicitor, the Department of State, and Mr. Edward L. Reed, Division of Latin American Affairs, Department of State.

Accept [etc.]

Charles E. Hughes

7. Not printed.
8. Dr. Ricardo J. Alfaro; Dr. Ensebio A. Morales, Secretary of Finance and Treasury; Dr. Eduardo Chiari, formerly Minister for Foreign Affairs; and Mr. Eugenio J. Chevalier, secretary of the Commission.
9. Foreign Relations, 1904, p. 640; also Executive Orders Relating to the Panama Canal (March 8, 1904, to December 31, 1921), Annotated 1921 (Mount Hope, C. Z., The Panama Canal Press, 1922), pp. 29, 31, 32, 33, and 103. For copies of the latter publication, address The Panama Canal, Washington, D. C.