Lud Hotel, MAR 13 1912 LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS Peoria, ill. March 11, 1912, MAR 14 1912 OSTATEIT arked afr.
CADY Hon. Knox, Pilaul 711. 15 Secretary of State. RECEIVE, ack a file APR 16 1912. Washington, dis mto INDEX BUREAU BUREAU Dear Sir: DIPLOMATIC As one who has spent six years in Central America making a study of the economic conditions, resources and possi bilities permit me to write you upon the question WHAT CAN WE DO AND WHAT OUGHT WE DO APR 24 1912 FILED WITH THE CENTRAL AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
FIRST. will introduce myself as a Massachusetts man, President McKinley named the leading fort in Boston Harbor after my brother, General Strong. have been interested in educational work, and Fairmount College at Wichita, was started and made possible by me, one of the leading colleges in Kansas, to day. In 1900, spent several months getting up a statistical report showing the Economic conditions in the Ouachita Valley for Major Casey, in charge of Rivers and harbors, at Vicksburg, Mississippi. This report was embodied as a part of his report to the Government and an appropriation for locks and dans in the Ouachita River costing one and a half million dollars approved. have a handbook of Central America typewritten, ready for the publishers. It is at your disposal is you wish to read it.
NOW wish to urge coins for the five Central American republics what we have done for Cuba and Porto Rico and what we are doing for the Philipines. The good results which he ve accrued from this educational work stands as an object lesson, showing what could be done in the five Central American Republics. The geographical importance which the completion of the Panama Cana will bring this rart of the Caribean territory is self apparent.
Bankrupted by continued revolution and incompetent government, with ninety per cent of her people in prossest ignorance, they have neither the means or the ability to uplift themselves.
They are our neighbors (only two days rur from ew Orleans)
our friends and by virtue of the Morroe coctrine, our wards. They are our customers in trade (eightøy per cent of her imports are from the United States. Most of her railroads, river streamboats, banana fincas, coffee haciendas, ice factories, saw mills and wholesale houses are owned and operated by Americans. The amount of manufactured American foods used in Central America is enormous.
All her cotton goods (and they wear nothing else. boots and shoes, wagons, harnesses and saddles, hardware and cutlery, plumbers supplies, farm machinery and barb wire, clothing and dress poods, crockery and glassware, tinwere and enamel foods, drugs, medicines and paints, whiskeys ard liquors, cured and canned meats, fruits and begetables, and flour by the boat load, all comes from the United States and it is because the Americans dowa there demand them and will use no other, and yet the only thines an American can raise and ship to the United Statesære. Bananas and coffee. ask you, is this a square deal?
The condition in Mexico and in the Central American Republics are much different. In Mexico the mountains and high