offended: the Argentine delegates were much displeased with a maga-
zine article Mr. Curtis had written concerning the financial credit of
their country; the Colombians because of an article concerning tlie
family relations of President Nufiez, and his concordat with the Pope;
the delegates from Chili were offended because of his comments upon
the then recent war with Peru ; and Seilor Caamaiio, of Ecuador, dis-
liked some humorous personal allusions in the Capitals of South America.
The publication of this book was the principal cause of the opposition,
as it contained allusions to other Spanish-American countries which
had in some way offended their respective delegates, who thought he
had committed many serious mistakes and made many uncomplimen-
tary remarks in speaking of their capital cities. This would not seem
strange, taking into consideration that the time Mr. Curtis spent in
each city was very short, and remembering how difficult it is under
such circumstances to know and understand a country, and, still more,
to write about it without making mistakes, which are generally to the
prejudice of the country treated of. All of the delegates at the close
of the Convention were generous enough to write Mr. Curtis congratu-
latory letters upon his management, with assurances of their personal
regard.
The Committee on Rules presented a resolution, which was ap-
proved by the Conference at its second meeting, to elect two Secreta-
ries, one to take charge of the Spanish work and the other of the
English, both to be conversant with each language, and both to be
elected directly by the Conference. The Secretary of State accepted
this resolution out of deference to the Conference, notwithstanding
that the law which convened the assembly gave him the appointment
of all its clerks; and his right to do this was still more clear because
the salaries of 'the Secretaries were paid by the United States Govern-
ment. As Mr. Curtis did not know Spanish, he was precluded from
being a secretary; Mr. Blaine then appointed him Executive Officer of
the Conference, and he acted until the end as chief of all the clerks.
I must state here, in justice to Mr. Curtis, that during the time he
served in this capacity he succeeded in dispelling many of the unfavor-
able views which existed regarding him.
Senor Don Fidel G. Pierra. — The notoriety acquired by the Spanish
Secretary of the Conference makes it necessary to say a few words
about him. Senor Don Fidel G. Pierra is a Cuban who lived many
years in New York, where, I understand, he had some commercial
business. He accompanied the Spanish-American delegates on the
excursion which preceded the Conference, as representative of the
Senor Won 3fi^el 0. pierra. 64^
Spanish-American Commercial Union of New York, and secured their
acquaintance and friendship by rendering them services as an inter-
preter and in other ways. The Conference elected him Spanish Secre-
tary; but on account of his peculiar temperament and disposition he
was not able to remain long in that place, although he had the good-will
and support of the Latin-American delegates. He complained that he
had not competent clerks to assist him, and he thought the Executive
Clerk, Mr. Curtis, was unfriendly ; he also alleged that the salary assigned
to him by the Department of State was not sufficient compensation for
his work, although it was higher than the salary assigned to the Assistant
Secretaries of State, and as high as the highest paid to clerks of the
Conference. Finally his resignation was accepted, and soon afterwards
Sefior Pierra addressed to Za Nacion, of Buenos Ayres, Argentina, a
letter dated at Washington, on March lo, 1890, in which he gave an
account of the proceedings of the Conference, making many incorrect
and some slanderous assertions in regard to incidents which occurred
in the Conference, and more especially respecting some of the delegates
of the United States and Mexico.' I thought it proper on my part to
publish a correction of such misstatements, and I wrote a correct state-
ment of such incidents, which was published by Las Novedades, a Span-
ish newspaper of the city of New York, in its issue of July 7, 1890.
Senor Pierra's assertions were incidentally considered in the Senate of
' When Senor Pierra's letter to La Nacion of Buenos Ayres reached New York,
a few extracts from the same were printed by the New York Herald of June 28,
i8qo, and in its issue of July 3, 1890, it published fuller extracts of such portions of
the letter as contained abuse to the representatives of the United States, as well as to
myself. As soon as I had the first intimation of that letter, by the first publication of
the New York Herald, I obtained a copy of La Nacion of Buenos Ayres which
had the letter in full, prepared at once an answer, which was intended to be read espe-
cially among the Spanish-American people, to dispel inaccuracies of Senor Pierra, and
sent it to Las N'ovedades of New York, which published it in its issue of July 7,
i8go.
In a discussion in the Senate of the United States, which took place on July 3,
1890, on a bill to subsidize a line of steamers from New York to Buenos Ayres,
Senator Vest, under the misapprehension that Sefior Pierra was the Secretary of a
society in the city of Buenos Ayres and had accompanied to Washington the delega-
tion from the Argentine Republic to the Pan-American Conference, and believing
that Seiior Pierra expressed the views of the Argentine delegates about their colleagues
representing the United States, read some extracts from Seiior Pierra's letter in which
he abused the United States delegates. This abuse so excited Senator Hawley that
he qualified the aspersions of Senor Pierra with most forcible and strong language, as
appears on pages 7495, 7496, and 7497 of the Congressional Record for July 4, 1890 ;
and finally Senator Frye, in the session of the Senate of the 14th of the same month,
spoke on this subject for the purpose of dispelling Senator Vest's misapprehensions
about the position of Senor Pierra in the Argentine Republic, using, like Senator
Hawley, very strong language to characterize Senor Pierra's conduct, and then Senator
Vest disclaimed all responsibility or endorsement of any of Senor Pierra's statements.
6so TTbe pans»Hmertcan Conference.
the United States on July 14, 1890, and qualified in the harshest pos-
sible manner, although fully deserved, considering the impropriety of
his conduct. I append to this paper a copy of my communication to
Las Novedades of New York.
Arbitration. — Arbitration is a very difficult and complicated sub-
ject. It cannot be denied that during the present century mankind has
advanced very rapidly in civilization and moral sense, and it is to
be hoped that, at no distant period, such advancement will make war
impossible, for war has been thus far one of the greatest scourges
which has afflicted the human race. But so long as the moral sense of
highly advanced countries does not disapprove of war as an uncivilized
way of adjusting differences among themselves, not much progress can
be made by accepting arbitration in solemn treaties, especially if no
method of coercion is agreed upon against such nations as may refuse
to compromise their differences, and such a method cannot be estab-
lished without attempts against the sovereignty and independence of
the respective states.
It was thought by some Spanish Americans that the purpose of the
United States was to establish a permanent court of arbitration at
Washington, and this was looked upon as a way of giving the United
States a decided preponderance in all questions affecting this continent.
Although I understand that the United States delegate who was chair-
man of the Committee on General Welfare looked favorably upon the
idea of having a permanent tribunal, and his views on this subject
were shared by his Colombian colleague, the plan was not accepted
by the other Latin-American delegates, nor by the Secretary of State
of the United States, and had therefore to be abandoned.
Mr. Blaine wished arbitration without limitations which might
nullify its principle. Chili did not favor arbitration, except in a very
restricted manner. Mexico and the Argentine Republic desired
reasonable limitations, while all the other States accepted the idea
without any limitation. The Argentine and Brazilian delegates intro-
duced, on January 15, 1890, an arbitration project which contained,
besides, declarations and stipulations against conquest.
The Argentine delegates were the nucleus of the opposition to the
acquisition of territory by conquest, and naturally were joined by the
South American nations which had lost territory in the then recent war
with Chili, namely, Peru and Bolivia. The object of the Argentine
delegates was to have the Conference declare that territory could not
in any case, past or future, be acquired as a consequence of war.
Such declaration would interfere with the acquisition by Chili of terri-
tory belonging to Peru and Bolivia. The United States delegate in
the committee thought it inexpedient that the Conference should join
in any such declaration, among other reasons because that would be
Brbitration. 65 1
equivalent to condemning the acquisition of Mexican territory after the
war of 1847 and 1848, and he could not therefore join the Argentines
in accomplishing that object.
The text of the Argentine and Brazilian project appears in Mr.
Henderson's letter of B'ebruary 14, 1898, which will be found among
the documents (No. 4) annexed to this paper, taken from the minutes
of the meeting of the Conference held January 15, 1890. The Argen-
tine-Brazilian project was referred, upon its presentation, to the Com-
mittee on General Welfare, and was not reported by that committee '
until April 14th, near the close of the session of the Conference, which
finished its work on the iSth and adjourned on the 19th of the same
month.
While this project was in committee Mr. Blaine had two meetings
with delegates at his residence; the first one with the representatives
•of Chili, the Argentine Republic, Brazil, and Mexico, whose views
were supposed not to be in entire accord with Mr. Blaine's, although
the Republican Government of Brazil had then authorized its delegates
to accept the broadest possible plan of arbitration; and the second
meeting with all the other delegates, who fully accepted the views of
the Secretary of State.
The divergence of views between the United States and the Latin-
American delegates about the details of the project was so great that
Mr. Blaine had to take the matter into his own hands, and summoned
all the members of the Committee on General Welfare to discuss the sub-
ject with him at his private residence, spending the greater part of two
nights in that work. He suggested several changes to the Argentine-
Brazilian project, which had been accepted by all the Latin- Am.erican
members of the committee, and suggested further, as the only way in
which matters could be adjusted, to divide the project into two parts,
■confining the first to a general arbitration, and the second to a declara-
tion against conquest, which the Argentine delegates made a condition
sine qtia non to accept arbitration.
After the committee had accepted Mr. Blaine's suggestion they
agreed upon a draft for the first project, which when completed was
handed to Mr. Curtis with instructions to have a clean copy made of
the same and submit it to Mr. Elaine for his information. Mr. Curtis
did so and Mr. Blaine amended it considerably, and with such amend-
ments, and others afterward made, it was reported by the committee.
Mr. Curtis keeps in his office in this city (Washington) the original type-
' The verbal incorrections which are noticed in the Plan of Arbitration as re-
ported by the committee, were due to the fact that Seiior Cruz, the Guatemalean
delet^ate to the Conference, and a member of the Committee of General Welfare, was
entrusted to put into English the Spanish text of the project, who, although a good
linguist and having a fair knowledge of the English language, was not then entirely
proficient in the same.
652 Zbc lpan=Bmcrtcan Conference.
written copy of the project as agreed upon by the committee, with
the amendments made by Mr. Blaine in his own handwriting, and he
has kindly allowed me to make a facsimile of the first page of that
paper (Document No. 5 of the Appendix), which was the one most
substantially amended, and from which it appears exactly how much
and how materially the Argentine-Brazilian project was altered by Mr.
Blaine, and shows at the same time the trend of his mind on the
subject of arbitration and the interest he took in the same. At Mr.
Blaine's request Mr. Henderson signed the report of the committee
as modified and approved by Mr. Blaine.
On the 14th of April, 1890, the report of the committee, bearing
date of the 9th, was presented to the Conference, and was first discussed
and approved under the rule called in Spanish " Discusion en lo gene-
ral," which in English might be " discussion on the whole," and by
which the adoption of the general idea of a measure is first discussed,
since, if that idea is not accepted, it is useless to enter into its details,
and if the idea is accepted then the discussion and approval of the
details of the measure are in order, under our parliamentary practice
accepted by the rules of the Conference. The project reported by
the committee was approved on the whole on the day of its presenta-
tion, as were also the first eleven articles, excepting the 2d and 4th,
which were discussed and approved at the meeting of the Conference
which took place on the i6th of April. The Preamble was consid-
erably modified, and it was finally approved at the meeting of the 17th.
The Argentine delegates voted in favor of arbitration when the
project was discussed on the whole ; but when the final vote on the
specific project proposed by the committee was submitted to the Con-
ference on April i8th, they abstained from voting.
The fact that Mr. Henderson did not sign the report on the right
of conquest, that it had suffered substantial changes from the form in
which it was presented by the Argentine delegates, and the fear that
after the agreement was signed it might not be ratified by the con-
tracting parties, were, in all probability, the causes why they did not
vote for the arbitration plan nor sign the respective treaty. Mr. Hen-
derson's refusal came near causing a failure of arbitration, and to avoid
such failure Mr. Blaine had to accept the scheme against conquest.
Before the arbitration project was finally approved, important
changes were made in the same, which appear in Document No. 8 of
the Appendix to this paper, which is the text of the treaty signed in
Washington April 28, 1890. This treaty as well as two other recom-
mendations of the Conference were submitted to Congress by the
President with his Message of September 3, 1890.
At the meeting of April i8th the Committee on General Welfare
presented their project against conquest, the final text of that project
Bilntration. 653
being approved in very different shape from that in which it was re-
ported by the committee. In the annexed document, No. 7, appears
the text as reported by the committee, and in No. 8 the text of the
project as approved by the Conference.
The Conference also approved a recommendation to the European
nations to accept the principle of arbitration, which appears among
the papers embraced in Document No. 8.
The report of the committee was presented to the Conference so
late that it could only be taken up partially in three meetings, and
there was not sufficient time to consider it carefully, or even to adopt
verbal amendments which were necessary to make it more clear and
precise. It can therefore be properly said that there was no discussion
on the subject of arbitration, since the delegates could only give their
views in the debate which followed for the purpose of explaining their
votes and the position of their respective Governments.
From what I heard at the time especially from Sefior Quintana, and
judging from the natural disposition of Mr. Henderson to be deliberate
and careful in anything he does, I thought, and expressed in rather
harsh terms in the first edition of this paper, that he was responsible
for the delay of the Committee of General Welfare in reporting to the
Conference the arbitration project. When my article was published,
Mr. Henderson told me that I had done him an injustice, and that he
was in no way responsible for that delay. I assured him that I did
not have any intention to be unfair to him or to anybody else con-
nected with the Conference, and that if he would do me the favor of
writing a memorandum of the case, I would publish it at once as a
correction of my statement. He did not do so at the time, and when
I was preparing the present edition of this paper, I begged of him again
to make his statement of the case, and he kindly sent me a letter con-
taining the history of his connection with the arbitration project
presented by the committee of which he was chairman, with two
enclosures, which in justice to Mr. Henderson I published in the
North American Review for April, 1898, so that those who had
read my article could read Mr. Henderson's explanation, and I now
append to this paper what I published in that Review. (Document
No. 4.)
Mr. Blaine desired that the delegates who had accepted the report
of the committee should sign it in the shape of a treaty before the Con-
ference closed its sessions. His grounds were that Article I. of the Act
convening the Conference mentioned as its principal object the con-
sideration and recommendation of a plan of arbitration. Several dele-
gates, among them the Argentines, were of the opinion that this subject
ought not to be disconnected from the others, and were willing to sign
in the shape of a treaty the recommendation relative to arbitration,
654 ^be |pan*Biuerican Contcrcnce.
provided all the other recommendations adopted by the Conference
were signed at the same time. As there was no time to engross all
of them, the formality of signature was, on motion of a delegate from
the United States, limited to that concerning arbitration, and this con-
stituted another reason why the Argentine delegates would not sign it.
Other delegates who would have signed the arbitration project in the
shape of a recommendation did not consider themselves authorized to
sign it in the shape of a treaty, and this explains why some of the
delegates who voted for the agreement did not sign the treaty. On
that occasion Mr. Blaine's earnestness carried him so far that he
thought it necessary to come down from the chair and take the place
of a delegate in supporting the motion, which was finally carried.'
After the Conference approved the arbitration project on the i8th
of April, 1890, it was necessary to engross the same in the form of a
treaty written in the four languages spoken by the American nations,,
namely, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French ; and after the
proper translations were made, a work done at the State Department^
Mr. Blaine ordered twenty-five copies of the same printed at the Gov-
ernment Printing Office, on large paper, with four parallel columns,
one of them for each of the respective languages, and when all this
work was finished, the treaty was signed at the State Department on
April 28, 1890, exactly in the shape in which it appears in Document
No. 8 of the Appendix to this paper. The treaty was signed by the
representatives of the Governments of Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala,
Hayti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Salvador, the United States of America,
the United States of Brazil, the United States of Venezuela, and Uru-
guay. The States that failed to sign the treaty were, therefore, Mexico,
Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Chili, the Argentine Republic, and Para-
guay. The Costa Rican delegate left Washington before the treaty was
signed, and the Venezuelan delegates received instructions to sign the
treaty after it had been executed by the other delegates.
As Article XIX. of the treaty provided that the ratifications of the
same should be exchanged in Washington on or before the ist day of
May, 1891, and as that time expired before the treaty could be ratified
by the respective nations, another convention extending the time for
such a purpose was signed in Washington on October 22, 1891. The
only Governments which signified to the United States Government
■ In a paper which 1 published in the Bulletin of the American Geographical
Society, of New York, for September 30, 1897, vol. xxix., No. 3, entitled, '^ jMr.
Blaine and the Boundary Question bctrvecn Mexico and Guatemala,'' I stated at length
how earnest a friend of arbitration Mr. Blaine was, and how hard he worked to substi-
tute arbitration for war in the settlement of international disputes, making this almost
the object of his life, and how his devotion to arbitration shown on different occasions
and under very different circumstances enlisted his sympathies in favor of Guatemala
in our boundary question with that State.
Brbitration. 655
their willingness to renew the treaty were Ecuador, Guatemala, Hon-
duras, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Salvador, and Bolivia.
I understood the treaty had been submitted to the United States
Senate for its ratification ; but after having made inquiries on the sub-
ject I found that it was never sent to the Senate. I cannot understand,
knowing as I do how earnest a friend of arbitration, and how anxious
to have it reduced to a tangible shape in the form of a treaty, Mr.
Blaine was, that when the treaty was actually signed, at his earnest
request and through his decided efforts, he should leave it in the files
of the State Department, without sending it to the Senate as is always
done with all treaties negotiated by representatives of the United
States Government, unless disapproved by the President. When he
had it in his power as Secretary of State to submit the same to the
Senate, it is beyond my comprehension why he did not do so. Pos-
sibly President Harrison objected to the treaty, and that may be the
explanation of his failure.
Although Mr. Blaine was the leading spirit of the arbitration pro-
ject, he cannot be considered as the author of the form in which it was
finally approved by the Conference, because he had to give up much
for the purpose of securing the acceptance of the principle of arbitra-
tion; but the Preamble to that paper was due almost entirely to him.
The population, territorial extension, trade, wealth, and advanced
civilization of the United States make them the greatest and most pow-
erful nation on this continent, and on this account they had decided
advantages over some of the smaller nations, which they could easily
bring to bear in case of difficulties with them. The plan approved by
the Conference deprived them of all these advantages, and placed them
in the same position as the weakest American nation. It is true that
this agreement, equitable as it is in all its bearings, as all the countries
participate in it under the most absolute equality, might be used here-
after in establishing the preponderance of the United States; but should
they have intended to undertake this, they would not have been willing
to bind themselves by an agreement which they would have to break
more or less openly before they could take other steps. This appeared
so clear to my mind that when the agreement was made I expressed
the opinion that it would not be ratified by the Senate of the United
States.
I was sure that a treaty of arbitration which had been approved in
such a hasty manner, and in my opinion without due deliberation and
without fully considering the serious objections presented against it,
would not be approved by the Senate of the United States, and I so
expressed in the first edition of this paper published in October, 1890.
My prediction could not be fully verified, because the treaty was not
submitted to the Senate for ratification, and to my surprise not only
656 Xlbe lpan*Bmer(can Conference.
the United States but other governments whose delegates signed the
treaty did not ratify it, and so the treaty failed.
Since that time the arbitration views of the United States Govern-
ment have received a great set-back in the rejection by the Senate of the
United States on May 5, 1897, of the Treaty of Arbitration with Great