Recognition Race

Back from a month-long vacation in the Adirondacks, Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson had last week to compete in a strange diplomatic race. The question was that of granting recognition to the three new governments which military revolutions had ushered in in Argentina, Peru, Bolivia. Though the Argentine Government was little over a week old, the powers of Europe were falling over one another to recognize the new regime and thereby gain prestige, economic advantages. France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Scandinavian countries had already resumed normal diplomatic relations and Great Britain, chief U. S. rival in Argentina, was about to follow suit. U. S. businessmen in Buenos Ayres were cabling anxiously, begging the State Department to hurry and save them from economic disadvantage. Yet Statesman Stimson felt he must not act too promptly lest color be lent to the rumors that the U. S., ill-favored in the Argentine under the regime of ousted President Irigoyen, had encouraged and perhaps abetted his overthrow. Statesman Stimson combined suavity with speed last week by simply including the week-old Argentine government in an announcement recognizing the new governments of Peru (three weeks old) and Bolivia (three months old). Almost simultaneously the London Foreign Office announced that its relations with Argentina remained unbroken. Statesman Stimson had run a dead heat with Great Britain. He listed minor reasons first for his diplomatic omnibus: i) the new governments were de facto; 2) nobody resisted them; 3) each had promised to regularize its status constitutionally. One half of the real reason for quick recognition he explained thus: "I have deemed it wise to act promptly in this matter in order that in the present economic situation our delay may not embarrass the people of these friendly countries. ..." The other half of the reason--the embarrassment such delay "in the present economic situation" would cause U. S. businessmen who sold $210,000,000 worth of goods last year in Argentina--Secretary Stimson did not mention. When he declared at a press conference that "this action does not represent any new policy or change of policy by the U. S.," newshawks mindful of the traditional U. S. opposition to Latin-American revolutionary governments began to pester him with demands for an explanation. Somewhat fussed, he retired to the quiet of his office, prepared a supplementary statement to prove his point. He cited the 1923 declaration of Charles Evans Hughes, then Secretary of State, to the effect that the U. S. would recognize no Central American government inaugurated by a coup d'etat. He elaborately explained that South American governments are in a different category, having no treaty among themselves (as in Central America) governing recognition of revolutionary regimes. Days before the recognitions were granted, Citizen Calvin Coolidge in his daily syndicated article baldly and prophetically summarized: "It is well known that we have little sympathy with revolution. . . . [But] we are bound by ties of sympathy and friendship to the people of the Argentine. We have large commercial interests with them. . . ."

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