Franklin D. Roosevelt

Statement on the Conference of American States

November 09, 1933

Final plans were approved today for the participation of the United States delegation in the Conference of American States to be convened December 3 in Montevideo, Uruguay, the seventh of a continuing series of conferences among the neighbor American Republics for promoting good-will and better communications.

President Roosevelt regards the meeting to be of such importance in increasing understanding and accord among the American States that he has directed Secretary of State Hull to attend in person. Mr. Hull not only will participate in the sessions at Montevideo, but will avail himself of the opportunity to stop at the regular steamship ports of call on both coasts and visit the capitals of several other Latin American countries which he hopes may include Mexico, thereby establishing contact and personal relations with their statesmen.

The official delegates are announced herewith. The complete delegation and its staff is as follows:

The Secretary of State, Chairman of the Delegation Assistant to the Chairman, Mr. Hugh S. Cumming, Jr.

Delegates:

Mr. Alexander W. Weddell of Virginia, American Ambassador to Argentine

Mr. J. Reuben Clark of Utah, formerly American Ambassador to Mexico

Mr. J. Butler Wright of Wyoming, American Minister to Uruguay

Mr. Spruille Braden of New York

Miss Sophonisba P. Breckinridge of Kentucky

The delegation will sail from New York on the S.S. American Legion on Saturday.

In approaching the problems of the conference, the Administration has given careful and hopeful study to means of contributing some practical expression of President Roosevelt's good-neighbor policy.

This study has brought the conviction that no matter what advantageous arrangements are made ultimately, such arrangements will lack full effectiveness in increasing neighborly contacts and trade unless there is betterment in the rapidity of communications and transportation. Such betterments will have an actual value in bringing the two continents even closer together.

At present, for example, as long as the German dirigible now travels from Europe on a regular schedule to South America in sixty hours, while steamship travel to Montevideo from New York requires more than two weeks, the United States will be more and more at a serious disadvantage as air travel increases.

Therefore, it is the intention of the United States to urge upon the conference that the section of the program relating to transportation be taken up as one of the early subjects.

It will be the policy of the United States to work out, in collaboration with the other Governments, an exploratory program looking to the immediate acceleration of improvements in all four forms of transport and passenger travel—by air, highway, water and rail.

Though motor roads would carry considerable freight traffic, they also would greatly increase tourist travel and greatly benefit a better Pan-American understanding.

For some years an inter-American Highway Commission has considered in theory a road that would lead from this country to the tip of the Southern continent. Recent studies have shown that, except for a small stretch lying in Costa Rica, the completion of such a road from the United States to Panama within a year after full agreement by Mexico and the Central American Republics would be entirely feasible with the cooperation of the neighbor Governments.

An 8,750—mile highway from the Texas border to Santiago, Chile, would require only half as much road building as will be undertaken in the United States this year under the Public Works program.

Such a system, if constructed of concrete, would call for 45,000,000 barrels of this material, or one-third of the total present output of this country.

The immediate program proposed by the United States therefore is to have a proper scientific survey made of the contemplated route at a cost of less than $500,000.

President Roosevelt has indicated that he will recommend to Congress that the United States bear the entire immediate cost of this most important survey, later on asking the other Governments to share in the costs of the project. This initiative by the United States has been decided upon as a means of giving early impetus to the proposal. The survey would of course be conducted only with the full approval and cooperation by each of the Republics interested.

As to rail transportation improvements, the Administration has taken under serious consideration the means of providing necessary funds for field studies looking to the development of a new proposed route as a substitute for the original road the east line of which traversed a rich, undeveloped territory east of the Andes, and extending to Buenos Aires. It is the conviction of the Administration that great possibilities lie in this development but that the most careful studies should precede the final determination of the cost and other questions. Meanwhile, while it is theoretically possible to carry freight from New York to Guatemala it is impractical because of impossible grades and varying rail gauges which make the establishment of a standard gauge a prime requisite of inter-continental connections.

The present mail subventions in the nature of subsidies should be readjusted to a strictly business basis that would be free from such abuses as have been known in the past. The general public would better understand a bald subsidy as a substitute for mail subsidies which are disguised at present as mail subventions. Congress may well be asked to act accordingly.

Air travel possibilities are immediate for both express and passenger service. Private companies already have developed large planes which make regular trips around the coastal line of South America. But, unfortunately, owing to lack of beacon lights and to this alone, these planes can travel only by day and the trip takes seven days from Miami.

By providing lights, it is possible to cut down the present travel time of seven days from Miami to Buenos Aires, for example, to a little more than two days. Passengers, mail and express—up to 15,000 pounds- can now be carried. With lights, a fast mail and express plane could go from New York to Buenos Aires in two and one-half days and a more comfortable passenger service could be operated between those points on a three-day schedule.

The policy of the United States in this respect will be, in collaboration with the other Nations, again to offer the initiative, by offering any necessary financial support for the lighting of these airways to the fullest practicable extent. Congress will be asked to stand behind this policy.

Otherwise, the conference at Montevideo will proceed to discuss a program prepared for the unavoidably postponed conference of two years ago. However, since that time internal economics in nearly every country concerned have made necessary certain temporary policies regarding a number of important phases of economic and trade conditions which will obviously render impracticable at this time useful conclusions as to some items on the old agenda.

It is understood, of course, that when the temporary conditions necessitating emergency policies have passed, the United States will take up these items in accordance with the original program. Meanwhile, unsettled conditions, such as European commercial quota restrictions, have made it seem desirable for the United States to forego immediate discussions of such matters as currency stabilization, uniform import prohibitions, permanent customs duties and the like.

Otherwise, the conference, subject to the wishes of the delegates, will undertake to deal with the extensive agenda which includes such important subjects as the organization of peace, international law, the political and civil rights of women, uniform legislation respecting bills of lading and exchange methods, social problems, intellectual cooperation and the best means of profiting from results of Pan-American conferences.

Though not on the agenda, it is probable that the question of radio communications will be taken up with a view to their improvement.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Statement on the Conference of American States Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/207794

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