Message to the Senate Requesting Approval of a Treaty with Cuba.

To the Senate:

To the end that I may receive the advice and consent of the Senate to its ratification, I transmit herewith a Treaty of Relations between the United States of America and the Republic of Cuba, signed at Washington on May 29, 1934.

This treaty would supersede the Treaty of Relations between the United States and Cuba, signed at Habana on May 22, 1903.

I have publicly declared "that the definite policy of the United States from now on is one opposed to armed intervention." In this new treaty with Cuba, the contractual right to intervene in Cuba which had been granted to the United States in the earlier treaty of 1903 is abolished, and those further rights, likewise granted to the United States in the same instrument, involving participation in the determination of such domestic policies of the Republic of Cuba as those relating to finance and to sanitation, are omitted therefrom. By the consummation of this treaty, this Government will make it clear that it not only opposes the policy of armed intervention, but that it renounces those rights of intervention and interference in Cuba which have been bestowed upon it by treaty.

Our relations with Cuba have been and must always be especially close. They are based not only upon geographical proximity, but likewise upon the fact that American blood was shed as well as Cuban blood to gain the liberty of the Cuban people and to establish the Republic of Cuba as an independent power in the family of Nations. I believe that this treaty will further maintain those good relations upon the enduring foundation of sovereign equality and friendship between our two peoples, and I consequently recommend to the Senate its ratification.