Cumberland Report

There is a saying in Washington that the U. S. policy toward Nicaragua is handled at the State Department by an office boy. There is a sharper saying, among anti-imperialists, that the office boy is in the pay of Wall Street. An emanation from the State Department last week on the subject of Nicaragua appeared to prove the truth of at least one of these sayings.

A year ago the State Department was requested by President Diaz of Nicaragua to send down an expert to survey Nicaragua's finances. Nicaragua needed more money. U. S. bankers were wary of loaning more money to a country already requiring U. S. Marines to put it in order and thus safeguard present U. S. loans & property. The State Department assigned the survey to Dr. William Wilson Cumberland, who was just through serving as U. S. financial dictator of Haiti. Dr. Cumberland went, saw and reported last March to Secretary Kellogg on the fiscal state of Nicaragua. President Diaz took his copy of the report to U. S. bankers, but his negotiations continued fruitless.

Last week, the day after President-Elect Hoover sailed good-willfully towards Latin-America, the State Department for some reason resurrected the Cumberland report from its eight-month obscurity, and published it. It was seen that Dr. Cumberland had recommended:

That control of the Bank of Nicaragua be sold to U. S. bankers.

That the Bank of Nicaragua be authorized to borrow not more than $30,000,000, beginning with a $12,000,000 loan to refund the present external debt and meet other immediate needs.

That the U. S. State Department nominate, and Nicaragua's president appoint, a Collector-General and an Auditor-General for Nicaragua, both to be Americans, to safeguard the U. S. interests involved and ensure Nicaraguan stability. These officers "would be welcomed by the Nicaraguan people," asserted Dr. Cumberland.

On sight of these terms, two outcries arose in the U. S. press. Dr. Cumberland's was the most imperialistic scheme yet devised, said one outcry; and what a blunder for the State Department to have published such a scheme just when Mr. Hoover was setting forth to dispel the U. S. Empire idea in Latin-America.

Secretary Kellogg, greatly agitated, stammered out two explanations. In the first place, he called attention to the fact that the Cumberland report was put out by the State Department only as "the personal views of Dr. Cumberland," not as an official program. In the second place, he made the incredible announcement that the State Department had not known Mr. Hoover was going to visit Nicaragua. Secretary Kellogg added, vaguely, that there were some suggestions in the Cumberland report of which he did not approve.

It was at the White House that the episode ended. "In-behalf-of-the-President"--that is, by the President himself at press conference--it was announced that the Cumberland plan would never do, that the Coolidge administration would not (again) undertake to supervise, safeguard or guarantee foreign loans made by its citizens, or to interfere in any way with another country's fiscal freedom.