Note to Council of League of Nations Accepting Request to Mediate Between Armenians arid Turks

M. Paul Hymans, President, Council of the League of Nations, Geneva, Switzerland:

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your cabled message setting forth the resolution adopted by the Assembly of the League of Nations requesting the Council of the League to arrive at an understanding with the Governments with a view to intrusting [sic] a Power with the task of taking the necessary measures to stop the hostilities in Armenia. You offered to the United States the opportunity of undertaking the humanitarian task of using its good offices to end the present tragedy being enacted in Armenia, and you assure me that your proposal involves no repetition of the invitation to accept a mandate for Armenia.

While the invitation to accept the mandate for Armenia has been rejected by the Senate of the United States, this country has repeatedly declared its solicitude for the fate and welfare of the Armenian people in a manner and to an extent that justifies you in saying that the fate of Armenia has always been of special interest to the American people.

I am without authorization to offer or employ the military forces 01 the United States in any project for the relief of Armenia, and any material contribution would require the authorization of the Congress, which is not now in session, and whose action I could not forecast. I am willing, however, upon assurances of the moral and diplomatic support of the principal Powers and in a spirit of sympathetic response to the request of the Council of the League of Nations to use my good offices and to proffer my personal mediation through a representative whom I may designate to end the hostilities that are now being waged against the Armenian people and to bring peace and accord to the contending parties, relying upon the Council of the League of Nations to suggest to me the avenues through which my proffer should be conveyed and the parties to whom it should be addressed.

WOODROW WILSON