William Jennings Bryan to Woodrow Wilson with Enclosure

There are so many matters before this Department about which I would like to talk to you and we have so little time for discussion of these things, that I take the liberty of sending you a draft of a new treaty made by Judge Douglas as attorney for Nicaragua.
He has embodied in this treaty the Platt Amendment. Extracts from the Platt Amendment are in red. The black type reproduces the Nicaraguan treaty now before the Senate except where the words in black type are underscored, these are additions.
You will notice that the$3,000,000 instead of being used as mentioned in the treaty now before the Senate is to be used as follows:$1,000,000 for the immediate needs of the Government; $2,000,000 to be used to pay the claims that may be allowed by the Joint Commission which is now sifting the claims. Some six thousand claims have been presented, of which nearly three thousand have been passed upon, with an allowance of something like$250,000. The representative insists that the allowance and payment of these claims are necessary to the maintenance of peace and order there. In the former treaty the amount was to be used for education and public works. Senator Bacon thinks that the Senate might be willing to permit the adoption of the Platt Amendment idea, but that is a personal opinion and he has not had time to make a poll of the Senate. My own preference would be to have the money used for education or permanent public works, but it may be necessary to consider the immediate needs of the Government, and as I am more interested in the securing of the option and the naval site base than I am in the manner in which the money is spent, I would not regard the change as vital.
I shall be pleased to go over some of these matters with you whenever you can find leisure.