Gomez Reports Venezuela Quiet.

New York Times 100 years ago today, May 27, 1913:
President Cables to Gen. Perez Denial of Recent Alarmist Rumors.
PEREZ BUYS MACHINERY
Says His Country's Greatest Need Is Peace, and People Want No Revolution.
    Gen. Mariano Perez, a business man of Maracaibo, Venezuela, who is in this city purchasing machinery for a cotton mill, received a cable message yesterday from Gen. Juan Vicente Gomez, President of Venezuela, assuring him that peace prevailed at home. The following is a translation of the cable from President Gomez:
    Caracas, May 26. Mariano Perez, New York:

    Your cable received. Complete peace reigns throughout the republic. No fear of order being disturbed.
    GOMEZ.

    This message was received by Gen. Perez at the quarters of the Pan-American States Association, 102 West Thirty-second Street, in reply to the following cable sent on Saturday to President Gomez:

    News published here indicates that peace has been disturbed and prominent men imprisoned. Would be obliged to you for news regarding this report.
    MARIANO PEREZ.

    Gen. Perez said yesterday, through an interpreter, that he was convinced that there was a great deal of exaggeration in reports sent out from Willemstad, Curaçao, to the effect that Gen. Gomez had imprisoned some members of the Venezuelan Council and driven others from the country.
    "The cable I have received from President Gomez," he said, "shows that there is no reason to be alarmed about Venezuela. It stamps as false most of the rumors which have been sent abroad about political conditions there. No mention is made in the cable of a plot against the life of President Gomez, and I do not believe that the report of such a plot ever emanated from the Venezuelan authorities.
    "Venezuela's greatest need is peace. There are mischief makers, persons interested in bringing about a revolution, who are seeking to give out the impression that the Government is tyrannical, and that the people of Venezuela are ready for an uprising, but this is not the case. The country was quiet and peaceful when I left, little over a month ago, and all good patriots want it to remain that way.
    "I think there is some mistake in the report that a censorship has been established by the Government over all dispatches. The following cable message in code was received in this city to-day by a Venezuelan whose name I am not at liberty to give:
    Your Information is not correct. Country quiet. There is no reason to fear.
    "That was in reply to a cable sent in code on May 23, and it makes it evident that the Government is not endeavoring to break off communication with the outside world.
    "One of the reports from Venezuela was that President Gomez had persecuted Gen. Romana Ayala, one of the Vice Presidents. Manuel Ayala, a New York merchant and a son of Gen. Ayala. has received a cable from Venezuela assuring him that this is false."
    Gen. Perez is a native of Colombia and won his military title in the Colombian Army, but has been interested in recent years in cotton raising in Venezuela. On his visit here he has purchased machinery to equip a cotton cloth mill at Maracaibo with 100 looms. The only other cotton mills in Venezuela, he says, are at Caracas, Valencia, and Cumana.