Speech of His Excellency Dr. J. Figueroa Alcorta
President of Argentina
At a Banquet given by him, August 14, 1906
The American republics are at this moment tightening their traditional bonds at a congress of fraternity whose importance has been indicated by the presence of our illustriousguest, who passes across the continent as the herald of the civilization of a great people.
The world's conscience being awakened by the progress of public thought, the members of the family of nations are trying to draw closer together for the development of their activities, without fetters or obstacles, under the olive branch of peace and the guaranty of reciprocal respect for their rights.
International conferences are a happy manifestation of that tendency, because, in the contact of representatives of the various states, hindrances and prejudices are dissipated, and there is shown to exist in the collective mind a common aspiration for the teachings of liberty and justice.
America gives a recurring example of such congresses of peace and law. As each one takes place it is evident that the attributes of sovereignty of the nations which constitute it are displayed more clearly; that free government is taking deeper root, that democratic solidarity is more apparent, and that force is giving way more freely to reason as the fundamental principle of society.
The congress of Rio de Janeiro has that lofty significance. Its material, immediate consequences will be more or less important, but its moral result will be forever of transcendent benefit—a new departure and a step in advance in the development of liberal ideas in this part of the American Continent.
Mr. Secretary of State, your country has taken gigantic strides in the march of progress until it occupies a position in the vanguard. It has set a proud and shining example to its sister nations.
As in the dawn of their emancipation it recognized in them the conqueror's right to stand among the independent states of the earth, so likewise it later stimulated the high aspiration to establish a political system representing the popularwill, now inscribed in indelible characters in the preambles of American legislation.
The Argentine Republic, after rude trials, has completed its constitutional régime, gathering experience and learning from the great republic of the North.
The general lines of our organization followed those of the Philadelphia convention, with the modifications imposed by circumstances, by the irresistible force of tradition, and by the idiosyncrasies peculiar to our race. The forefathers who drafted the Argentine constitution were inspired in their work by those who, to the admiration of the world, created the Constitution of the United States.
Many of our political doctrines are derived from the writings of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay; the spirit of Marshall and Taney are seen in the hearings of our tribunals; and even the children in our schools, where they learn to personify the republican virtues, the love and sacrifice for country, respect for the rights of man, and the prerogatives of the citizen, speak the name of George Washington with that of the foremost Argentines.
Our home institutions being closely united and the shadows on the international horizon having disappeared, the Argentine Republic can occupy itself in fraternizing with other nations; and, like the United States, she aspires to strengthen the ties of friendship sanctioned by history and by the ideal philanthropy common to free institutions.
Your visit will have, in this aspect, great results. We have invited you to visit our territory in order to link the two countries more intimately; and your presence here indicates that this noble object will be realized, inspired as it is by the convenience of mutual interests and the sharing of noble aims.
You are a messenger of the ideals of brotherhood, and as such you are welcome to the Argentine Republic.
I salute you, in the name of the Government and the people who have received you, as the genuine representative of your country, with that sincere desire for friendship which is loyally rooted in the national sentiment of Argentina.
Gentlemen: To the United States of America; to its illustrious President, Theodore Roosevelt; to the Secretary of State of North America, Honorable Elihu Root!
Reply of Mr. Root
I thank you, sir, for your kind welcome and for your words of appreciation. I thank you for myself; I thank you for that true and noble gentleman who holds in the United States of America the same exalted office which you hold here. I thank you in behalf of the millions of citizens in the United States. When your kind and courteous invitation reached me, I was in doubt whether the long absence from official duties would be justified; but I considered that your expression of friendship imposed upon me something more than an opportunity for personal gratification; it imposed upon me a duty. It afforded an opportunity to say something to the Government and the people of Argentina which would justly represent the sentiments and the feelings of the people of the United States toward you all. We do not know as much as we ought in the United States; we do not know as much as I would like to feel we know; but we have a traditional right to be interested in Argentina. I thought today, when we were all involved in the common misfortune, at the time of my landing, that, after all, the United States and Argentina were not simply fair-weather friends. We inherit the right to be interested in Argentina, and to be proud of Argentina. From the time when Richard Rush was fighting, from the day when James Monroe threw down the gauntlet of a weak republic, as we were then, in defense of your independence and rights—from that day to this the interests and the friendship ofthe people of the United States for the Argentine Republic have never changed. We rejoice in your prosperity; we are proud of your achievements; we feel that you are justifying our faith in free government, and self-government; that you are maintaining our great thesis which demands the possession, the enjoyment, and the control of the earth by the people who inhabit it. We have followed the splendid persistency with which you have fought against the obstacles that stood in your path, with the sympathy that has come from similar struggles at home. Like you, we have had to develop the resources of a vast unpeopled land; like you, we have had to fight for a foothold against the savage Indians; like you, we have had conflicts of races for the possession of territory; like you, we have had to suffer war; like you, we have conquered nature; and like you, we have been holding out our hands to the people of all the world, inviting them to come and add to our development and share our riches.
We live under the same constitution in substance; we are maintaining and attempting to perfect ourselves in the application of the same principles of liberty and justice. So how can the people of the United States help feeling a friendship and sympathy for the people of Argentina? I deemed it a duty to come, in response to your kind invitation to say this, to say that there is not a cloud in the sky of good understanding; there are no political questions at issue between Argentina and the United States; there is no thought of grievance by one against the other; there are no old grudges or scores to settle. We can rejoice in each other's prosperity; we can aid in each other's development; we can be proud of each other's successes without hindrance or drawback. And for the development of this sentiment in both countries, nothing is needed but more knowledge—that we shall know each other better; that not only the most educated and thoughtful readers of our two countries shall become familiarwith the history of the other, but that the entire body of the people shall know what are the relations and what are the feelings of the other country. I should be glad if the people of Argentina—not merely you, Mr. President; not merely my friend, the minister of foreign affairs; not merely the gentlemen connected with the Government, but the people of Argentina—might know that the people of the United States are their friends, as I know the people of Argentina are friends of the United States.
I have come to South America with no more specific object than I have stated. Our traditional policy in the United States of America is to make no alliances. It was inculcated by Washington; it has been adhered to by his successors ever since. But, Mr. President, the alliance that comes from unwritten, unsealed instruments, as that from the convention, signed and ratified with all formalities, is of vital consequence. We make no political alliances, but we make an alliance with all our sisters in sentiment and feeling, in the pursuit of liberty and justice, in mutual helpfulness; and in that spirit I beg to return to you and to your Government and the people of this splendid and wonderful country my sincere thanks for the welcome you have given me and my country in my person.
Speech of Mr. Francis B. Purdie
At St. George's Hall, August 16, 1906
Americans resident in Buenos Ayres and in the Argentine Republic are sensible of the honor you have done them by accepting their invitation for this evening, and they appreciate most highly the courtesy of the Argentine Government, whose distinguished guest you are, in allowing them this coveted privilege. As Americans we welcome you to Buenos Ayres, and it is our earnest hope that your visit here willbind more closely the ties of friendship which unite the great republics of the North and of the South, and that the knowledge you will gain of this great country and of its magnificent resources will lead to more familiar intercourse and to that good understanding which should exist between nations governed by like principles, living under constitutions framed in a like spirit, and having similar national aims.
This gathering is the result of a public meeting called immediately after it was learned that you had accepted the invitation of the Argentine Government to visit this city. It was a meeting typically American, which had no dividing line on the question that our Secretary of State was a man whom we would all delight to honor. The executive committee of the North American Society of the River Plata was intrusted with the arrangements. We believe you should know something of that society. Organized only last November, it embraces in its membership practically every American in Buenos Ayres. For its age, I am not afraid to say that it is the most flourishing social organization that has ever been established in this country. What is the object of the society? Not, I conceive, such as will arouse antagonism or jealousy in the mind of any man. As set forth in the preamble to its constitution, it is: "To keep alive the love of country and foster the spirit of patriotism,... and for such other purposes as will advance the interests of our country, encourage and maintain friendly relations with the country of our residence, and assist in promoting closer commercial union between the United States and the countries of the River Plata."
It is an organization framed in the spirit of our beloved Lincoln, "with malice toward none." The society has no political aim or purpose. It plots for nothing but the well-being of all, and wishes for nothing less than the prosperity of the home land and the land of our residence. Its membersare imbued with that spirit which is the characteristic American attitude toward all nations and peoples, the spirit of "live and let live." Apart from all that your visit may mean in international comity, it means much to us here; for you, Mr. Secretary, are the very living embodiment of the spirit to which I have referred, that broad Americanism which does not seek to advantage itself by intruding on the rights of others. Every speech made by you since leaving home has been an inspiration to us, and has strengthened us in our determination to live up to the principles upon which our society is founded.
But it is not alone the Americans in Buenos Ayres who have come here tonight to greet you, and who have wished to do you honor. Your kinsmen from across the sea are here in their hundreds, for when it became known that such a reception as this was contemplated, the requests for the privilege of joining with us were so great in number that the sincerity of the English-speaking people could not be questioned, and the American society welcomed the opportunity to invite as its guests as many of the representative British and other English-speaking residents of Buenos Ayres as this hall can hold; and there is represented here every important public interest and private enterprise in this republic, and I have the honor, in their name as well as in the name of your countrymen, to assure you that you are in the house of your friends.
I have told you, Mr. Root, what your countrymen feel about your coming here; I have referred to the cordial sympathy shown by the English-speaking residents; and it is with feelings of genuine pleasure that I now make reference to the attitude of the Argentine Government and the Argentine people. This reference will not be my personal view alone; it is the expression of the feelings of representative Americans in this city which has been voiced at everymeeting we have held within the past few weeks. The Argentine people are, and wish to remain, the friends of the United States. Our committees have had the privilege of holding interviews with high officials of the government, with various committees of the leading citizens; and we have been convinced of the genuine nature of the reception prepared for you. This is too proud a nation to pretend that which it does not feel, and the history of Buenos Ayres will convince any student that this city has never been afraid to speak out, to applaud or condemn as its judgment dictated. The government officials have been sincerely cordial, and they have not been content merely to express their wish to give us every friendly help; they have, apart from their own magnificent preparations, given the Americans here material assistance.
The world owes much of its progress to opposing views, and the healthiest nations have the strongest political parties taking differing views upon questions of national policy, and these parties reach the public by means of the newspapers. The Argentine Republic is not an exception, but I doubt if there has ever been a theme upon which the press of this country has been so united as that honor should be shown to you. I speak for Americans when I say that in the Argentine Republic we have found a home where absolute freedom is ours,—freedom in every walk of life; freedom for conscience; freedom to live, move, and have our being as God and our own wills may lead us. There are Argentines here tonight who are not one whit behind us in their enthusiasm for you and for all that you represent, and there is a group here of Argentines who have graduated from American colleges, who wish to say to you that next to their own country they revere the United States of America. You now know, Mr. Root, what friends you have before you, and we all bid you welcome, thrice welcome, to Buenos Ayres.
Reply of Mr. Root
Mr. Chairman, my countrymen, my countrywomen, my friends from the land whence my fathers came, I need not say that I am glad to meet you. No one far away from his own land needs to be told that the looks, faces, the sound of voice, of one's own countrymen are a joy to the wanderer in strange lands. Yet I do not find this such a strange land. I find here so many things to remind me of home, so many things that are like our own country, that it seems a little like coming home. Such is the similarity in conditions, in spirit, in purpose; such is the impress of the same institutions and the same principles, that I cannot feel altogether a stranger; and when I meet you here at home almost I feel the warmth of my own fireside.
I am glad to meet you because I think that perhaps to many of you who have been long in this distant land I may bring pleasant memories of cities and farms and homes, left behind many a year ago. But I hope that the new home you have found, the new duties you have taken up, have made you happy, prosperous, useful, full of the ambitions, activities, and satisfactions of life. There have been great changes in the United States of America—of North America, perhaps I must call it,—since most of you left your old homes. When you, Mr. President, left us, we were a debtor nation; we were borrowing money from Europe to develop our own resources, to build up our own country. Most of the money was coming from our English friends. That capital built up our railways to make possible the wonderful development that has made the United States what it is. We had no capital, no time, no energy, to devote to anything but the task before us, to conquer our West and to develop our empty lands. In that distant day, when Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams espoused the cause of the infantrepublics of South America, we could have no relations with them but those of political sympathy, because we were too concentrated in the work that lay before us at home. Twenty years ago, when that far-seeing and sanguine statesman, Mr. Blaine, inaugurated his South American policy and brought about the first American Conference at Washington, and the establishment of the Bureau of American Republics, we were still a debtor nation, with no surplus capital, and engrossed in doing our work at home. It was still impossible for us to have any relations with South America, except those of political sympathy.
But since Mr. Blaine, times have changed. We have paid our debts; we have become a creditor rather than a debtor nation. We have for the first time within the last ten years begun to accumulate surplus capital, and it has accumulated with a wonderful rapidity,—a surplus capital to enable us to go out and establish new relations with the rest of the world. We now are beginning to be in a position where we can take the same relations towards other countries that England took towards us. We have paid our debts to England; the use of her capital in developing the United States has resulted in great advantage to both of us; and with the payment of the debt there has been left a warm and, I believe, enduring friendship between England and the United States. I should like to see the same kind of friendship between the United States and South America. I should like to see the great surplus capital which we are accumulating in the United States of North America turn southwards, to see it used to develop the vast resources of this country, with mutual advantage to both, so that when the time comes in the future, as it will come, when the people of Argentina, with their resources developed, with their population increased, have accumulated all the capital they need and paid their debts, we shall have had our share both in theirdevelopment and in their prosperity, and an enduring friendship may exist between us.
Now it has seemed to me, sir, that possibly the opportunity afforded by the kind and courteous invitation of the Argentine Government to visit this country might enable me to do something to this end, just at this juncture when a change in the attitude of the United States toward the rest of the world is taking place, when the change from the debtor to the creditor nation, is made; from the borrower of money to develop resources, to a country with surplus capital to send out to the world;—it seemed to me possible that I might by this visit help to establish the relations which I should like to see existing. I should like to be able to qualify myself to say in the most public way that this is a land to which the poor of all the world, who have enterprise without money, can come and find homes and prosperity, so that by the thousands, by the millions, they may come from the Old World and build up Argentina as they have built up the United States. I feel able to say that this is a shore to which the emigrants from the Old World may come with a certainty of finding homes, occupations, and opportunities for prosperity; that it is a country to which the capital of the United States may come with the certainty that it will be secure, will be protected, and will find profitable employment. I look forward to the time when the wonderful development that is going on here now—not confined alone to this country, but progressing here with an amazing rapidity,—will be as great a wonder to the world as the advance which has taken the United States of North America, expanding from the feeble fringe of colonists along the Atlantic shore to a great nation of eighty millions, stretching from ocean to ocean. Argentina will take some of our markets from us, but what are they? They will be markets she is entitled to; and with her prosperity, and with the right understanding and relations between thetwo countries, our commercial relations with her will more than take the place of the markets she takes away from us. We have nothing to fear in the growing prosperity of Argentina. We have no cause but for rejoicing in her prosperity; no cause but to aid her in every way in our power in her onward progress; and that I believe to be the sincere desire of the whole of the people of the United States.
Mr. President, a heavy responsibility rests upon the citizen of our country who lives in a foreign land. We can misbehave at home and it makes little difference; but every American citizen in a foreign land, every American citizen in the Argentine Republic, is the representative of his country there. He needs no commission; no power can prevent his holding a commission to represent before all the people of Argentina the character of his own countrymen. You represent our beloved land to the people of Argentina. What you are they will believe us to be. As they study your character and conduct their estimate of us rises, and it is with the greatest pleasure that I find here among this people whom I respect so highly, whose good opinion for my country I so greatly desire, a body of Americans, a body of my countrymen, so worthy, so estimable, so high in reputation, so well fitted to maintain the standard of the United States of America, high, pure, unsullied, worthy of all honor.
Speech of Dr. Luis M. Drago
President of the Reception Committee
August 17, 1906
The large gathering here assembled, representative of all that Buenos Ayres has of the most notable in science, letters, industry, and commerce, has conferred on me the signal honor of designating me to offer this banquet to the eminent minister of one of the greatest nations of the earth, a nationlinked to us from the very beginning by many and very real sentiments of moral and political solidarity. This country has not forgotten that in the trying times of the colonial emancipation, our fathers could rely on the sympathy and the warm and disinterested adhesion of the American people, our predecessors and our guides in the paths of liberty. The thrilling utterances of Henry Clay defending our cause when everything appeared to threaten our revolution, have never been surpassed in their noble eloquence; and it was due to the generosity and foresight of their great statesmen that the United States were the first to receive us with open arms as their equals in the community of sovereign nations.
The spiritual affinity thus happily established has gone on strengthening itself almost imperceptibly ever since by the reproduction of institutions and legal customs.
Our charter was inspired by the American Constitution and acts through the operation of similar laws. The great examples of the Union are also our examples; and being sincere lovers of liberty we rejoice in the triumphs (which in a certain sense we consider our own) of the greatest of democratic nations.
George Washington is, for us, one of the great figures of history, the tutelar personality, the supreme model, a prototype of abnegation, honor, and wisdom; and there is an important region in the province of Buenos Ayres bearing the name of Lincoln, as a homage to the austere patriotism of that statesman and martyr. The names of Jefferson, Madison, and Quincy Adams are household words with us; and in our parliamentary debates and popular assemblies mention is frequently made of the statesmen, the orators, and the judges of the great sister republic.
There thus exist, honorable sir, a long-established friendship, an intercommunion of thought and purpose which draw peoples together more closely, intimately, and indissolublythan can be accomplished by the formulae—often barren—of the foreign offices.
And the moment is certainly propitious for drawing closer the bonds of international amity which your excellency's visit puts in relief, and which have found such eloquent expression in the Pan American Congress of Rio de Janeiro. Enlightened patriotism has understood at last that on this continent, with its immense riches and vast unexplored regions, power and wealth are not to be looked for in conquest and displacements, but in collaboration and solidarity, which will people the wilderness and give the soil to the plow. It has understood, moreover, that America, by reason of the nationalities of which it is composed, of the nature of the representative institutions which they have adopted, by the very character of their people, separated as they have been from the conflicts and complications of European governments, and even by the gravitation of peculiar circumstances and events, has been constituted a separate political factor, a new and vast theater for the development of the human race, which will serve as a counterpoise to the great civilizations of the other hemisphere, and so maintain the equilibrium of the world.
It is consequently our sacred duty to preserve the integrity of America, material and moral, against the menaces and artifices, very real and effective, that unfortunately surround it. It is not long since one of the most eminent of living jurisconsults of Great Britain denounced the possibility of the danger. "The enemies of light and freedom," he said, "are neither dead nor sleeping; they are vigilant, active, militant, and astute." And it was in obedience to that sentiment of common defense that in a critical moment the Argentine Republic proclaimed the impropriety of the forcible collection of public debts by European nations, not as an abstract principle of academic value or as a legal rule ofuniversal application outside of this continent (which it is not incumbent on us to maintain), but as a principle of American diplomacy which, whilst being founded on equity and justice, has for its exclusive object to spare the peoples of this continent the calamities of conquest, disguised under the mask of financial interventions, in the same way as the traditional policy of the United States, without accentuating superiority or seeking preponderance, condemned the oppression of the nations of this part of the world and the control of their destinies by the great powers of Europe. The dreams and utopias of today are the facts and commonplaces of tomorrow and the principle proclaimed must sooner or later prevail.
The gratitude we owe to the nations of Europe is indeed very great, and much we still have to learn from them. We are the admirers of their secular institutions; more than once we have been moved by their great ideals, and under no circumstances whatsoever should we like to sever or to weaken the links of a long-established friendship. But we want, at the same time, and it is only just and fair, that the genius and tendency of our democratic communities be respected. They are advancing slowly, it is true; struggling at times and occasionally making a pause, but none the less strong and progressive for all that, and already showing the unequivocal signs of success in what may be called the most considerable trial mankind has ever made of the republican system of government.
In the meantime, to reach their ultimate greatness and have an influence in the destinies of the world, these nations only require to come together and have a better knowledge of each other, to break up the old colonial isolation, and realize the contraction of America, as what is called the contraction of the world has always been effected by the annihilation of distance through railways, telegraphs, and thethousand and one means of communication and interchange at the disposal of modern civilization.
The increase of commerce and the public fortune will be brought about in this way; but such results as concern only material prosperity will appear unimportant when compared with the blessings of a higher order which are sure to follow, when, realizing the inner meaning of things, and stimulated by spiritual communion, these peoples meet each other as rivals only in the sciences and arts, in literature and government, and most of all in the practice of virtues, which are the best ornament of the state and the foundation stone of all enduring grandeur of the human race.
Gentlemen:
To the United States, the noblest and the greatest of democratic nations!
To Mr. Roosevelt, the President of transcendental initiative and strenuous life!
To his illustrious minister, our guest, the highest and most eloquent representative of American solidarity, for whom I have not words sufficiently expressive to convey all the pleasure we feel in receiving him, and how we honor ourselves by having him in our midst.
Reply of Mr. Root
I thank you for the kind and friendly words you have uttered. I thank you, and all of you for your cordiality and bounteous hospitality. As I am soon to leave this city, where I and my family have been welcomed so warmly and have been made so happy, let me take this opportunity to return to you and to the Government and to the people of Buenos Ayres our most sincere and heartfelt thanks for all your kindness and goodness to us. We do appreciate it most deeply, and we shall never forget it, shall never forget you—yourfriendly faces, your kind greetings, your beautiful homes, your noble spirit, and all that makes up the great and splendid city of Buenos Ayres.
It is with special pleasure, Mr. Chairman, that I have listened to that part of your speech which relates to the political philosophy of our times, and especially to the political philosophy most interesting to America. Upon the two subjects of special international interest to which you have alluded, I am glad to be able to declare myself in hearty and unreserved sympathy with you. The United States of America has never deemed it to be suitable that she should use her army and navy for the collection of ordinary contract debts of foreign governments to her citizens. For more than a century the State Department, the Department of Foreign Relations of the United States of America, has refused to take such action, and that has become the settled policy of our country. We deem it to be inconsistent with that respect for the sovereignty of weaker powers which is essential to their protection against the aggression of the strong. We deem the use of force for the collection of ordinary contract debts to be an invitation to abuses, in their necessary results far worse, far more baleful to humanity than that the debts contracted by any nation should go unpaid. We consider that the use of the army and navy of a great power to compel a weaker power to answer to a contract with a private individual, is both an invitation to speculation upon the necessities of weak and struggling countries and an infringement upon the sovereignty of those countries, and we are now, as we always have been, opposed to it; and we believe that, perhaps not today nor tomorrow, but through the slow and certain process of the future, the world will come to the same opinion.
It is with special gratification that I have heard from your lips so just an estimate of the character of that traditionalpolicy of the United States which bears the name of President Monroe. When you say that it was "without accentuating superiority or seeking preponderance," that Monroe's declaration condemned the oppression of the nations of this part of the world and the control of their destinies by the great powers of Europe, you speak the exact historical truth. You do but simple justice to the purposes and the sentiments of Monroe and his compatriots and to the country of Monroe at every hour from that time to this.
I congratulate you upon the wonderful opportunity that lies before you. Happier than those of us who were obliged in earlier days to conquer the wilderness, you men of Argentina have at your hands great, new forces for your use. Changes have come of recent years in the world which affect the working out of your problem. One is that through the comparative infrequency of war, of pestilence, of famine, through the increased sanitation of the world, the decrease of infant mortality by reason of better sanitation, the population of the world is increasing. Those causes which reduced population are being removed and the pressure of population is sending out wave after wave of men for the peopling of the vacant lands of the earth. Another change is, that through the wonderful activity of invention and discovery and organizing capacity during our lifetime, the power of mankind to produce wealth has been immensely increased. One man today, with machinery, with steam, with electricity, with all the myriads of appliances that invention and discovery have created, can produce more wealth, more of the things that mankind desires, than twenty men could have produced years ago; and the result is that vast accumulations of capital are massing in the world, ready to be poured out for the building up of the vacant places of the earth. For the utilization of these two great forces, men and money, you in Argentina have the opportunity of incalculable potentialwealth, and you have the formative power in the spirit and the brain of your people.
I went today to one of your great flour mills and to one of your great refrigerating plants. I viewed the myriad industries that surround the harbor, the forests of masts, the thronged steamers. I was interested and amazed. It far exceeded my imagination and suggested an analogy to an incident in my past life. It was my fortune in the year when the war broke out between Prussia and France, to be travelling in Germany. Immediately upon the announcement of the war, maps of the seat of war were printed and posted in every shop window. The maps were maps of Germany, with a little stretch of France. Within a fortnight the armies had marched off the map. It seems to be so with Argentina. I have read books about Argentina. I have read magazine and newspaper articles; but within the last five years you have marched off the map. The books and magazines are all out of date. What you have done since they were written is much more than had been done before. They are no guide to the country. Nevertheless, with all your vast material activity, it seems to me that the most wonderful and interesting thing to be found here is the laboratory of life, where you are mixing the elements of the future race. Argentine, English, German, Italian, French, and Spanish, and American are all being welded together to make the new type. It was the greatest satisfaction to me to go into the school and see that first and greatest agency, the children of all races in the first and most impressionable period of life, being brought together and acting and reacting on each other, and all tending toward the new type, which will embody the characteristics of all; and to know that the system of schools in which this is being done was, by the wisdom of your great President Sarmiento, brought from my own country through hisfriendship with the great leader of education in the United States of America—Horace Mann.
Mr. Chairman, I should have been glad to see all these wonderful things as an inconspicuous observer. It is quite foreign to my habits and to my nature to move through applauding throngs, accompanied by guards of honor; yet perhaps it is well that the idea which I represent should be applauded by crowds and accompanied by guards of honor. The pomp and circumstance of war attract the fancy of the multitude; the armored knight moves across the page of romance and of poetry and kindles the imagination of youth; the shouts of the crowd, the smiles of beauty, the admiration of youth, the gratitude of nations, the plaudits of mankind, follow the hero about whom the glamor of military glory dims the eye to the destruction and death and human misery that follow the path of war. Perhaps it is well that sometimes there should go to the herdsman on his lonely ranch, to the husbandman in his field, to the clerk in the counting-house and the shop, to the student at his books, to the boy in the street, the idea that there is honor to be paid to those qualities of mankind which rest upon justice, upon mercy, upon consideration for the rights of others, upon humanity, upon the patient and kindly spirit, upon all those exercises of the human heart which lead to happy homes, to prosperity, to learning, to art, to religion, to the things that dignify life and ennoble it and give it its charm and grace.
We honor Washington as the leader of his country's forces in the war of independence; but that supreme patience which enabled him to keep the warring elements of his people at peace is a higher claim to the reverence of mankind than his superb military strategy. San Martín was great in his military achievements; his Napoleonic march across the Andes is entitled to be preserved in the history of militaryaffairs so long as history is written; but the almost superhuman self-abnegation with which he laid aside power and greatness that peace might give its strength to his people, was greater than his military achievements. The triumphant march of the conquering hero is admirable and to be greeted with huzzas, but the conquering march of an idea which makes for humanity is more admirable and more to be applauded. This is not theory; it is practical. It has to do with our affairs today; for we are now in an age of the world when not governors, not presidents, not congresses, but the people determine the issues of peace or war, of controversy or of quiet. I am an advocate of arbitration; I am an advocate of mediation; of all the measures that tend toward bringing reasonable and cool judgment to take the place of war; but let us never forget that arbitration and mediation—all measures of that description—are but the treatment of the symptoms and not the treatment of the cause of disease; and that the real cure for war is to get into the hearts of the people and lead them to a just sense of their rights and other people's rights, lead them to love peace and to hate war, lead them to hold up the hands of their governments in the friendly commerce of diplomacy, rather than to urge them on to strife; and let there go to the herdsman and the husbandman and the merchant and the student and the boy in the street every influence which can tend toward that sweet reasonableness, that kindly sentiment, that breadth of feeling for humanity, that consideration for the rights of others, which lie at the basis of the peace of the world.
Speech of His Excellency Jermán Riesco
President of the Republic
At the Government House, September 1, 1906
I greet you and welcome you in the name of the people and of the Government of Chile, who receive your visit with the liveliest satisfaction.
Your attendance at the congress of fraternity which the American republics have just held; your visit to the neighboring countries, which we have followed with the greatest interest; and your presence amongst us, upon the invitation which we had the honor of extending to you, are eloquent testimony of the high-minded intentions, which will necessarily produce much good for the progress and the development of America.
In these moments we feel a most profound gratitude toward your country, toward your worthy President, and toward yourself for the friendship and sympathy with which you have joined in the sorrow of Chile because of the disaster which has wounded Valparaiso and other cities of the republic.
I wish that your stay in this country may be agreeable to you and your distinguished family.
Reply of Mr. Root
I thank you, Mr. President, for your kind welcome and for your generous expressions, and I thank you for the courteous invitation which led to this visit on my part. After the great calamity which has befallen your country, I should have feared to intrude upon the mourning which is in so manyChilean homes, but I did not feel that I could pass by without calling upon you—upon the representative of the Chilean people—to express in person the deep sympathy and sorrow which I, and all my people, whom I represent, feel for your country and for the stricken and bereaved ones; and the earnest hope we have for the prompt and cheerful recovery of spirit and of confidence and of prosperity after the great misfortune. We know that the spirit and the strength of the people of Chile are adequate for the recovery, even from so great a disaster. No one in the world, Mr. President, can feel more deeply the misfortune that you have suffered than the people of the United States, because you know that in our country we have recently experienced just such a calamity. I am sure that nowhere in the world will you find so keen a sense of sympathy as is there and as I now express. It may sometimes happen that in adversity stronger friendships arise than in prosperity; and I hope that although I come to bring to you an expression of the friendship of the United States of America for the republic of Chile now while the cloud rests upon you, the effect of the exchange of kind words and kinder feelings in this time may be greater, more permanent, and more lasting than they could have been when all were prosperous and happy.
Speech of His Excellency Antonio Huneeus
Minister for Foreign Affairs
At the Moneda, September 2, 1906
I extend to you the welcome of the people and of the Government. Heartily do I say to you, in the name of all Chileans: Be welcome.
We were preparing to entertain you in magnificent style, but it was the will of Providence to visit us with a bitter trial, so we are now receiving you in a modest manner.
Come and see, sir, what we have suffered. Morally, we have suffered much; for several thousands of our brothers perished in the catastrophe of August 16. Materially speaking, we lose the greater part of our principal port and of several cities of minor importance, together with the profits which cease in consequence. Behold now, sir, what remains to us and how we are rising. Our productive forces are alive and sound; agriculture, mining, and manufacturing have scarcely suffered, and our saltpeter treasures continue to exist.
Public order remained undisturbed; generally speaking, the reign of the law was maintained; the authorities fulfilled their duty; and the navy, glorious guardian of half our territory, which is the ocean, was saved intact. Therefore, all we sons of Chile are of cheerful heart.
The virility of a country is worth more than the splendor of its monuments. It does not humiliate us, therefore, to have you see houses and towns destroyed, for it was not a civil war or a foreign enemy which razed them to the ground, but a higher hand. It is rather a source of pride to us to have you witness the integrity and unity of the Chileans.
The fortitude of our race and our good sense will cause us to rise again in a short time to a greater prosperity.
You plainly see that Chile is still entire, and that our misfortune was more painful than injurious.
We did not, therefore, think for a moment that you might postpone your visit. On the contrary, we telegraphed to you a few hours after the earthquake: "Our home is demolished; but come, sir, for we are safe, calm, and diligent."
Besides, the plain dignity of your character, which we knew, and the objects of your visit encouraged us to speak to you.
You have come, most excellent sir, to offer your over-production to our consumers, and to ask a larger place for the Americans in the Chilean heart.
You are going to obtain all that. But, besides this, Mr. Root, please bear to the sons of the United States, and especially to our brothers in misfortune at San Francisco, California, a sacred homage—the intense gratitude of the society and Government of Chile for the generous aid to our sufferers by which the Americans are proving to us that along with greatness of power they have greatness of heart.
We knew of all this greatness. With a territory covering half a continent and nourished by every kind of riches, with a firm and impulsive character, with broad and far-reaching views along every channel which human activity can pursue, and endowed with a clear instinct of what is possible, the Americans have become useful and wealthy.
They understood two essential things, namely, that government is not merely a pleasant and covetable ideal, but a fundamental necessity, and that the greatest value does not consist in traditions or fortune, but in personal merit. They therefore abolished every unjustified distinction of superiority and organized as a democracy.
The result of the combination of such rare and happy moral and material elements has been the springing up of a nation as powerful as the most powerful, and in freedom equaled by none.
And how well the United States know that there is no greatness without liberty!
Since the consciousness of right has become deeper, principles of respect and faith have become implanted in the commonwealth of nations, whatever be the extent of their territory, their population, or their armed forces. The inveterate abuses of force are disappearing. The principle which, being embodied into a law of equality among all the nations, always prevails at present in international relations is that of liberty for the weaker side.
The American Union—the free country—years ago established its foreign policy on the plan of equality. Its commercial flag waves throughout the world without arrogance or spirit of intervention.
Your natural wisdom tells you, Mr. Root, that you do not need any other than mercantile expansion, and still more that none other would be suited to you.
You have of late repeatedly given practical and unmistakable testimonials that this is your policy.
You have stated so yourself at Rio de Janeiro, and your presence among us is a further proof that your purposes are friendly and frank.
Let us enter into commercial relations with the United States with friendship and confidence. We shall proceed as far as is mutually beneficial to us, and this will be shown us by the natural laws of mercantile transactions.
The Government desires that American goods shall come to Chile in abundance to facilitate living, and it earnestly desires at the same time that Chilean products may be multiplied and that they may endeavor to offset these importations.
Since the sixteenth of August we have been pushing more resolutely than before the work of our restoration. We have all the moral factors, namely, order, will, and an apt and energetic people. We also have incalculable and extremely varied natural resources. There is only one material factor in which we may be short, namely, capital, which is a powerful force if well employed.
Chile will be glad to see American capital come and establish itself in our commercial and industrial circulation. It will blend well with Chilean honor and will prosper under the protection of our laws, which are liberal with the foreigner, and under the shelter of our government, which is unshakable.
We are certain that Chilean interests will meet the same respect from the government of the Union that we cherish for American interests.
The infinite variety of articles of supply and consumption will certainly enable the interchange of goods between Chile and America to increase without narrowing the horizons of our commerce with friendly markets, which today bring us capital, raw materials, workmen, and manufactures.
The American Union has happily solved its internal and foreign problems, has established its political and economic power on a firm basis, and is, finally, in full enjoyment of its natural greatness and freely exercising all its energies at the present time. We have attentively observed that it desires to promote the progress of the world and to see the other nations of Christendom, especially the American republics, associated in this great work on terms of equality, friendship, and mutual benefit.
We respond, therefore, to its affectionate call by declaring that we are imbued with sincere faith in the friendship of the government and the people of the United States; we utter fervent wishes that our mutual confidence may become strengthened and be free of misgivings; and we prophesy that therapprochementwhich the eminent Secretary of State now visiting us has initiated will be of beneficent influence on our international cordiality and bring prosperous results for our development.
Most excellent Mr. Root, His Excellency the President of the Republic requests you to say to the illustrious President Roosevelt and to your fellow-citizens that the Chilean people fraternize cordially with the American people; that our markets are free to them; that we admire your government officials; that your most excellent minister, Mr. Hicks, enjoys our highest esteem and good feeling; and that we have received you and your most worthy family with open hearts.