Resolutions approved by the Governing Board of the International Bureau of theAmerican Republics, January 30, 1907.
Resolved, That the letter of Mr. Andrew Carnegie to the Chairman of the Board, dated January 1, 1907, be received and filed and spread upon the minutes of the Board.
Resolved, That the Governing Board of the Bureau of American Republics express to Mr. Andrew Carnegie its acceptance and grateful appreciation of his generous and public-spirited engagement to supply the funds for the proposed new building for the Union of American Republics. The Board shares with Mr. Carnegie the hope that the institution whose work will thus be promoted may further the cause of peace and justice among nations and the sincere and helpful friendship of all the American Republics for each other.
Resolved, That the Chairman of the Board communicate a copy of the foregoing resolutions to Mr. Carnegie.
The Governing Board of the International Bureau of the American Republics further resolves:
1. That the letter of the Honorable the Secretary of State, Mr. Elihu Root, to Mr. Andrew Carnegie; the answer of this distinguished philanthropist, and the resolution of the Governing Board accepting this splendid gift be kept on file with the important documents of the Bureau; and
2. That the text of these letters and the resolutions thereon be artistically engrossed under the title of "Carnegie's Gift to the International Bureau of the American Republics," and, properly framed, to form a part of the exhibit of the Bureau at the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition.
On May 11, 1908, Mr. Root, then secretary of state, whose forethought and personal efforts had made its construction possible, delivered the address at the laying of the corner stone, and later, on April 26, 1910, when he was no longer secretary of state but senator of the United States and friend of the Americas, he delivered the principal address at the dedication of the building. These two addresses follow:
ADDRESS AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE OFTHE BUILDING FOR THE PAN AMERICAN UNIONWASHINGTON, D.C., MAY 11, 1908
We are here to lay the corner stone of the building which is to be the home of the International Union of American Republics.[10]
The wise liberality of the Congress of the United States has provided the means for the purchase of this tract of land—five acres in extent—near the White House and the great executive departments, bounded on every side by public streets and facing to the east and south upon public parks which it will always be the care of the National Government to render continually more beautiful, in execution of its design to make the national capital an object of national pride and a source of that pleasure which comes to rich and poor alike from the education of taste.
The public spirit and enthusiasm for the good of humanity, which have inspired an American citizen, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, in his administration of a great fortune, have led him to devote the adequate and ample sum of three-quarters of a million dollars to the construction of the building.[11]
Into the appropriate adornment and fitting of the edifice will go the contributions of every American republic, already pledged and, in a great measure, already paid into the fund of the Union.
The International Union for which the building is erected is a voluntary association, the members of which are all theAmerican nations from Cape Horn to the Great Lakes. It had its origin in the first Pan American conference held at Washington in 1889, and it has been developed and improved in efficiency under the resolutions of the succeeding conferences in Mexico and Brazil. Its primary object is to break down the barriers of mutual ignorance between the nations of America by collecting and making accessible, furnishing and spreading, information about every country among the people of every other country in the Union, to facilitate and stimulate intercourse, trade, acquaintance, good understanding, fellowship, and sympathy. For this purpose it has established in Washington a bureau or office under the direction of a governing board composed of the official representatives in Washington of all the republics, and having a director and secretary, with a force of assistants and translators and clerks.
The bureau has established a rapidly increasing library of history, travel, description, statistics, and literature of the American nations. It publishes aMonthly Bulletinof current public events and existing conditions in all the united countries, which is circulated in every country. It carries on an enormous correspondence with every part of both continents, answering the questions of seekers for information about the laws, customs, conditions, opportunities, and personnel of the different countries; and it has become a medium of introduction and guidance for international intercourse.
The governing board is also a permanent committee charged with the duty of seeing that the resolutions of each Pan American conference are carried out and that suitable preparation is made for the next succeeding conference.
The increasing work of the bureau has greatly outgrown the facilities of its cramped quarters on Pennsylvania Avenue, and now at the close of its second decade and under the influence of the great movement of awakened sympathybetween the American republics, the Union stands upon the threshold of more ample opportunity for the prosecution of its beneficent activity.
Many noble and beautiful public buildings record the achievements and illustrate the impulses of modern civilization. Temples of religion, of patriotism, of learning, of art, of justice, abound; but this structure will stand alone, the first of its kind—a temple dedicated to international friendship. It will be devoted to the diffusion of that international knowledge which dispels national prejudice and liberalizes national judgment. Here will be fostered the growth of that sympathy born of similarity in good impulses and noble purposes, which draws men of different races and countries together into a community of nations, and counteracts the tendency of selfish instincts to array nations against each other as enemies. From this source shall spring mutual helpfulness between all the American republics, so that the best knowledge and experience and courage and hope of every republic shall lend moral power to sustain and strengthen every other in its struggle to work out its problems and to advance the standard of liberty and peace with justice within itself, and so that no people in all these continents, however oppressed and discouraged, however impoverished and torn by disorder, shall fail to feel that they are not alone in the world, or shall fail to see that for them a better day may dawn, as for others the sun has already arisen.
It is too much to expect that there will not be controversies between American nations to whose desire for harmony we now bear witness; but to every controversy will apply the truth that there are no international controversies so serious that they cannot be settled peaceably if both parties really desire peaceable settlement, while there are few causes of dispute so trifling that they cannot be made the occasion ofwar if either party really desires war. The matters in dispute between nations are nothing; the spirit which deals with them is everything.
The graceful courtesy of the twenty republics who have agreed upon the capital of the United States for the home of this International Union, the deep appreciation of that courtesy shown by the American Government and this representative American citizen, and the work to be done within the walls that are to rise on this site, cannot fail to be powerful influences towards the creation of a spirit that will solve all disputed questions of the future and preserve the peace of the Western World.
May the structure now begun stand for many generations to come as the visible evidence of mutual respect, esteem, appreciation, and kindly feeling between the peoples of all the republics; may pleasant memories of hospitality and friendship gather about it, and may all the Americas come to feel that for them this place is home, for it is theirs, the product of a common effort and the instrument of a common purpose.
ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE BUILDING OF THEPAN AMERICAN UNION, WASHINGTON, D. C.APRIL 26, 1910
I am sure that this beautiful building must produce a lively sense of grateful appreciation in all who care for the growth of friendship among Americans; to Mr. Carnegie, not merely for his generous gift but for the large sympathy and far vision that prompted it; and to the associate architects, Mr. Albert Kelsey and Mr. Paul Cret, who, not content with making this structure express their sense of artistic form and proportion, have entered with the devotion and self-absorption of true art into the spirit of the design for which their bricks and marble are to stand. They have brought into happy companionship architecturalsuggestions of the North and of the South; and have wrought into construction and ornament in a hundred ways the art, the symbolism, the traditions, and the history of all the American republics; and they have made the building a true expression of Pan Americanism, of open mind and open heart for all that is true and noble and worthy of respect from whatever race or religion or language or custom in the western continents.
Nor should we forget the fine enthusiasm and understanding with which Mr. Borglum and Mr. Conti and Mrs. Farnham and Mrs. Whitney have brought sculpture to aid the architects' expression; nor the honest and faithful work of Mr. Norcross, the builder; nor the kind help of Mr. William Smith, of the Botanical Garden, who has filled the patio with tropical plants rare and strange to northern eyes, but familiar friends to the Latin American; nor the energy and unwearying labors of Mr. Barrett, the director of the bureau.
The active interest of President Taft and Secretary Knox is evidence that the policy of Pan American friendship, re-inaugurated by the sympathetic genius of Secretary Blaine, is continuous and permanent in the United States; and the harmony in which the members of the governing board have worked to this end is a good omen for the future.
This building is to be, in its most manifest utilitarian service, a convenient instrument for association and growth of mutual knowledge among the people of the different republics. The library maintained here, the books and journals accessible here, the useful and interesting publications of the bureau, the enormous correspondence carried on with seekers for knowledge about American countries, the opportunities now afforded for further growth in all these activities, justify the pains and the expense.
The building is more important, however, as the symbol, the ever-present reminder, the perpetual assertion, of unity,of common interest and purpose and hope among all the republics. This building is a confession of faith, a covenant of fraternal duty, a declaration of allegiance to an ideal. The members of The Hague conference of 1907 described the conference in the preamble of its great arbitration convention as:
Animated by the sincere desire to work for the maintenance of general peace.Resolved to promote by all the efforts in their power the friendly settlement of international disputes.Recognizing the solidarity uniting the members of the society of civilized nations.Desirous of extending the empire of law and of strengthening the appreciation of international justice.
Animated by the sincere desire to work for the maintenance of general peace.
Resolved to promote by all the efforts in their power the friendly settlement of international disputes.
Recognizing the solidarity uniting the members of the society of civilized nations.
Desirous of extending the empire of law and of strengthening the appreciation of international justice.
That is the meaning of this building for the republics of America. That sentiment which all the best in modern civilization is trying to live up to, we have written here in marble for the people of the American continents.
The process of civilization is by association. In isolation, men, communities, nations, tend back towards savagery. Repellent differences and dislikes separate them from mankind. In association, similarities and attractions are felt and differences are forgotten. There is so much more good than evil in men that liking comes by knowing. We have here the product of mutual knowledge, coöperation, harmony, friendship. Here is an evidence of what these can accomplish. Here is an earnest of what may be done in the future. From these windows the governing board of the International Union will look down upon the noble river that flows by the home of Washington. They will sit beneath the shadow of the simple and majestic monument which illustrates our conception of his character, the character that, beyond all others in human history, rises above jealousy and envy and ignoble strife. All the nations acknowledge his preëminent influence. He belongs to them all. No man lives infreedom anywhere on earth who is not his debtor and his follower. We dedicate this place to the service of the political faith in which he lived and wrought. Long may this structure stand, while within its walls and under the influence of the benign purpose from which it sprang, the habit and the power of self-control, of mutual consideration and kindly judgment, more and more exclude the narrowness and selfishness and prejudice of ignorance and the hasty impulses of super-sensitiveamour propre. May men hereafter come to see that here is set a milestone in the path of American civilization towards the reign of that universal public opinion which shall condemn all who through contentious spirit or greed or selfish ambition or lust for power disturb the public peace, as enemies of the general good of the American republics.
One voice that should have spoken here today is silent, but many of us cannot forget or cease to mourn and to honor our dear and noble friend, Joaquim Nabuco. Ambassador from Brazil, dean of the American Diplomatic Corps, respected, admired, trusted, loved, and followed by all of us, he was a commanding figure in the international movement of which the erection of this building is a part. The breadth of his political philosophy, the nobility of his idealism, the prophetic vision of his poetic imagination, were joined to wisdom, to the practical sagacity of statesmanship, to a sympathetic knowledge of men, and to a heart as sensitive and tender as a woman's. He followed the design and construction of this building with the deepest interest. His beneficent influence impressed itself upon all of our actions. No benison can be pronounced upon this great institution so rich in promise for its future as the wish that his ennobling memory may endure and his civilizing spirit may control, in the councils of the International Union of American Republics.
[7]Foreign Relations of the United States, 1881, p. 14.
[7]Foreign Relations of the United States, 1881, p. 14.
[8]The Pan American Union, pp. 81, 82.
[8]The Pan American Union, pp. 81, 82.
[9]Ibid., p. 7.
[9]Ibid., p. 7.
[10]The name was changed to the Pan American Union in 1910.
[10]The name was changed to the Pan American Union in 1910.
[11]Later increased to $950,000.
[11]Later increased to $950,000.
It is my pleasant privilege to respond to a toast to an offspring of old Spain, a direct lineal descendant, an inheritor of her blood, her faith and her language.
It is only a young republic, only an American republic. No historic centuries invest her with romance or with interest; but she is great in glorious promise of the future, and great in manifest power to fulfill the promise.
Far away to the southward, beyond the great empire of the Amazon, beyond the equatorial heats, there stretches a vast land, from the latitude of Cuba on the north to the latitude of Hudson Bay on the south, and from the Andes to the Eastern Sea. In this land mighty rivers flow through vast forests, and immeasurable plains stretch from ocean to mountains, with a soil of inexhaustible fertility, under every variety of healthful and invigorating climate.
All this we know; but we must not forget, and we cannot forget tonight, that this great land, capable of supporting in plenty all the teeming millions of Europe, is possessed by the people of a free constitutional republic, of all the sisterhood of nations, in form, in feature and in character, the most like to ourselves.
For forty years the Argentine Republic has lived and governed itself under a constitution in all material respects the exact counterpart of the Constitution of the United States. Its constitution was avowedly modelled after ours. Forforty years, in fourteen separate states like our own, the people of Argentina have preserved the sacred right of local self-government. For forty years they have maintained at the same time the sovereignty of their nation; and by the constancy of their past they have given a high and ever-increasing credit to their promise that for the future, under Southern Cross as under Northern Star, government by the people, of the people, and for the people, shall endure.
Under this constitutional system they have framed for themselves wise and liberal laws. They have constructed extensive works of internal improvement; and waterways, and railroads, and telegraph lines, all invite to the development of their vast natural wealth. They have established universal religious toleration. They have protected the rights of private property and of personal liberty. They have created and maintained a great system of public education. In more than three thousand public common schools over a quarter of a million children are today learning how to be good citizens. Grading up from these common schools through lyceums in every state and two great universities, the pathway of higher education is open to all the people of the republic.
Under such a constitution and such laws, Argentina has made greater material progress and greater advance in the art of self-government, during our generation, than any people upon the western hemisphere, unless it be, perhaps, our own.
We remember, too, that the people of Argentina, like our own fathers, won their liberty by struggle and by sacrifice. They made their fight for independence at a time when Europe was exhausted by the Napoleonic wars. They attracted but little attention and less aid from the Old World. No Byron enshrined their heroism in deathless verse; no Rousseau with the philosophy of humanity awoke forthem generous and effective enthusiasm in the breasts of a Lafayette or a Rochambeau, a Von Steuben or a Kosciusko.
Alone and unaided they fought their fight. Dependent upon themselves, on the ninth of July, seventy-seven years ago, they made their own declaration of independence, commemorated in the name of that thing of beauty and of power which today floats upon the bosom of the Hudson, a peer among the embattled navies of the world. They made good that declaration against all odds, through hardship, through suffering, through seas of blood, with desperate valor and lofty heroism, worthy the plaudits of the world.
And then they conquered themselves; learned the hard lesson of subordinating personal ambition to law, to order, to the public weal.
And today more people than followed Washington with their hopes and prayers enjoy the blessings of liberty and peace, and the security of established and equal laws, won for them by the patriots who gave their lives for their country on the plains of Argentina.
These people have not only done all this for themselves, but they also have opened their arms to all the people of the earth, and have welcomed to their shores the poor, the humble, the downcast of all lands. So that scores of thousands of French, of Italians, of Germans, of English, of Spaniards, coming not as their fathers came, in mailed forms to conquer savage foes—but under peaceful flags—a million and a half of men from all civilized lands of Europe, have come to share the peace, the plenty and the freedom of the young republic; and to contribute to her prosperity and wealth. Every guest at our board tonight may feel his pulses beat in unison with the sentiment of health and prosperity to the new land where his own kindred have found new homes and hopes.
If there be truth in the philosophy of history—if the crossing of stocks, the blending of races, makes the strong new race, with capacity and power to press forward and upward the standard of civilization, the future is to find the people of Argentina in the forefront of human progress.
And so, from the Hudson to the La Plata, from the plains to the Pampas, from the Rockies to the Andes, from the old American republic to the young American republic, from sister to sister, with the same convictions and hopes and aspirations, we send sincere and hearty greeting, congratulation and God-speed.
The republic of Brazil designated its minister for foreign affairs, Dr. Lauro Müller, to return officially Mr. Root's visit to that republic, and the following address was delivered by Mr. Root at the dinner given by the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York to His Excellency, Lauro Müller, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Brazil.
The republic of Brazil designated its minister for foreign affairs, Dr. Lauro Müller, to return officially Mr. Root's visit to that republic, and the following address was delivered by Mr. Root at the dinner given by the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York to His Excellency, Lauro Müller, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Brazil.
When in the various pathways that one treads in a long life one has made friends, has garnered the wealth of friendship, that is more the happiness of age than wealth of money or possession, I know of nothing more delightful than to help bring together distant and separated friends and complete that circuit of magnetic intercourse which, after all, above all sordid motives, above all selfish interests, above all things material, makes up the true value of life.
I cannot express the satisfaction that I feel in having you, my friends, the Chamber of Commerce, unite in taking the hand, and coming into personal contact with, my old friend and host of the southern republic. I feel that you are all paying my debt of gratitude, paying it as friends should pay it for friends.
Dr. Müller, you have come to see a people widely known throughout the world for their great material achievements, a people whose influence has been very great in the development of civilization and in the advancement of those standards of living and of action which we believe make our times better than the times that have gone before; and you see here about you at these tables, and in the portraits uponthese walls, the men who, for nearly a century and a half have played a great, aye, the greatest part in the amazing material developments and in the spiritual life of this republic. Those who are living today under the inspiration and the spirit of the great citizens who have gone before are gathered to do you honor and do your country honor. What has been done in the United States of America, has been done, not by the power of money; it has been done, not under the influence of selfish motives; it has been done under the influence of noble ideals, of great minds, and of great hearts directing and guiding and leading the mighty affairs of a great people. And here are representatives, not all, but many, of the foremost representatives of that American spirit which has accomplished everything which you have seen in your journey here.
My friends of the Chamber of Commerce, some years ago when it fell to my lot to visit South America, for the purpose of carrying to the minds of our southern sisters a true message of the real feeling of our people towards them, for the purpose of getting a hearing among the peoples of South America, which could not be gained through the newspapers, which could not be gained in any other way than by direct personal contact and by the influence of one personality meeting another, for the purpose of doing away with the false and distorted ideas that our great country was possessed by ambition and the lust of conquest and the desire for dominion over other lands, I met in Brazil the most noble and generous hospitality. No nation of men could have exhibited in a higher degree all those qualities which make men love each other than the people of Brazil exhibited to me on my visit there. The noble traditions of their race, all the great-heartedness of the grandees of the Iberian Peninsula, all those sentiments which have made thempar excellencethe gentlemen of civilization were exhibited in thewelcome they gave to you, to our people, through me as their representative.
In that land of surpassing beauty, in that scene upon the Bay of Rio, with its shining waters and its blue mountains, in that city which has all the romance of fair Ionian cities, I found a depth and warmth of friendship, a depth of patriotism and love for their own country, a response to the message of humanity, and a warm acceptance of the tender of friendship which made the people of Brazil ever to me a group of dearly loved and always to be remembered friends. And among the first of them all was our guest of this evening. His personal hospitality I shall never forget. He knew not the words inconvenience or trouble. One would have thought he had no other duties to perform but to make the stranger who came from the distant republic of the north at home and happy, and he did it as the men of his country know how to do it. Even then he held a great place in the government of his country; and it is a matter of the utmost satisfaction to me that his people have continued their confidence in him and have led him along step by step to higher and higher office, so that today he stands in the forefront of the statesmen who are making Brazil one of the great world powers of our modern civilization.
It is not, my friends, a mere gathering of courtesy tonight. We are not merely performing a duty of hospitality to the representative of a foreign state, when we exhibit our sincere friendship and our kindly feelings toward Dr. Müller and his country; we are doing for ourselves something of inestimable value, and we are doing something of inestimable value for the people of our country.
Of late the electors of America, the unofficial people of America, are demanding, asserting and laying hold upon more and more direct relation to the powers of government; but a democracy when it undertakes to govern directly,needs to remember that there are no rights without a duty, there is no duty without a right; and if a democracy is to govern itself well it must realize its responsibilities. We have been so isolated, we have been so free from wars and rumors of wars, so little inconvenienced by interference on the part of other nations in our vast domain, so busy with our internal affairs, that the people of the United States know but little, think but little, and care but little regarding foreign affairs. If the people of the United States are themselves to direct their foreign affairs they must come to a realizing sense of their responsibilities in foreign affairs; and first among those responsibilities is the duty of courtesy, the duty of kindly consideration, the duty to subordinate selfish interests to the broader interests of the nations of the world; the duty to treat every other nation with that judicial sense of others' rights which differentiates all diplomacy from the controversies of courts or the clashing of business interests.
Our people, if their voice is to be heard in foreign affairs, must learn that we cannot continue a policy of peace with insult; we must learn civility, we must learn that when we speak, when an American sovereign speaks of the affairs of other nations, he speaks under responsibility, and he must observe those rules of courtesy and of friendly relations by which alone can the peace of the world be maintained.
Today we hear much of peace and persuasion for peace. Let me tell you that the great peace agencies of the world today are the governments of the world. Hitherto, in Dr. Müller's visit, he has been in the main entertained by the American Government and the people connected with the American Government; but the responsibility for international friendship and international peace today rests not with governments that are always for peace, but with the people. It is the people from whom the danger of war comes today; it is the people, so far as they are unwilling toexercise self-restraint and all the qualities which go to make for agreeable and kindly and friendly relations with other people.
So, to my mind your meeting here to extend the right hand of fellowship to Dr. Müller, to express to him the feeling of kindliness towards his country, in its representation of the people of the United States and as one of the multitude of incidents exercising an influence over the people, is of greater value and greater importance than anything that the official Government of the United States can do.
We have had for now ninety years a special political relation to the southern republics. Since the time when Monroe announced the doctrine which carries the necessary implication that every foot of soil upon the two American continents is under a government competent to govern, no longer open to colonization as the waste places of the earth are open,—from that time to this, special and peculiar political relations have existed between the United States and the other countries of the western continent. Thank Heaven the need for it, the need for the protection that came from that great assertion, is growing less and less. There are some parts of the continent as to which the necessities of the Monroe Doctrine, as it regards our safety, do not grow less; but as to those great republics in South America which have passed out of the condition of militarism, out of the condition of revolution, into the condition of industrialism, into the paths of successful commerce, and are becoming great and powerful nations, the Monroe Doctrine has done its work. And the thing above all things that I hope and trust and believe the people of South America will become permanently convinced of is, that there is neither to the Monroe Doctrine nor any other doctrine or purpose of the American Government any corollary of dominion or aggression, or of aught but equal friendship.
There is a national spirit and a national purpose and a national ideal quite apart from individual purpose orindividual ideals. I am one of those who believe that for the existence of a truly great nation there must be an ideal of altruism. I believe that no people can be truly great which has no national and collective purpose that is not selfish. I believe that our country has a mission in the world; has great deeds to accomplish for the world; has a great future of beneficence for civilization; and that our sense of this, dim and vague doubtless among us in the main, buoys us up and makes us better patriots and makes our country the great nation that we love and honor. And directly to your hands in the accomplishment of the great national purpose, making all our prosperity, all our power, all our capital and our labor instruments for the bettering of mankind, for the progress of civilization and for the coming of the effective and universal rule of the religion which we profess, right at your hands, as the first and plainest duty, is the cementing of the bonds of friendship between our republic and our sister republics of the continent.
We have much to learn from Brazil—I hope she may learn much from us; and the interchange of benefits between us will but make stronger a friendship which carries with it the recognition of benefits. I sincerely hope, Dr. Müller, upon your return to Brazil, you may feel it in your heart to tell your people that here, while we are pursuing our business careers, earnest in competition, eager to improve our conditions, anxious for trade, desirous of the greatness and glory of our country, we seek those ends only through universal friendship, through carrying, so far as we can, the benefits of peace and prosperity to all our sister republics, in order that you and we may grow stronger and greater together, and that Brazil, with its enormous resources, with its patriotic people, with its brilliant minds, with its bright future, may go hand in hand with the republic of the north to ever happier and happier conditions for all our people.
Sir Henry Wotton is credited with the statement that "an ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for the commonwealth", a definition half in jest but not without a touch of seriousness. The feeling is making itself manifest which will soon become universal, that an ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to represent the people of his own country to the people of the country to which he is accredited. Mr. Root, not sent to South America, but going on his own initiative, was an ambassador in this modern sense of the word to the Latin American states in 1906; and upon his return he enlarged the meaning of the function of an ambassador by representing to his countrymen the peoples whom he had visited in South America. The three addresses delivered before the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress, the National Convention for the Extension of Foreign Commerce of the United States, and the Pan American Commercial Conference are conceived in this spirit and were delivered in the performance of a continuous mission.
Sir Henry Wotton is credited with the statement that "an ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for the commonwealth", a definition half in jest but not without a touch of seriousness. The feeling is making itself manifest which will soon become universal, that an ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to represent the people of his own country to the people of the country to which he is accredited. Mr. Root, not sent to South America, but going on his own initiative, was an ambassador in this modern sense of the word to the Latin American states in 1906; and upon his return he enlarged the meaning of the function of an ambassador by representing to his countrymen the peoples whom he had visited in South America. The three addresses delivered before the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress, the National Convention for the Extension of Foreign Commerce of the United States, and the Pan American Commercial Conference are conceived in this spirit and were delivered in the performance of a continuous mission.
A little less than three centuries of colonial and national life have brought the people inhabiting the United States, by a process of evolution, natural and, with the existing forces inevitable, to a point of distinct and radical change in their economic relations to the rest of mankind.
During the period now past, the energy of our people, directed by the formative power created in our early population by heredity, by environment, by the struggle for existence, by individual independence, and by free institutions, has been devoted to the internal development of our own country. The surplus wealth produced by our labors has been applied immediately to reproduction in our own land. We have been cutting down forests and breaking virgin soil and fencing prairies and opening mines of coal and iron and copper and silver and gold, and building roads andcanals and railroads and telegraph lines and cars and locomotives and mills and furnaces and schoolhouses and colleges and libraries and hospitals and asylums and public buildings and storehouses and shops and homes. We have been drawing on the resources of the world in capital and in labor to aid us in our work. We have gathered strength from every rich and powerful nation and expended it upon these home undertakings; into them we have poured hundreds of millions of money attracted from the investors of Europe. We have been always a debtor nation, borrowing from the rest of the world, drawing all possible energy towards us and concentrating it with our own energy upon our own enterprises. The engrossing pursuit of our own opportunities has excluded from our consideration and interest the enterprises and the possibilities of the outside world. Invention, discovery, the progress of science, capacity for organization, the enormous increase in the productive power of mankind, have accelerated our progress and have brought us to a result of development in every branch of internal industrial activity marvelous and unprecedented in the history of the world.
Since the first election of President McKinley, the people of the United States have for the first time accumulated a surplus of capital beyond the requirements of internal development. That surplus is increasing with extraordinary rapidity. We have paid our debts to Europe and have become a creditor instead of a debtor nation; we have faced about; we have left the ranks of the borrowing nations and have entered the ranks of the investing nations. Our surplus energy is beginning to look beyond our own borders, throughout the world, to find opportunity for the profitable use of our surplus capital, foreign markets for our manufactures, foreign mines to be developed, foreign bridges and railroads and public works to be built, foreign rivers to be turned into electric power and light. As in their several ways Englandand France and Germany have stood, so we in our own way are beginning to stand and must continue to stand towards the industrial enterprise of the world.
That we are not beginning our new rôle feebly is indicated by $1,518,561,666 of exports in the year 1905 as against $1,117,513,071 of imports, and by $1,743,864,500 exports in the year 1906 as against $1,226,563,843 of imports. Our first steps in the new field indeed are somewhat clumsy and unskilled. In our own vast country, with oceans on either side, we have had too little contact with foreign peoples readily to understand their customs or learn their languages; yet no one can doubt that we shall learn and shall understand and shall do our business abroad, as we have done it at home, with force and efficiency.
Coincident with this change in the United States, the progress of political development has been carrying the neighboring continent of South America out of the stage of militarism into the stage of industrialism. Throughout the greater part of that vast continent, revolutions have ceased to be looked upon with favor or submitted to with indifference; the revolutionary general and the dictator are no longer the objects of admiration and imitation; civic virtues command the highest respect; the people point with satisfaction and pride to the stability of their governments, to the safety of property and the certainty of justice; nearly everywhere the people are eager for foreign capital to develop their natural resources and for foreign immigration to occupy their vacant lands.
Immediately before us, at exactly the right time, just as we are ready for it, great opportunities for peaceful commercial and industrial expansion to the south are presented. Other investing nations are already in the field—England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain; but the field is so vast, the new demands are so great, the progress so rapid, that whatother nations have done up to this time is but a slight advance in the race for the grand total.
The opportunities are so large that figures fail to convey them. The area of this newly awakened continent is 7,502,848 square miles—more than two and one half times as large as the United States without Alaska, and more than double the United States including Alaska. A large part of this area lies within the temperate zone, with an equable and invigorating climate, free from extremes of either heat or cold. Farther north in the tropics are enormous expanses of high table-lands, stretching from the Atlantic to the foothills of the Andes, and lifted far above the tropical heats; the fertile valleys of the western cordilleras are cooled by perpetual snows even under the equator; vast forests grow untouched from a soil of incredible richness. The plains of Argentina, the great uplands of Brazil, the mountain valleys of Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia are suited to the habitation of any race, however far to the north its origin may have been; hundreds of millions of men can find healthful homes and abundant sustenance in this great territory.
The population in 1900 was only 42,461,381, less than six to the square mile. The density of population was less than one-eighth of that in the state of Missouri, less than one-sixtieth of that in the state of Massachusetts, less than one-seventieth of that in England, less than one per cent of that in Belgium.
With this sparse population the production of wealth is already enormous. The latest trade statistics show exports from South America to foreign countries of $745,530,000, and imports of $499,858,600. Of the five hundred millions of goods that South America buys, we sell them but $63,246,525, or 12.6 per cent. Of the seven hundred and forty-fivemillions that South America sells, we buy $152,092,000, or 20.4 per cent—nearly two and a half times as much as we sell.
Their production is increasing by leaps and bounds. In eleven years the exports of Chile have increased forty-five per cent, from $54,030,000 in 1894 to $78,840,000 in 1905. In eight years the exports of Peru have increased one hundred per cent, from $13,899,000 in 1897 to $28,758,000 in 1905. In ten years the exports of Brazil have increased sixty-six per cent, from $134,062,000 in 1894 to $223,101,000 in 1905. In ten years the exports of Argentina have increased one hundred and sixty-eight per cent, from $115,868,000 in 1895 to $311,544,000 in 1905.
This is only the beginning; the coffee and rubber of Brazil, the wheat and beef and hides of Argentina and Uruguay, the copper and nitrates of Chile, the copper and tin of Bolivia, the silver and gold and cotton and sugar of Peru, are but samples of what the soil and mines of that wonderful continent are capable of yielding.
Ninety-seven per cent of the territory of South America is occupied by ten independent republics living under constitutions substantially copied or adapted from our own. Under the new conditions of tranquillity and security which prevail in most of them, their eager invitation to immigrants from the Old World will not long pass unheeded. The pressure of population abroad will inevitably turn its streams of life and labor towards those fertile fields and valleys. The streams have already begun to flow; more than two hundred thousand immigrants entered the Argentine Republic last year; they are coming this year at the rate of over three hundred thousand. Many thousands of Germans have already settled in southern Brazil. They are most welcome in Brazil; they are good and useful citizens there, as they are here; I hope that many more will come to Brazil and every other SouthAmerican country, and add their vigorous industry and good citizenship to the upbuilding of their adopted home.
With the increase of population in such a field, under free institutions, with the fruits of labor and the rewards of enterprise secure, the production of wealth and the increase of purchasing power will afford a market for the commerce of the world worthy to rank even with the markets of the Orient, as the goal of business enterprise. The material resources of South America are in some important respects complementary to our own; that continent is weakest where North America is strongest as a field for manufactures; it has comparatively little coal and iron. In many respects the people of the two continents are complementary to each other; the South American is polite, refined, cultivated, fond of literature and of expression and of the graces and charms of life, while the North American is strenuous, intense, utilitarian. Where we accumulate, they spend. While we have less of the cheerful philosophy which finds sources of happiness in the existing conditions of life, they have less of the inventive faculty which strives continually to increase the productive power of man and lower the cost of manufacture. The chief merits of the peoples of the two continents are different; their chief defects are different. Mutual intercourse and knowledge cannot fail greatly to benefit both. Each can learn from the other; each can teach much to the other, and each can contribute greatly to the development and prosperity of the other. A large part of their products find no domestic competition here; a large part of our products will find no domestic competition there. The typical conditions exist for that kind of trade which is profitable, honorable, and beneficial to both parties.
The relations between the United States and South America have been chiefly political rather than commercial or personal. In the early days of the South American strugglefor independence, the eloquence of Henry Clay awakened in the American people a generous sympathy for the patriots of the south as for brethren struggling in the common cause of liberty. The clear-eyed, judicious diplomacy of Richard Rush, the American minister at the Court of St. James, effected a complete understanding with Great Britain for concurrent action in opposition to the designs of the Holy Alliance, already contemplating the partition of the southern continent among the great powers of continental Europe. The famous declaration of Monroe arrayed the organized and rapidly increasing power of the United States as an obstacle to European interference and made it forever plain that the cost of European aggression would be greater than any advantage which could be won even by successful aggression.
That great declaration was not the chance expression of the opinion or the feeling of the moment; it crystallized the sentiment for human liberty and human rights which has saved American idealism from the demoralization of narrow selfishness, and has given to American democracy its true world power in the virile potency of a great example. It responded to the instinct of self-preservation in an intensely practical people. It was the result of conference with Jefferson and Madison and John Quincy Adams and John C. Calhoun and William Wirt—a combination of political wisdom, experience, and skill not easily surpassed. The particular circumstances which led to the declaration no longer exist; no Holy Alliance now threatens to partition South America; no European colonization of the west coast threatens to exclude us from the Pacific. But those conditions were merely the occasion for the declaration of a principle of action. Other occasions for the application of the principle have arisen since; it needs no prophetic vision to see that other occasions for its application may arisehereafter. The principle declared by Monroe is as wise an expression of sound political judgment today, as truthful a representation of the sentiments and instincts of the American people today, as living in its force as an effective rule of conduct whenever occasion shall arise, as it was on December 2, 1823.
These great political services to South American independence, however, did not and could not in the nature of things create any relation between the people of South America and the people of the United States except a relation of political sympathy.
Twenty-five years ago, Mr. Blaine, sanguine, resourceful, and gifted with that imagination which enlarges the historian's understanding of the past into the statesman's comprehension of the future, undertook to inaugurate a new era of American relations which should supplement political sympathy by personal acquaintance, by the intercourse of expanding trade, and by mutual helpfulness. As secretary of state under President Arthur, he invited the American nations to a conference to be held on November 24, 1882, for the purpose of considering and discussing the subject of preventing war between the nations of America. That invitation, abandoned by Mr. Frelinghuysen, was renewed under Mr. Cleveland, and on October 2, 1889, Mr. Blaine, again secretary of state under President Harrison, had the singular good fortune to execute his former design and to open the sessions of the first American conference at Washington. In an address of wisdom and lofty spirit, which should ever give honor to his memory, he described the assembly as—