Latin America and the United States Part 15

Upon his arrival in San Antonio, Texas, on his way to Mexico, Mr. Root was met by a reception committee designated by President Diaz, which had come to San Antonio to welcome him and to escort him to the national capital. While in San Antonio, Mr. Root and the Mexican Reception Committee were the guests of the International Club of that city; and on the evening of the day of their arrival, a banquet was tendered them by that club. At this banquet Mr. Root made what may be called the first address of his Mexican visit.

The opening remarks of this speech were not reported in full in the volume ent.i.tled _El Senor Root en Mexico_, or elsewhere; nor were the speeches of the members of the Mexican Reception Committee. Mr. Root began by a reference to the ideals adopted by men and by nations, declaring his opinion that a nation has a right to exist only in so far as it shows its ability to care for the welfare of other nations and the relations of every man with his fellowmen.

He spoke of the rising tide of American business which is powerfully spreading towards the south by reason of the financial conditions in the east of the United States, every day becoming more stringent through the volume and acc.u.mulation of resources. After this introduction, he spoke at some length about the Panama Ca.n.a.l, the construction of which already was in its opening stage. On this subject he said:

The Panama Ca.n.a.l is now an unquestionable certainty. Relations between the United States and the different nations which are grouped around the Caribbean Sea, are becoming every day closer. It is impossible to antic.i.p.ate at present the tonnage which will pa.s.s through that waterway, nor can we predict the number of vessels which will be required for its transportation; but we do already know, that never in the world has a new and universal trade route been opened, without bringing about a change in the history of the entire world. And it is for this reason I feel that upon us has fallen the mission of a.s.sisting all those nations which will find themselves involved in the new influence. At present we are doing everything within our power to a.s.sist Cuba in establishing self-government. We have endeavored to stretch out our hand to unhappy Santo Domingo, ruined by its civil wars, so that it may rise and also govern itself. We have plunged into a discussion which really has no further object than that of settling the disputes and the differences which have arisen between the United States and the republic of Colombia. And all this we do, not only through the new interest which the prosperity of all those countries develops in ourselves, but princ.i.p.ally through a profound comprehension of the truth contained in the principle above enunciated, that a nation only lives as far as it demonstrates its right to existence by its usefulness to humanity. And one of the most conclusive guarantees of the success of this effort is found in the solid and loyal friendship which exists between the United States and Mexico, with which nation, day after day, and year after year, we are working within the limits of a peaceful and humanitarian national policy, which at the same time is wise and intelligent. Our two republics, now so prosperous, harmoniously work to promote a similar prosperity amongst their sister republics to the south; and I sincerely hope that this happy state of affairs may be prolonged for a long time to come, and that success may finally crown our united efforts. In this manner the two republics will fully prove their right to live, and will show the world that their citizens are able and competent to govern themselves without the a.s.sistance of either kings or aristocracies, seeing that they can fill the highest mission of man, which consists in the maintenance of law, order, justice, liberty, and peace....

I also desire to say how greatly I appreciate the distinguished courtesy shown to myself and to the Government of the United States, by the long journey which has been undertaken by the committee charged with the representation of President Diaz and the Mexican Government, crossing the frontier of their country into the state of Texas, in order to give me welcome on the occasion of the visit I am about to make. Indeed, it causes me the greatest satisfaction to be able to declare, without any reserve whatever, that this action is entirely in accordance with the conduct observed by Mexico in all international matters which have arisen between the two countries, since I have taken any part in the government of our own. With an immense boundary line which is only marked by the changeable and capricious currents of the Rio Grande; with the constant traffic across our common frontier; with thousands of Americans residing in that country; with the countless number of enterprises in which Americans are interested on the other side of the Rio Grande, and with the resources of the two countries, there are always a number of questions to be solved by the representatives of one and the other, and there can be no doubt that they will always be solved with the same good-will and courtesy of which such evident proof has been given by General Rincon Gallardo, by Mr. Limantour and by their travelling companions in coming here tonight.[5]

RECEPTION BY THE MEXICAN DELEGATION AT NUEVO LAREDO

SPEECH OF WELCOME BY GENERAL PEDRO RINCoN GALLARDO

September 29, 1907

Especially appointed for this purpose by the President, in behalf of the government of the republic, we have the honor to tender to your excellency the most cordial welcome on your happy arrival in Mexico, whose people, of whom we must consider ourselves the faithful echo, pledge the continued good relations with the people of the United States. The reception is an homage to your well-known merits, and the people are anxious to receive your excellency as their ill.u.s.trious guest and highly esteemed friend. The people of Mexico, during your excellency's brief sojourn amongst us, will show how true is their esteem for you and how proud they will feel on the occasion of this visit of your excellency, accompanied by Mrs. and Miss Root; an event the memory of which will remain forever engraved on our hearts.

MR. ROOT'S REPLY

I beg you to believe that I am highly appreciative of the cordial and hospitable greeting with which I have been received by you on the threshold of your beautiful and wonderful country. I hope that the visit which now begins will not merely give me personally the opportunity I have long desired, to see this great country and its marvels, to meet its public men, and especially to see its ill.u.s.trious President. I hope that it will also serve, as it is intended to serve, as evidence of the desire of the government and people of the United States to strengthen and increase the steadfast friendship which they have long felt for the people and government of Mexico.

CITY OF MEXICO

SPEECH OF PORFIRIO DiAZ

PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC

At a Banquet at the National Palace, October 2, 1907

In the name of the Mexican people and of their government I tender you this banquet, acknowledging thereby those sentiments of sympathy which are felt and which distinguish one and another, the people of the United States, the great citizen who presides over its high destinies, and the ill.u.s.trious statesman who honors us with his interesting and very welcome visit. Bonds of sympathy and fellow-feeling, Mr. Secretary, which are not new, but which germinated in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of our fathers at the inception of the independence of our country, our fathers who contemplated with patriotic enthusiasm the daring exploits in war and imitated the political examples set by your heroic liberators; sentiments which we, of subsequent generations, have also cultivated; because, in studying the causes which produce the prodigious national prosperity with which your country has astounded the world, we become accustomed to admire, to magnify perhaps, the indomitable will, energy, labor, and civic and patriotic solidarity which const.i.tute the energetic and abundantly productive type of your countrymen.

The Mexican people, Mr. Secretary, are honored as well as pleased to have you in their midst--honored, because you are the fountain of honor as a noted statesman of our century, and highly pleased because your clear and rapid conception promises us that, seeing with your own eyes the kind and well-merited feelings with which we harbor your countrymen who seek in our land the generous treatment proportionate to their intelligence, perseverance, and indefatigable labor, you may affirm that in Mexico we profess ideas which, carried out in cordial reciprocity, must make happy and loyal friends the two nations which are united by contiguity.

In conclusion, gentlemen, I extend my thanks to the distinguished ladies who have had the kindness to honor and embellish our tables with their presence; and permit me to invite you to drink with them and with me, hoping that the national harmonizing of individual rights and just liberties, which is called the United States of America, may be perpetuated in its increasing moral and material progress, which has given prestige throughout the world to government by popular representation.

I drink also to the personal happiness of that great friend of universal peace, president of the grand republic, the Honorable Theodore Roosevelt, and to the hope that our ill.u.s.trious guest and his lovable family may find in Mexico a reception as pleasing as their interesting visit is to the Mexican people.

MR. ROOT'S REPLY

I thank you most sincerely for the kind and gracious words which you have used regarding my poor self, regarding my President, from whom I bring to you and to the Mexican people a message of deep and warm friendship and good wishes, and regarding my country, which I believe is fitly represented by this brief visit of friendship, made with the purpose, not of creating, for they are already created, but of increasing and advancing the ideas of amity and mutual helpfulness between two great republics.

I cannot keep my mind from reverting to a former visit by an American Secretary of State to the republic of Mexico. Thirty-eight years ago, Mr. Seward, a really great American Secretary of State, visited your country. How vast the difference between what he found and what I find!

Then was a country torn by a civil war, sunk in poverty, in distress.

Now I find a country great in its prosperity, in its wealth, in its activity and enterprise, in the moral strength of its just and equal laws, and unalterable purpose to advance its people steadily along the pathway of progress.

Mr. President, the people of the United States feel that the world owes this great change chiefly to you. They are grateful to you for it, for they rejoice in the prosperity and happiness of Mexico. We believe, sir, that we are richer and happier because you are richer and happier, and we rejoice that you are no longer a poor and struggling nation needing a.s.sistance, but that you are strong and vigorous, so that we can go with you side by side in demonstrating to the world that republics are able to govern themselves wisely; side by side in helping to carry to our less fortunate sisters the blessing of peace.

Mr. President, I have said that we need not create, but wish to strengthen, the ties of friendship. It is my hope that through more perfect understanding, through personal intercourse, through the more complete unity of action to be acquired by the individual intercourse of the men of Mexico and the men of the United States, not only may our friendship be increased, but our power for usefulness--for that usefulness which demonstrates the right of nations to be perpetuated--may be enlarged.

For the generous hospitality, for the spirit of friendship with which you and the people of Mexico have welcomed me as a representative of the United States, I thank you and them, and I hope that there may be found in this visit and in this welcome not merely the pleasure of a holiday, but a step along the pathway of two great nations in their service to humanity.

RECEPTION AT THE MUNIc.i.p.aL PALACE

SPEECH OF GOVERNOR GUILLERMO DE LANDA Y ESCANDoN

October 3, 1907

Last year, in accordance with the wishes of your President, you undertook to visit and become acquainted with Latin America, and for that purpose you made an extended voyage which was fruitful in happy results.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century adventurous Spanish and Portuguese navigators sailed from the Atlantic into the Pacific, effecting important discoveries of which the object was to rescue from darkness populous regions which, since then, have become part of the civilized world. You have sailed over nearly the same route four centuries later, proclaiming a message of peace and concord in all those regions whose inhabitants greeted you with acclamations from the northern ports of Brazil around to those of Colombia and Panama.

You are now crowning your mission by visiting the Mexican Republic, and you arrive at this capital animated by the same aspirations which actuated you when you set foot on the cruiser _Charleston_ in the port of New York on July 4, 1906.

Your aims are so n.o.ble and great that they cannot but be sincere. The course you have set before yourself would not be possible for one whose head did not harbor the loftiest ideals, and whose heart did not quicken to the finest sentiments.

Your President is a great man; rect.i.tude and loyalty are the dominant features of his character. A soldier, and a brave one, he knows what war is, and therefore he abhors it with all the force of his large heart; the war which engages his thoughts is war upon war itself.

It would not befit me at this moment, much as I should wish to do so, to extol the character of the supreme magistrate of my country. But I may say that, though a soldier like your own President, he detests war in the same degree, and that the ideals and aims of both these great men are alike directed toward an object sublime and desired of all men--peace.

The nations which both statesmen govern follow their lead in this respect with energetic unanimity; and it is safe to augur the happiest results from a concert so auspicious.

You, sir, second the purposes of both of those leaders with a zeal which nothing can cool; your mind has been formed at the bar--in the school of justice; and, like our two Presidents, you abominate injustice and insincerity.

You also know what war is, and you share the aversion of the two great American statesmen who are the standard bearers of peace in the new world.

Welcome, excellency, to this ancient capital of the empire of Montezuma.

She opens her gates to you and to your family, and offers you the sincerest hospitality, hoping you may preserve of her recollections as lasting as will be her memory of the visit of one whose happy mission it has been to carry everywhere the spirit of peace, good-will, and fraternity.

MR. ROOT'S REPLY

Governor Landa, your welcome now is as it has been from the first instant of my visit, both graceful and grateful. I have been most delighted by the many interesting things I have seen here.

Above all things, I feel impelled to say that the most interesting thing in Mexico, so far as my knowledge goes, is your President. It has seemed to me that of all the men now living, Porfirio Diaz, of Mexico, is best worth seeing. Whether one considers the adventurous, daring, chivalric incidents of his early career; whether one considers the vast work of government which his wisdom and courage and commanding character have accomplished; whether one considers his singularly attractive personality, no one lives today whom I would rather see than President Diaz. If I were a poet, I would write poetry; if I were a musician, I would compose triumphal marches; if I were a Mexican, I should feel that the steadfast loyalty of a lifetime could not be too much in return for the blessings that he had brought to my country. As I am neither poet, musician, nor Mexican, but only an American who loves justice and liberty and hopes to see their reign among mankind progress and strengthen and become perpetual, I look to Porfirio Diaz, the President of Mexico, as one of the great men to be held up for the hero worship of mankind.

RECEPTION BY THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES

SPEECH OF LICENTIATE MANUEL CALERO

PRESIDENT OF THE CHAMBER