Latin America and the United States Part 17

You have come to the country of snowy mountains and flowering valleys which perfume our tropical breezes, preceded by the meritorious fame of having preserved always, unblemished during the course of your fruitful life, the reputation and profession of a lawyer, of having penetrated the secrets of the juridical science and of consecrating today all your energies and abilities to the service of your country.

By a happy coincidence, you will find engraved in this parchment as our motto: "Professional Honor, Science, and Country"--the same great ends that have consecrated your life. Never was the diploma bearing this motto conferred upon a more meritorious or greater man.

In science, you have not been the selfish investigator nor in the service of your country have you confined yourself to directing from your place in the Cabinet the important matters of the foreign relations of a world-power.

Knowing that the time has pa.s.sed for studies merely speculative, and that at the present day every scientific truth cannot be such unless it is applicable, you have most happily found time to scatter the treasures of your studies, either when carrying them as the apostle of peace and concord to other countries, or through your invaluable publications.

The Academy could hardly be indifferent to this phase of your labors, as we owe to it the great satisfaction of knowing you intellectually and personally; and we pay you our profound respect.

Therefore, selecting from among your works the last you have published, ent.i.tled _The Citizen's Part in Government_,[6] it was agreed that we should offer you a translation of the same, in the hope that it may please you as it comes from the able and learned pen of an Academician for whom you have shown particular friendship prior to this time, and who feels for you the just admiration expressed in the eloquent words of welcome that we have all seconded.

We find in this illuminating work of yours the double revelation of the genius that pursues the development of a great idea, and of the generous heart that instills it with an ardor that will make it successful.

I will not take the liberty, Mr. Secretary, of commenting on the selection made by the Academy; but I can a.s.sure you that the collection of your lectures at Yale University, appear to me worthy, for the clear observation and teaching they contain, to be designated as the text-book to be read in all schools by youths preparing to exercise the rights of citizenship. Therefore, I beg you, kindly to accept the special copy of this translation presented by the Academy.

Among those who devote themselves to the study of science in general, Mr. Secretary, and more particularly among those who cultivate one special branch, is formed a sort of fraternity of feelings and affections--the fruit of the communion of ideas--and also of respect caused in every really broad man, for the talents and learning of others.

This fraternal feeling has always existed among the jurists of all nations, and in every language there is a word to describe it: _companero_, in our Castilian tongue; _confrere_, in French; and in yours, the most virile and the most expressive, you use the word _brother_.

As a brother, therefore, this Academy has the honor to receive you in its midst. Foreign though it is by virtue of its by-laws to all matters of militant politics, the Academy hopes and desires that, forgetting for a moment the high official functions with which you are vested and recalling the happy times when you were simply a lawyer, you may come to us to aid with your vast knowledge and generosity of character, in the success of this ideal: "Justice among men and justice among nations."

We hope, sir, that when once more in the calm of your honored home, far from the madding crowd and the cares of business, in the company of the two beings most dear to you, who as a blessing may come to your side to fill your affections and to venerate your white head; when in that tranquillity of the soul you may recall the incidents of your busy life, we hope that the recollection of the brief days you are pa.s.sing among us may be pleasing, and that in the depths of your heart you may be able to say: "I went to Mexico in search of friends, and I found brothers...."

Members of the Academy, and Committees of Scientific Societies, and all you who have kindly contributed with your presence to enhance the solemnity of this function in honor of an ill.u.s.trious lawyer: this is a time when he who gives gains more than those who receive. Let us all greet the reception of the new Academician!

SPEECH OF LICENTIATE JOAQUiN D. CASASUS

The Mexican Academy of Legislation and Jurisprudence has intrusted me with the most gratifying task of expressing in its name its good wishes for your safe arrival in our midst, and of voicing the joy it experiences at being afforded the opportunity of publicly testifying to the high respect and esteem in which it holds the great statesman, the eminent jurisconsult, and the ill.u.s.trious orator who in his position as Secretary of State of the United States of America is now amongst us, the distinguished guest of the Mexican nation.

Had I taken into account solely my own merits, notably deficient, especially when measured by the side of those possessed by the other members composing our academy, I should have refused such a high distinction. I thought, however, I could discern in its resolution the marked purpose that its homage should reach your ears through the echoes of a friend's voice, and so be all the more welcome to you. With this reason, therefore, in mind, I did not hesitate to accept it. Nay, more; this has made me think once and again that the abundant proofs of your good-will--for which I shall ever remain indebted to you--the very base and foundation of our friendship, were those which you earnestly desired to convey to Mexico in the person of him who was then its representative in Washington.

The Mexican people, from the very moment in which you set foot on their soil, and our Government from the time it tendered you the invitation that your visit to Latin America should have in Mexico its fitting end and crowning point, have proved to you, in abundant measure, by manifestations of every kind, that their earnest desire is that the ties which have for so many years bound us to your country, united by common interests and strengthened by common ideals, should every day grow closer and closer. They have also applauded the constant zeal shown by your Government in fostering relations more and more cordial with the republics of America, so that, inspired by the same spirit and guided by the same policy, they should make this western continent of ours the arena of the peaceful struggle of human effort. Nor do we deny you the enthusiastic and universal praise of which your labor as Secretary of State of the United States of America is deserving, since the program of your international policy, later incorporated by President Roosevelt into his last message to Congress, found a sympathizing echo in every Mexican heart; that program which you made known to the world when, having the Pan American conference for your tribune and the whole of America grouped around you for your audience, we were all welcomed on the hospitable soil of the n.o.ble and heroic Brazilian people.

Nevertheless, the Mexican Academy of Legislation and Jurisprudence, while recognizing your merits as a statesman, has desired to confine itself to honoring the lawyer who has brought fame and glory to the American bar, the jurisconsult who has won the unstinted admiration of all the nations ruled by democratic inst.i.tutions, and the orator whose eloquence takes us back to the times of the Latins, be his voice resounding in the courts of justice, or heard in the academies and universities, or pealing forth clear and inspired in the popular tribune.

You, honored sir, we regard as the perfect type of the lawyer who has known how to perform the sacred task commended to him by modern society.

The lawyer is a priest whose duty it is, in the bitter battles of life waged by human conflicting interests, to fulfill a mission of peace and harmony. He is indeed, the champion of homes when persecuted by human cruelty; he who strengthens the bonds of love which maintain the family union untainted, when the depravity of customs threatens its downfall.

In stretching out a helping hand to the toiler he is ever a master; in carrying out an equitable distribution of fortunes made, an adviser; in proclaiming the respect due to the law, an example and an authority in maintaining its prestige in the social community. His knowledge should be an a.r.s.enal from which to arm the weak and a shield with which to protect the powerful; his voice should be beseeching in its pleading for pardon from society for those who by their crimes undermine its foundations, but inexorable in its demand when in the name of society he calls for punishment. To the poor who strive to defend the bread earned for their children, he is a stay; to the rich who worry over productive investment for their fortunes, a guide; and if, in the errors committed by both sides and which ever tend to separate them, he should be equity; then to put an end to the struggles into which they will irreparably be drawn, he must ever be justice itself.

And you have been all this in your exemplary life of lawyer; this is what has won for you the love of the poor, the confidence of the rich, and the respect of the whole of society; which has placed you in the fore rank of the distinguished men of the American bar, from which only the pressing need of serving the greater political interests of your country could draw you.

Your important labors as a statesman and jurisconsult do not call forth our admiration any the less.

The jurisconsult of our days is not only he who in the Roman Forum _ex solio tanquam ex tripode_ solved the conflicts which arose from the applying of the law; because now the part taken by the people in governmental affairs and the ever-increasing necessities of democratic life have widened his sphere of influence, and he has become to society what the lawyer has been to the individual and the family. The jurisconsult is a mentor of nations; in the midst of our eagerness to achieve greater prosperity and in our constant wrestle as citizens to form part of the public administration, he it is who points out the path of our social and political life, and has to dictate the laws which should conform to our customs as well as those which should be necessary to determine its evolution. He it is who, standing in the prow, with gaze fixed on the distant horizon, steers the ship through the paths which guide nations to the haven of greater prosperity.

And you belong to the a.s.sembly of jurisconsults who are the glory and pride of the American continent.

Still fresh in men's minds are the honors you reaped in Yale University with the course of lectures you delivered on the part to be taken by citizens in the government. Your lessons have taught what are the rights to be exercised by citizens in nations ruled by democratic inst.i.tutions and what their duties in order that governments should be the true representatives of the people's will.

But again, the academy deems it but just to accord all honor to the great orator whose voice all America has been heeding with universal approval for more than a year; heeding, because that voice has ever been the expression of the lofty ideals which America has been pursuing from the earliest days of her freedom and independence.

Nor is your eloquence the fruit of meditation and study; it savors not, like that of Demosthenes, of the midnight oil. It is fresh and spontaneous, such as ought to be at the command of men ever ready to speak to the people of their rights and duties in democracies. It abounds always in that cold reasoning and that inflexible logic which alone can persuade and convince.

But your eloquence contains, besides, all the warmth, all the majesty, and all the sparkle of the Latin eloquence.

Plutarch relates, in his life of Cicero, that when the great orator thrilled the inhabitants of Rhodes with his speeches, Apollonius Molon, after listening to him one day, showed no sign of admiration, but that when Cicero had finished he said: "Cicero, I, no less than the others, praise and admire thee; but I weep for the fate of Greece, for thou hast taken to Rome the best that was left to Greece--wisdom and eloquence."

We in Latin America, less selfish than Apollonius Molon, do not weep; rather do we cheer and reward the orator from whose lips we have heard resound the accents of the Latin eloquence.

The Mexican Academy of Legislation and Jurisprudence, on presenting you today with the diploma which confers upon you the degree of honorary member, has desired to make known to the whole country your undoubted merits as lawyer, jurisconsult, and orator, and on this solemn occasion to bestow upon you its highest possible distinction.

Welcome to our midst. May your visit to Mexico be fruitful in good results to both countries; may it be, above all, one more tie to bind the sincere and unshaken friendship which unites them both; and, since it is the end of your triumphal journey to Latin America, may it add, in your great career as a statesman, fresh fame to your labor and glory to your ill.u.s.trious name.

MR. ROOT'S REPLY

I am highly appreciative of the very great honor which you have now conferred upon me. It is all the more grateful to me that in the ceremony which makes me an a.s.sociate of this distinguished body, so prominent a part should be taken by a gentleman who, as the representative of Mexico in the capital of the United States, has not only taught me to admire his rare intellectual ability, but has won from me, by the grace and purity of his character, the warmth of friendship which adds especial pleasure to every new a.s.sociation with him into which I can enter. I feel, sir, that the compliment which you have paid to this little work of mine, produced without any idea that it should receive so distinguished an honor or find its way so far from home, I must ascribe rather to friendship than to any intrinsic merit of the work; but I thank you, and I am most appreciative of the honor that you do me in causing it to be translated into Spanish and making it the subject of your resolution.

Circ.u.mstances have not permitted, and do not permit, that I should present to the Academy any thesis or discussion adequate to be a.s.sociated with the admirable and well-considered papers which have been read by Mr. Casasus and yourself. I wish, however, in addition to expressing my thanks, to indicate in a few words the special significance which this academy and my new a.s.sociation with it seem to me to have. We are pa.s.sing, undoubtedly, into a new era of international communication. We have turned our backs upon the old days of armed invasion, and the people of every civilized country are constantly engaged in the peaceable invasion of every other civilized country. The sciences, the literature, the customs, the lessons of experience, the skill, the spirit of every country, exercise an influence upon every other. In this peaceful interchange of the products of the intellect, in this constant pa.s.sing to and fro of the people of different countries of the civilized world, we find in each land a system of law peculiar to the country itself, and answering to what I believe to be a just description of all laws which regulate the relations of individuals to each other, in being a formulation of the custom of the civil community. These systems of law differ from each other as the conditions, the customs of each people differ from those of every other people. But there has arisen in recent years quite a new and distinct influence, producing legal enactment and furnishing occasion for legal development. That is the entrance into the minds of men of the comparatively new idea of individual freedom and individual equality.

The idea that all men are born equal, that every man is ent.i.tled to his life, his liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the great declarations of principle designed to give effect to the fundamental ideas of liberty and equality, are not the outcome of the conditions or customs of any particular people, but they are common to all mankind.

Before the jurists and lawyers of the world there lies the task of adapting each special system of munic.i.p.al law to the enforcement of the general principles which have come into the life of mankind within so recent a time, and which are cosmopolitan and world-wide and belong in no country especially. These principles have to be fitted to your laws in Mexico and our laws in the United States and to the French laws in France and the German laws in Germany; and the task before the jurists and lawyers of the world is to formulate, to elaborate, to secure the enactment and the enforcement of such practical provisions as will weld together in each land the old system of munic.i.p.al law, which regulates the relations of individuals with each other in accordance with the time-honored traditions and customs of the race and country, and these new principles of universal human freedom.

Now, that task is something that cannot be accomplished except by scientific processes, by the study of comparative jurisprudence, by the application of minds of the highest order in the most painstaking and practical way. In the adaptation of these new ideas common to all free people, the best minds of every people should a.s.sist every other people and receive a.s.sistance from every other people. The study of comparative jurisprudence, apparently dry, purely scientific, is as important to the well-being of the citizen in the streets of Mexico or Washington, as those scientific observations and calculations which seem to be purely abstract have proved to be to the mariner on the ocean or the engineer of the great works of construction which are of such practical value; and we ought to promote by the existence of societies of this character in every civilized land and the free intercourse and intercommunication of such societies, the existence of such a spirit of comradeship between them that they can freely give and take the results of their labors, of their experience, and of their skill.

This is of immense practical importance in the administration of government and the progress of ordered liberty in the world; for, after all, the declaration of political principles is of no value unless laws are framed adequate to bring principles down to the practical use of every citizen, and the framing of such laws in every land is the work of the jurists of the land. It is because I may be a.s.sociated with you in doing what little a lawyer can do toward helping to the accomplishment of this great, beneficent, and necessary work for civilization, that I find the greatest pleasure in accepting your election as a member of this Academy, and find cause for gratification beyond that of mere personal vanity or personal feeling.

Permit me to express the warmest good wishes for the continued activity, prosperity, and usefulness of this distinguished body which has so greatly honored me by this election.

BANQUET OF THE AMERICAN AMBa.s.sADOR

SPEECH OF AMBa.s.sADOR THOMPSON

October 5, 1907

Probably not before has there been such a gathering of distinguished men as are tonight seated at this table at the foot of the famous Castle of Chapultepec. The honored Secretary of State of the American nation is here, the guest of the great Mexican Republic, with such honors showered upon him as should not and will not soon be forgotten by a friendly and appreciative people, nor by the immediate recipient of Mexico's greeting.

Personally, I feel, I am sure, no less satisfaction than Mr. Root on this occasion, a dinner given by me in honor of chiefs of the Mexican nation and other distinguished Mexicans, for the purpose of demonstrating, as best I can, my regard for them, not only because of the very great honor Mexico is doing my country and my chief, but in part for many kindly and friendly acts of the past. That the chiefs of staff of the Mexican President, and many other high officials of nation and state, have responded to an invitation with their presence on this occasion, thus further honoring my country, Mr. Root, and myself, calls for an expression of good-will that I offer as a toast to Mexico and its ill.u.s.trious President, General Diaz.

RESPONSE OF VICE-PRESIDENT CORRAL

In the name of my colleagues in the Mexican Cabinet and other national functionaries, invited to this banquet, I thank you for this very gracious distinction.

I consider myself very fortunate to address such a distinguished gathering in these memorable moments, when the Mexican public offers its hospitality to the honorable Secretary of State of the United States, Mr. Elihu Root, one of the most eminent men in the world, both for his wisdom and his political works, as a defender of the rights of nations, and as the courageous knight of American democracy and universal peace.