Latin America and the United States Part 23

FOOTNOTES:

[7] _Foreign Relations of the United States_, 1881, p. 14.

[8] _The Pan American Union_, pp. 81, 82.

[9] Ibid., p. 7.

[10] The name was changed to the Pan American Union in 1910.

[11] Later increased to $950,000.

OUR SISTER REPUBLIC--ARGENTINA

ADDRESS AT THE BANQUET OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK TO THE OFFICERS OF THE FOREIGN AND UNITED STATES SQUADRONS WHICH ESCORTED THE SPANISH CARAVELS TO NEW YORK, APRIL 28, 1893

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 lat.i.tude of Cuba on the north to the lat.i.tude 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 const.i.tutional 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 const.i.tution in all material respects the exact counterpart of the Const.i.tution of the United States. Its const.i.tution was avowedly modelled after ours. For forty 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 const.i.tutional 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 const.i.tution 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 for them generous and effective enthusiasm in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 sh.o.r.es 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 G.o.d-speed.

OUR SISTER REPUBLIC--BRAZIL

ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO DR. LAURO MuLLER, SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF BRAZIL, AT A BANQUET OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, JUNE 18, 1913

The republic of Brazil designated its minister for foreign affairs, Dr. Lauro Muller, 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 Muller, 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 grat.i.tude, paying it as friends should pay it for friends.

Dr. Muller, 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 upon these 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 n.o.ble 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 l.u.s.t of conquest and the desire for dominion over other lands, I met in Brazil the most n.o.ble 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 n.o.ble traditions of their race, all the great-heartedness of the grandees of the Iberian Peninsula, all those sentiments which have made them _par excellence_ the gentlemen of civilization were exhibited in the welcome they gave to you, to our people, through me as their representative.

In that land of surpa.s.sing 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. Muller 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, a.s.serting 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. Muller'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 to exercise 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. Muller, 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 mult.i.tude 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 a.s.sertion, 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 pa.s.sed 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 or individual 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. Muller, 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 compet.i.tion, 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.

HOW TO DEVELOP SOUTH AMERICAN COMMERCE

ADDRESS BEFORE THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI COMMERCIAL CONGRESS, KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, NOVEMBER 20, 1906

Sir Henry Wotton is credited with the statement that "an amba.s.sador 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 amba.s.sador 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 amba.s.sador 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 amba.s.sador 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 inst.i.tutions, 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 and ca.n.a.ls 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.