Latin America and the United States Part 4

I shall tell them that here, where the independence of Brazil was born, the spirit of that independence still lives in the youth of Brazil.

I shall tell them that here in the birthplace of presidents more young Brazilians are treading the first steps in the pathway of patriotism and greatness, pressing on to take the place, to take up and continue the great work of the men born in So Paulo, who have contributed so mightily to the greatness of Brazil.

Let me say one word, young gentlemen, as to the lessons that you may draw from your country's glorious past.

n.o.ble and inspiring as are the victories Brazil has won in war; remarkable, eloquent, unsurpa.s.sed as are the great things done in the past by the Paulistas, greater and n.o.bler victories of peace await the people of Brazil and So Paulo.

You have, as my country had, a vast continent with savage nature to subdue. You have, as my country had, with almost immeasurable forests fit for human habitation, to welcome to your free land the millions of Europe seeking to escape from hard conditions of grinding poverty. You have before you that n.o.blest product of our time, that chief result of our inst.i.tutions, the open path to progress and success for every youth of Brazil. Because this is a free land, because you are a republic, because you are a self-governing people, there is no limit to what each one of you may accomplish by the exercise of your own knowledge, determination, and ability. It is the free spirit that keeps open the door of that limitless expanse, and that will conquer the wilderness and make Brazil a refuge for the poor of other lands, and a country rich and teeming with people, prosperous, learned, and happy in the years and centuries to come.

SPEECH OF MR. ROOT

On Presenting a Football Trophy, So Paulo, August 4, 1906

The pleasant and honorable duty of presenting to you this prize of success in the fine and rapid and skillful game we have just witnessed has been delegated to me by the kindness and consideration of the President and Government of the state of So Paulo.

It is a fitting act with which to signalize my first visit to this historic and famous city, this ancient center of activity and manly vigor, this state famous for centuries for its great and n.o.ble deeds, and known now throughout the world for its successful industry and commerce, known also as the home of great men and great patriots in the history of Brazil.

May the generous emulation of this courteous and gentlemanly game which you have been playing, be a symbol of activity in the commercial, industrial, and social life of the country; above all, may it be a symbol of your lives as patriots, as citizens of Brazil. Let the best man ever win. Let activity and skill and pluck ever have their just rewards. Do for your country always as you have done for your rival teams in this game of football. Do always your best, and do it always with good temper and kindly feeling, whatever be the game.

I congratulate you, sir, and your a.s.sociates, upon being citizens of a country and of a state--both you of Rio de Janeiro and you Paulistas,--where the rewards of enterprise and activity are secure, and where there is open to every youth the pathway of success by deserving success. May this prize be an incentive to you and your comrades to exercise every manly effort, both for yourselves and for your country.

SANTOS

SPEECH OF DOCTOR REZENDE

At the Commercial a.s.sociation of Santos, August 7, 1906

On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Commercial a.s.sociation of Santos, I bid you welcome.

The men gathered in this hall to greet you are cosmopolitan in character--Americans, Europeans, and Brazilians--men who have united their best efforts in the great movement of distributing coffee throughout the whole world.

Coffee is our staple product, and for many years to come is bound to be the backbone of our financial system.

The value of this great product is, however, much greater than is shown by the simple figures of statistics.

In order to understand its true value, we must add to it the other articles which are produced with it, and which are unknown to the commercial world.

Coffee also means corn, beans, rice, cattle, etc., which are abundantly raised by our coffee planters; coffee means also all of our infant industries, and those prosperous towns which dot the romantic sh.o.r.es of the Tiete, Paranahyba, and the Mogy-Guasu. For us, sir, coffee means plenty, prosperity, and perhaps greatness.

It is therefore easy to see how deeply we are interested in the growth of American commerce and civilization. The American people need for their trade nearly eleven million bags of coffee per annum, or almost all of an average crop of the state of So Paulo.

It is not necessary to lay special stress on this main fact, production and consumption; one is the complement of the other, and the development of both our activities and interests are so identified that we cannot talk of coffee without thinking of its greatest consumer, the American people.

Seventeen years ago, in 1889, James G. Blaine, one of your most distinguished statesmen, called together the first Pan American Congress in Washington. It is a long time for us business men to wait. We feel, however, that the ideals of that great statesman have not yet been realized. The great distance which separates us is perhaps somewhat responsible for the want of closer relations between our peoples; and when your visit to our sh.o.r.es was first announced, we Brazilians all felt that your presence in Brazil meant a new departure in American-Brazilian relations.

We are looking forward with eagerness for the results of the sessions of the Pan American Congress in Rio; and this interest has been greatly augmented by the high honor you confer upon us in selecting this opportunity to visit our people and our country, thus strengthening the ties of friendship between Americans and Brazilians; and though we belong to a cla.s.s accustomed to consider only facts and cold figures, we are deeply touched by this high distinction, and, representing the Santos Board of Trade and the coffee planters of So Paulo--the greatest coffee producers of the world--I offer most hearty greetings to you, and through you to the great American people, the chief consumers of coffee in the world.

REPLY OF MR. ROOT

It is a great pleasure to represent here in this great commercial city the best and largest customer you have. The United States of America bought in the last fiscal year, the statistics of which have been made public, from the United States of Brazil about $99,000,000 worth of goods, and we sold to Brazil about $11,000,000 worth of goods. I should like to see the trade more even; I should like to see the prosperity of Brazil so increase that the purchasing power of Brazil will grow; and I should like to see the activity of that purchasing power turned towards the markets of the North American republic. I am well aware that the course of trade cannot be controlled by sentiment or by governments. It follows its own immutable laws and is drawn solely in the direction of profit. But there are many ways in which the course of trade can be facilitated, can be stimulated, can be induced and increased. Mutual knowledge leads to trade. All the advertis.e.m.e.nt in the world which pays is but the means of carrying information, knowledge, and suggestion to the mind that reads the advertis.e.m.e.nt. Mutual knowledge as between the people of North America and the people of Brazil--knowledge as between the individual people--will increase the trade. Our people will buy more coffee and more sugar and more rubber from the people they know, from the various trading concerns that they know about, than they will from strangers. Mutual knowledge cannot exist without mutual respect. I believe so much in the goodness of humanity that I think no two people can know each other without respecting each other.

There is the friendliest feeling in the United States of America for the people of Brazil, and we believe that there is great friendliness in this country for the people of the United States. We wish to be good friends and ever better friends; to enlarge our mutual trade to the advantage of both; and it is to express that feeling to you from my people with all the kindliness and friendship possible, that I am here in Brazil. It has been a great privilege to see something of your great coffee production--from the coffee plant on its red platform of the peculiar soil of So Paulo to the bags of coffee being carried to the steamer in which it is to be transported to the markets of the world. It is pleasing to me to see that the great commercial port of Santos has by the improvement of its harbor facilities become more and more great, and has done away with the unhealthiness that once existed. I congratulate you upon the fact that you have made your port and your city so healthy that yellow fever no longer exists.

This is probably the last word I shall utter in public before I leave the coast of Brazil, and as I pa.s.s from among you, I shall endeavor to make my last word an expression of grateful appreciation for all the courtesy, the kindliness, and the friendliness which has surrounded me every hour, from the moment I first landed at Para three weeks ago today. My reception and that of all my family--the attentions that have been paid to us, the kindness that has been exhibited--far exceed anything that I antic.i.p.ated or had hoped for; and I beg you to believe that we shall never forget it. We shall make it known to our people when we return home. I believe that it will increase the friendship they feel for the people of Brazil; and it is with the greatest satisfaction that I shall feel ent.i.tled upon my return to say to the people of the United States that I have found in the republic of Brazil a country to which the laborers of the world may come to make new homes and to rear their families in prosperity and in happiness; that I may say to my people that I have found in the republic of Brazil a country where capital is secure, where the rights of man are held sacred, and the rewards of enterprise may be reaped without hindrance. I shall go from you with the hope that in my weak way I may do what it is possible for one man to do in return for all the friendship that you have shown me throughout Brazil--may give my evidence to aid in turning towards your vast and undeveloped resources that immigration and that capital which have been the means of building up and developing the vast riches of my own country. I hope that the same brilliant and prosperous success that has blessed my own land may for many generations visit the people of Brazil.

I hope that for many a year to come the two peoples, so similar in their laws, their inst.i.tutions, their purposes, and the great task of development that lies before them, may continue to grow in friendship and in mutual help. And so, gentlemen, I make to you, and through you to the people of Brazil, my grateful and appreciative farewell.

PARa

SPEECH OF HIS EXCELLENCY AUGUSTO MONTENEGRO

GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF PARa

In the City of Para (Belem), at a Breakfast given by him to Mr. Root July 17, 1906

I will say but a few words in offering the health of Mr. Root, the very ill.u.s.trious Secretary of State of the United States of North America. I regret exceedingly that Mr. Root should have only a few hours available to remain among us; but I know that his time is limited and that he cannot remain among us without inconvenience; however, I hope that these few hours which His Excellency has devoted to Para will have been sufficient for him to carry away a good impression of this region. I also fervently hope that Mr. Root's visit may mark the beginning of a new era in the diplomacy of the two Americas, and that, if possible, it may contribute still further to a strengthening of the friendly ties which already bind the two republics together. I hope that Mr. Root will gather the very best impressions of the whole country from his other visits. I am certain that he will be received everywhere with that cordiality, hospitality, and affection which we proudly proclaim as being among the chief characteristics of the Brazilians. I drink to the health of Mr. Root and of the great and n.o.ble President of the United States of North America.

REPLY OF MR. ROOT

I thank you most sincerely for your kind expressions and for your gracious hospitality. It is with the greatest pleasure that I have come to the great republic of Brazil, that I might by my presence testify to the high consideration entertained by the Republic of the North for her sister republic; that I might testify to the strong desire of the United States of America for the continuance of the growth of friendship between her and the United States of Brazil. Both of us--both of our countries,--have of recent years been growing so great and rich that we can afford now to visit our friends, and also to entertain our friends.

Let us therefore know each other better. I am sure that the more intimately we know each other the better friends we shall be. I know that because I know the feelings of my countrymen, and I know it because I experience your whole-hearted hospitality.

It has been a delight for me to see your beautiful, bright, and cheerful city, which, with its people happy and giving evidence of well-being and prosperity, with its comfortable homes, with its n.o.ble monuments, with its great public buildings and inst.i.tutions of beneficence, with its beautiful flowers and n.o.ble trees, justifies all that I had dreamed of in this august city of the great empire which reaches from the Amazon to the Uruguay.

I thank you for your reference to the President of the United States.

His great, strong, human heart beats in unison with everything that is n.o.ble in the heart of any nation and with every aspiration of true manhood. Every effort tending to help a people on in civilization and in prosperity finds a reflex and response in his desire for their happiness. He is a true and genuine friend of all Americans, north and south. In his name I thank you for the welcome you have given me, and in his name I propose a toast to the President of the United States of Brazil.

PERNAMBUCO

SUMMARY OF SPEECH OF HIS EXCELLENCY SIGISMUNDO GONcALVEZ

GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF PERNAMBUCO

At a Breakfast given by him to Mr. Root, in the City of Pernambuco (Recife), July 22, 1906

His Excellency Sigismundo Goncalvez, Governor of Pernambuco, said that he had never felt so strong a desire to speak English in order to express the satisfaction he felt at receiving the distinguished visitor, and after wishing the Secretary a very pleasant and prosperous voyage, proposed the health of President Roosevelt.[2]

REPLY OF MR. ROOT