Latin America and the United States Part 9

Our charter was inspired by the American Const.i.tution and acts through the operation of similar laws. The great examples of the Union are also our examples; and being sincere lovers of liberty we rejoice in the triumphs (which in a certain sense we consider our own) of the greatest of democratic nations.

George Washington is, for us, one of the great figures of history, the tutelar personality, the supreme model, a prototype of abnegation, honor, and wisdom; and there is an important region in the province of Buenos Ayres bearing the name of Lincoln, as a homage to the austere patriotism of that statesman and martyr. The names of Jefferson, Madison, and Quincy Adams are household words with us; and in our parliamentary debates and popular a.s.semblies mention is frequently made of the statesmen, the orators, and the judges of the great sister republic.

There thus exist, honorable sir, a long-established friendship, an intercommunion of thought and purpose which draw peoples together more closely, intimately, and indissolubly than can be accomplished by the formulae--often barren--of the foreign offices.

And the moment is certainly propitious for drawing closer the bonds of international amity which your excellency's visit puts in relief, and which have found such eloquent expression in the Pan American Congress of Rio de Janeiro. Enlightened patriotism has understood at last that on this continent, with its immense riches and vast unexplored regions, power and wealth are not to be looked for in conquest and displacements, but in collaboration and solidarity, which will people the wilderness and give the soil to the plow. It has understood, moreover, that America, by reason of the nationalities of which it is composed, of the nature of the representative inst.i.tutions which they have adopted, by the very character of their people, separated as they have been from the conflicts and complications of European governments, and even by the gravitation of peculiar circ.u.mstances and events, has been const.i.tuted a separate political factor, a new and vast theater for the development of the human race, which will serve as a counterpoise to the great civilizations of the other hemisphere, and so maintain the equilibrium of the world.

It is consequently our sacred duty to preserve the integrity of America, material and moral, against the menaces and artifices, very real and effective, that unfortunately surround it. It is not long since one of the most eminent of living jurisconsults of Great Britain denounced the possibility of the danger. "The enemies of light and freedom," he said, "are neither dead nor sleeping; they are vigilant, active, militant, and astute." And it was in obedience to that sentiment of common defense that in a critical moment the Argentine Republic proclaimed the impropriety of the forcible collection of public debts by European nations, not as an abstract principle of academic value or as a legal rule of universal application outside of this continent (which it is not inc.u.mbent on us to maintain), but as a principle of American diplomacy which, whilst being founded on equity and justice, has for its exclusive object to spare the peoples of this continent the calamities of conquest, disguised under the mask of financial interventions, in the same way as the traditional policy of the United States, without accentuating superiority or seeking preponderance, condemned the oppression of the nations of this part of the world and the control of their destinies by the great powers of Europe. The dreams and utopias of today are the facts and commonplaces of tomorrow and the principle proclaimed must sooner or later prevail.

The grat.i.tude we owe to the nations of Europe is indeed very great, and much we still have to learn from them. We are the admirers of their secular inst.i.tutions; more than once we have been moved by their great ideals, and under no circ.u.mstances whatsoever should we like to sever or to weaken the links of a long-established friendship. But we want, at the same time, and it is only just and fair, that the genius and tendency of our democratic communities be respected. They are advancing slowly, it is true; struggling at times and occasionally making a pause, but none the less strong and progressive for all that, and already showing the unequivocal signs of success in what may be called the most considerable trial mankind has ever made of the republican system of government.

In the meantime, to reach their ultimate greatness and have an influence in the destinies of the world, these nations only require to come together and have a better knowledge of each other, to break up the old colonial isolation, and realize the contraction of America, as what is called the contraction of the world has always been effected by the annihilation of distance through railways, telegraphs, and the thousand and one means of communication and interchange at the disposal of modern civilization.

The increase of commerce and the public fortune will be brought about in this way; but such results as concern only material prosperity will appear unimportant when compared with the blessings of a higher order which are sure to follow, when, realizing the inner meaning of things, and stimulated by spiritual communion, these peoples meet each other as rivals only in the sciences and arts, in literature and government, and most of all in the practice of virtues, which are the best ornament of the state and the foundation stone of all enduring grandeur of the human race.

Gentlemen:

To the United States, the n.o.blest and the greatest of democratic nations!

To Mr. Roosevelt, the President of transcendental initiative and strenuous life!

To his ill.u.s.trious minister, our guest, the highest and most eloquent representative of American solidarity, for whom I have not words sufficiently expressive to convey all the pleasure we feel in receiving him, and how we honor ourselves by having him in our midst.

REPLY OF MR. ROOT

I thank you for the kind and friendly words you have uttered. I thank you, and all of you for your cordiality and bounteous hospitality. As I am soon to leave this city, where I and my family have been welcomed so warmly and have been made so happy, let me take this opportunity to return to you and to the Government and to the people of Buenos Ayres our most sincere and heartfelt thanks for all your kindness and goodness to us. We do appreciate it most deeply, and we shall never forget it, shall never forget you--your friendly faces, your kind greetings, your beautiful homes, your n.o.ble spirit, and all that makes up the great and splendid city of Buenos Ayres.

It is with special pleasure, Mr. Chairman, that I have listened to that part of your speech which relates to the political philosophy of our times, and especially to the political philosophy most interesting to America. Upon the two subjects of special international interest to which you have alluded, I am glad to be able to declare myself in hearty and unreserved sympathy with you. The United States of America has never deemed it to be suitable that she should use her army and navy for the collection of ordinary contract debts of foreign governments to her citizens. For more than a century the State Department, the Department of Foreign Relations of the United States of America, has refused to take such action, and that has become the settled policy of our country.

We deem it to be inconsistent with that respect for the sovereignty of weaker powers which is essential to their protection against the aggression of the strong. We deem the use of force for the collection of ordinary contract debts to be an invitation to abuses, in their necessary results far worse, far more baleful to humanity than that the debts contracted by any nation should go unpaid. We consider that the use of the army and navy of a great power to compel a weaker power to answer to a contract with a private individual, is both an invitation to speculation upon the necessities of weak and struggling countries and an infringement upon the sovereignty of those countries, and we are now, as we always have been, opposed to it; and we believe that, perhaps not today nor tomorrow, but through the slow and certain process of the future, the world will come to the same opinion.

It is with special gratification that I have heard from your lips so just an estimate of the character of that traditional policy of the United States which bears the name of President Monroe. When you say that it was "without accentuating superiority or seeking preponderance,"

that Monroe's declaration condemned the oppression of the nations of this part of the world and the control of their destinies by the great powers of Europe, you speak the exact historical truth. You do but simple justice to the purposes and the sentiments of Monroe and his compatriots and to the country of Monroe at every hour from that time to this.

I congratulate you upon the wonderful opportunity that lies before you.

Happier than those of us who were obliged in earlier days to conquer the wilderness, you men of Argentina have at your hands great, new forces for your use. Changes have come of recent years in the world which affect the working out of your problem. One is that through the comparative infrequency of war, of pestilence, of famine, through the increased sanitation of the world, the decrease of infant mortality by reason of better sanitation, the population of the world is increasing.

Those causes which reduced population are being removed and the pressure of population is sending out wave after wave of men for the peopling of the vacant lands of the earth. Another change is, that through the wonderful activity of invention and discovery and organizing capacity during our lifetime, the power of mankind to produce wealth has been immensely increased. One man today, with machinery, with steam, with electricity, with all the myriads of appliances that invention and discovery have created, can produce more wealth, more of the things that mankind desires, than twenty men could have produced years ago; and the result is that vast acc.u.mulations of capital are ma.s.sing in the world, ready to be poured out for the building up of the vacant places of the earth. For the utilization of these two great forces, men and money, you in Argentina have the opportunity of incalculable potential wealth, and you have the formative power in the spirit and the brain of your people.

I went today to one of your great flour mills and to one of your great refrigerating plants. I viewed the myriad industries that surround the harbor, the forests of masts, the thronged steamers. I was interested and amazed. It far exceeded my imagination and suggested an a.n.a.logy to an incident in my past life. It was my fortune in the year when the war broke out between Prussia and France, to be travelling in Germany.

Immediately upon the announcement of the war, maps of the seat of war were printed and posted in every shop window. The maps were maps of Germany, with a little stretch of France. Within a fortnight the armies had marched off the map. It seems to be so with Argentina. I have read books about Argentina. I have read magazine and newspaper articles; but within the last five years you have marched off the map. The books and magazines are all out of date. What you have done since they were written is much more than had been done before. They are no guide to the country. Nevertheless, with all your vast material activity, it seems to me that the most wonderful and interesting thing to be found here is the laboratory of life, where you are mixing the elements of the future race. Argentine, English, German, Italian, French, and Spanish, and American are all being welded together to make the new type. It was the greatest satisfaction to me to go into the school and see that first and greatest agency, the children of all races in the first and most impressionable period of life, being brought together and acting and reacting on each other, and all tending toward the new type, which will embody the characteristics of all; and to know that the system of schools in which this is being done was, by the wisdom of your great President Sarmiento, brought from my own country through his friendship with the great leader of education in the United States of America--Horace Mann.

Mr. Chairman, I should have been glad to see all these wonderful things as an inconspicuous observer. It is quite foreign to my habits and to my nature to move through applauding throngs, accompanied by guards of honor; yet perhaps it is well that the idea which I represent should be applauded by crowds and accompanied by guards of honor. The pomp and circ.u.mstance of war attract the fancy of the mult.i.tude; the armored knight moves across the page of romance and of poetry and kindles the imagination of youth; the shouts of the crowd, the smiles of beauty, the admiration of youth, the grat.i.tude of nations, the plaudits of mankind, follow the hero about whom the glamor of military glory dims the eye to the destruction and death and human misery that follow the path of war.

Perhaps it is well that sometimes there should go to the herdsman on his lonely ranch, to the husbandman in his field, to the clerk in the counting-house and the shop, to the student at his books, to the boy in the street, the idea that there is honor to be paid to those qualities of mankind which rest upon justice, upon mercy, upon consideration for the rights of others, upon humanity, upon the patient and kindly spirit, upon all those exercises of the human heart which lead to happy homes, to prosperity, to learning, to art, to religion, to the things that dignify life and enn.o.ble it and give it its charm and grace.

We honor Washington as the leader of his country's forces in the war of independence; but that supreme patience which enabled him to keep the warring elements of his people at peace is a higher claim to the reverence of mankind than his superb military strategy. San Martin was great in his military achievements; his Napoleonic march across the Andes is ent.i.tled to be preserved in the history of military affairs so long as history is written; but the almost superhuman self-abnegation with which he laid aside power and greatness that peace might give its strength to his people, was greater than his military achievements. The triumphant march of the conquering hero is admirable and to be greeted with huzzas, but the conquering march of an idea which makes for humanity is more admirable and more to be applauded. This is not theory; it is practical. It has to do with our affairs today; for we are now in an age of the world when not governors, not presidents, not congresses, but the people determine the issues of peace or war, of controversy or of quiet. I am an advocate of arbitration; I am an advocate of mediation; of all the measures that tend toward bringing reasonable and cool judgment to take the place of war; but let us never forget that arbitration and mediation--all measures of that description--are but the treatment of the symptoms and not the treatment of the cause of disease; and that the real cure for war is to get into the hearts of the people and lead them to a just sense of their rights and other people's rights, lead them to love peace and to hate war, lead them to hold up the hands of their governments in the friendly commerce of diplomacy, rather than to urge them on to strife; and let there go to the herdsman and the husbandman and the merchant and the student and the boy in the street every influence which can tend toward that sweet reasonableness, that kindly sentiment, that breadth of feeling for humanity, that consideration for the rights of others, which lie at the basis of the peace of the world.

CHILE

SANTIAGO

SPEECH OF HIS EXCELLENCY JERMaN RIESCO

PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC

At the Government House, September 1, 1906

I greet you and welcome you in the name of the people and of the Government of Chile, who receive your visit with the liveliest satisfaction.

Your attendance at the congress of fraternity which the American republics have just held; your visit to the neighboring countries, which we have followed with the greatest interest; and your presence amongst us, upon the invitation which we had the honor of extending to you, are eloquent testimony of the high-minded intentions, which will necessarily produce much good for the progress and the development of America.

In these moments we feel a most profound grat.i.tude toward your country, toward your worthy President, and toward yourself for the friendship and sympathy with which you have joined in the sorrow of Chile because of the disaster which has wounded Valparaiso and other cities of the republic.

I wish that your stay in this country may be agreeable to you and your distinguished family.

REPLY OF MR. ROOT

I thank you, Mr. President, for your kind welcome and for your generous expressions, and I thank you for the courteous invitation which led to this visit on my part. After the great calamity which has befallen your country, I should have feared to intrude upon the mourning which is in so many Chilean homes, but I did not feel that I could pa.s.s by without calling upon you--upon the representative of the Chilean people--to express in person the deep sympathy and sorrow which I, and all my people, whom I represent, feel for your country and for the stricken and bereaved ones; and the earnest hope we have for the prompt and cheerful recovery of spirit and of confidence and of prosperity after the great misfortune. We know that the spirit and the strength of the people of Chile are adequate for the recovery, even from so great a disaster. No one in the world, Mr. President, can feel more deeply the misfortune that you have suffered than the people of the United States, because you know that in our country we have recently experienced just such a calamity. I am sure that nowhere in the world will you find so keen a sense of sympathy as is there and as I now express. It may sometimes happen that in adversity stronger friendships arise than in prosperity; and I hope that although I come to bring to you an expression of the friendship of the United States of America for the republic of Chile now while the cloud rests upon you, the effect of the exchange of kind words and kinder feelings in this time may be greater, more permanent, and more lasting than they could have been when all were prosperous and happy.

BANQUET OF THE PRESIDENT

SPEECH OF HIS EXCELLENCY ANTONIO HUNEEUS

MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

At the Moneda, September 2, 1906

I extend to you the welcome of the people and of the Government.

Heartily do I say to you, in the name of all Chileans: Be welcome.

We were preparing to entertain you in magnificent style, but it was the will of Providence to visit us with a bitter trial, so we are now receiving you in a modest manner.

Come and see, sir, what we have suffered. Morally, we have suffered much; for several thousands of our brothers perished in the catastrophe of August 16. Materially speaking, we lose the greater part of our princ.i.p.al port and of several cities of minor importance, together with the profits which cease in consequence. Behold now, sir, what remains to us and how we are rising. Our productive forces are alive and sound; agriculture, mining, and manufacturing have scarcely suffered, and our saltpeter treasures continue to exist.

Public order remained undisturbed; generally speaking, the reign of the law was maintained; the authorities fulfilled their duty; and the navy, glorious guardian of half our territory, which is the ocean, was saved intact. Therefore, all we sons of Chile are of cheerful heart.

The virility of a country is worth more than the splendor of its monuments. It does not humiliate us, therefore, to have you see houses and towns destroyed, for it was not a civil war or a foreign enemy which razed them to the ground, but a higher hand. It is rather a source of pride to us to have you witness the integrity and unity of the Chileans.

The fort.i.tude of our race and our good sense will cause us to rise again in a short time to a greater prosperity.

You plainly see that Chile is still entire, and that our misfortune was more painful than injurious.