We know, sir, as the whole world knows, the considerable part you have taken in the peace-promoting, civilizing foreign policy of President Roosevelt, and we fully appreciate your frequent, unequivocal demonstrations of amicable feeling toward our government and our people. For that reason you have been cordially welcomed by us as a friend coming among true friends. May your brief sojourn in this country leave you a souvenir as pleasant as the one it has already engraved in our memory and our hearts.

Seeking to show you our sincere esteem and regard, I propose a toast to your honor, not as a ceremonious courtesy, but as a really heartfelt sentiment:

"Brindemos, Senores, por nuestro ilustre huesped, el Honorable Senor Elihu Root."

MR. ROOT'S REPLY

It is my happy fortune to reap where others have sown and enter into the fruits of others' labors. When Mr. Seward and General Grant visited Mexico, your people, sir, were little known to the people of the United States. The shadow of a war still recent in the memory of men hung over the relations that existed between the two countries, the shadow of a war which, thank Heaven, would now be impossible. The commanding personality of General Grant made his warm friendship for Mexico the beginning of a new era of feeling and appreciation on the part of the people of the United States; and now I come in response to the kind and hospitable invitation of your distinguished President, not to mark out the pathway to friendship, but as the representative of an existing feeling of friendship on the part of my countrymen.

I have been deeply appreciative of all the delicate courtesy, the warmth of friendship and hospitality which have welcomed me and my family here. But I was not surprised. It is but in conformity with all the relations which have existed between the department of foreign affairs of Mexico and the department of foreign affairs of the United States, since you, sir, have held your present eminent position.

I wish not merely to express grateful appreciation for the kindness I have received here, but to express the same sentiment for all that you have done and all you have been in the relations between the two countries. The unvarying courtesy, the genuine and sincere desire for the reasonable and friendly disposal of all questions that have arisen between the two countries, which have characterized the office of foreign affairs of Mexico have been a great factor in bringing about the happy relations that now exist. And we may say, with gratification, that there are no questions between Mexico and the United States which can give the slightest apprehension or cause the slightest concern as to their easy and satisfactory adjustment.

Of course, between two countries with so long a common boundary, whose citizens are passing to and fro, whose citizens are investing money, each in the country of the other, questions are continually arising; but the all-important element for the decision of every question, the good understanding, kindly feeling, and the habit of conducting relations upon the basis of reason and friendship, practically disposes in advance of all questions which can arise.

I suppose it is impossible to read the history of any country without feeling that the mistakes in its history have been the result of a shortsighted, narrow view on the part of its statesmen, its rulers, its legislators, under the influence at a particular time of particular local conditions.

We can all of us look back in the history of our own country and of other countries and see how we now, with a broader view and free from the prejudices of the hour, would settle questions and solve difficulties in a far more satisfactory way.

I suppose that the true object which should be held before every statesman is so to deal with the questions of the present that the spirit in which they are solved will commend itself to the generations of the future.

I think, sir, that the government of Mexico has attained that high standard of statesmanship to an extraordinary degree. It certainly has done so in its relations with the government of the United States; and as a result of the reasonable and kindly way in which we have been treating each other for these past years we behold not merely the fact that of your $240,000,000 of foreign trade, two-thirds of your exports are purchased by the United States and two-thirds of your imports are purchased from the United States; not merely that of your vast exports to the United States, notwithstanding our high protective policy, nine-tenths are free from all duty; not merely that $700,000,000 of capital of the United States has been invested in your thriving and progressive enterprises, so that, while for three centuries and a half the people of Mexico were hiding their wealth under the ground to keep it from being taken away from them, now for a quarter of a century you have been taking out from under the ground a wealth far surpassing any dreams of avarice in the days of old. But more than all that, there has grown up and is continually developing between the people of the two countries a knowledge of each other, an appreciation of each other, a kindly feeling toward each other, which make for the perpetuity of good government in both countries and for the development of all the finer and better qualities of citizenship in both countries; which will help both of us to advance along the pathway of progress; which will make every school in Mexico in which the future government and rulers of this vast land are being trained a better school, and make every school in the United States a better school; which will make every officer conscious of being one of a community of nations, conscious of having in his charge the good name of the country which is known to the people of the whole continent, a better officer than he would be if he were responsible only to his narrow community. As the result of these kindly relations we see two happy, progressive, prosperous nations; and, sir, it is my sincere hope that following the footsteps of the great Americans you have named, through your kindness and hospitality I may be able to add my little contribution toward this great work of national benefit and of international advancement in the cause of liberty, justice, and humanity.

FAREWELL SUPPER GIVEN BY MR. ROOT

SPEECH OF MR. ROOT

October 7, 1907

On the evening of the day of the banquet of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, on the lower terrace of the castle where a series of apartments had been assigned to his party, Mr. Root gave a farewell supper to the members of the Government, the diplomatic corps, the Entertainment Committee, and numerous other Mexican notables.

This is the last opportunity I shall have in the City of Mexico to express to you my gratitude and keen appreciation for all your very great kindness to us during our visit to Mexico.

I came here with my mind filled by the idea of two countries, the United States of America and the United Mexican States, rather an abstract and cold conception. Gradually there has emerged from the sea of faces that I looked upon on entering Mexico, one by one, a group of lovely women and of fine and noble gentlemen, and beside the conception of two countries becoming more and more friendly to each other, there has come a realization that I have gained new friends—a most grateful and most delightful thing. I shall never forget you, my friends; I shall never forget your courtesy and your kindness, and I know I can say the same for Mrs. Root, and I beg to offer a toast to the personnel of the administration of President Diaz, a personnel which is more delightful and will be met with more pleasure than it was possible for me to conceive before coming here, and as I leave you I shall feel that with my limited Spanish, which consists of not more than a half a dozen words, I have, however, the most valuable words in the language in being able to say: "Hasta luego."

RESPONSE OF SENOR CORRAL

Senor Ramon Corral, Vice-President of the Republic, made the following response to this farewell address:

Since you have set foot on our soil we have had occasion to observe the high and well-merited opinion which you entertain of our president, General Porfirio Diaz, and of his splendid and statesmanlike achievements, and if to this be added your own well-known merits, your lofty character, and the sagacious, yet kindly notice you have taken of all that you have seen, no wonder that you have won, not our admiration, not our respect, not our good-will, for all these were yours already, but something more intimate, something that dwells deeper in the recesses of the heart—our affection.

Henceforth, sir, in addition to your high claims as an illustrious statesman and wise administrator, you have from us the endearing title of friend, a friend who appreciates us with fairness, who will rejoice at our future triumphs in the arena of progress, who will lament our misfortunes, who will applaud our victories and will encourage us in our discomfitures.

For some time past, especially since you undertook the noble task of proclaiming justice and righteousness as the basis for the relations of the republics of America with one another, we have followed with the liveliest interest your glorious career, of which the goal is the promotion of ideals of human fraternity. We have admired you, we have applauded you as one applauds the eloquence of wise and good men. But henceforth a current of profound sympathy will flow between you and us, and our admiration and applause will reach you, quickened by the vibrations of our enthusiasm.

Soon you will return to your own country, that splendid country where everything is great from the cataclysms of nature to the manifestations of freedom. Our most fervent desire is that you may take away an impression of Mexico and of her people as agreeable and affectionate as that which you leave behind, and that, in justice toward us, you will tell those among your countrymen who do not yet know us, that ours is a civilized nation, working out its greater welfare, educating itself intellectually, living and desiring to remain in peace with itself and in peace with all who respect its rights,—in a word, living up to its mission as a free and honorable community. Tell your President that in Mexico we appreciate and applaud his great and noble efforts in behalf of his country and in behalf of the peace of other nations, and that when his name is pronounced by us, it is pronounced with expressions of respect and homage for his good qualities.

Receive, sir, these words, which are the expression of sentiments that are sincere, as a new demonstration to yourself and to your distinguished family of our feelings of esteem and our desire for your happiness.

PUEBLA

SPEECH OF GENERAL MUCIO P. MARTINEZ

GOVERNOR OF PUEBLA

At a Banquet at the Municipal Palace, October 9, 1907

A poetic tradition of our aborigines has been kept, and still lives—transmitted from generation to generation of the races that people our wooded mountains and smiling plains; this tradition teaches us that to illustrious guests, above all to those who come like you as messengers of peace on earth and good-will to men, should be offered as an emblem of sincere and respectful affection, the richest of fruits, the handsomest of flowers, and the most delicious of dishes.

A reception such as the one now being given to your excellency and those nearest and dearest to your heart, must be, no doubt, inferior in magnificence to the welcome tendered to such illustrious guests in other countries; but believe me, none has ever surpassed our sincerity, because Mexico, as it is the first to admire brilliant careers in politics, in science, in art, in industry, and in commerce, takes pleasure in offering you its most cordial attentions with no other desire than to make your stay in this republic as pleasing as possible and to show you that this country is an ardent admirer of yours and takes pleasure in calling itself a sister of the United States not only because of geographical contiguity, but also because of the liberty and freedom of its institutions.

I therefore pray that your excellency accept this humble repast as a token of the most affectionate hospitality tendered you by me in the name of the people of Puebla, and I beg you to convey to the illustrious President of the American Union the brotherly regard we all have for him.

REPLY OF MR. ROOT

I am greatly pleased by this delicate hospitality which is like the traditional hospitality of the Mexican nation. I shall personally convey to President Roosevelt the message of cordial welcome and good-will shown by this city, and it will undoubtedly contribute to further the good work undertaken by President Roosevelt to uphold justice and protect the rights of humanity. I shall also bring to President Roosevelt's attention the assurances of this country to protect the happiness and prosperity of the people. I cannot help remembering that when foreigners came to Puebla in hostile manner they were shown that Puebla knows how to defend its rights. It is also pleasing to me to see the ability of the Mexican people to govern themselves: nations like Mexico and the United States which have given proof of this ability may well boast that they belong to those which form the vanguard of modern civilization.

ORIZABA

SPEECH OF SENOR D. TEODORO A. DEHESA

GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF VERA CRUZ

At a Luncheon at the Cocolopan Factory, October 10, 1907

In your honor, and as a testimony to your personal worth and sterling character, as a representative of the great American people, I take particular pleasure in tendering to you this lunch. The occasion gives rise to the thought that your Washington and our Hidalgo were the instruments chosen for planting the sacred tree of national independence now so deeply rooted in our respective countries, and which has brought forth the fruit of liberty to nourish the people of the United States and Mexico.

Here in Orizaba you have seen, Mr. Secretary, some evidences of the material advances made by our country, which to a man of your broad views and lofty ideals I must believe are pleasing. These are blessings that we owe to peace. Those two great statesmen and lovers of peace—Roosevelt and Diaz—are one in desire and endeavor to preserve peace, not only to secure its benefits for their own people, but to extend its beneficent sway over the whole American continent.

Such a purpose commands the respect and admiration of the world. I invite all present to join me in drinking to our illustrious and most welcome guest, whom we all so much admire for his many distinguished qualities—extending to him and to his charming family our best wishes for health and happiness.

REPLY OF MR. ROOT

This cordial welcome has not been a surprise to me, as I already knew of the qualities of the Governor of Vera Cruz. By this time, I have become accustomed to the hospitable character of the Mexicans; but notwithstanding this, it has been very pleasing and gratifying to me to receive these demonstrations from the people of Vera Cruz whose frankness of disposition is well known. I appreciate your words very highly, Mr. Governor, and I thank you for them as I do the residents of Orizaba.

It is but right for you Mexicans to remember Washington, as it is for us Americans to remember Hidalgo and the other heroes of Mexican history together with our own. I firmly believe that Mexico has passed beyond the state in which civil dissensions devastated this fortunate country, and that in the future there will be no door open to internal strife, thanks to the wise administration and foresight of the great statesman Porfirio Diaz.

How true it is that the beautiful and the useful can be combined: here in Orizaba I find the proof of this truth, as in the midst of the natural beauty of the scenery offered by the exuberant vegetation and the lovely peak crowned with snow—the proud sentinel of the state of Vera Cruz—stand as signs of progress the important factories we have just visited.

Mr. Governor, I feel grateful for the frank reception of which I have been the object, and I hope that Mexico will continue to progress and develop as well as the United States, and that both nations will render mutual assistance to each other and avail themselves of the prosperous or unprosperous occurrences adopting the one or the other as lessons of experience for humanity in order to demonstrate to natives and foreigners the excellences of the republican form of government.

GUADALAJARA

SPEECH OF GOVERNOR AHUMADA

October 14, 1907

Although our president, General Porfirio Diaz, with the high international representation awarded him by our institutions, and by the personal adherence of all federal and state authorities, as well as by the love of the Mexican people in general, has already given a cordial welcome in the name of all of us, allow me, in the name of the state which I govern, to express to you the kind feelings of sympathy which exist in all hearts beating within this important section of our country. Jalisco, Mr. Secretary, has always been a land that loves all that is great and useful for the country, and as during the time when we fought for independence and liberty it did not spare its sons, in the same way we want to join our voice to the voice of the people that from the bravo to the usumacinta praise and bless you, to take our share in the work for peace which you initiated during the Third Pan American Conference in Rio de Janeiro, which you continued by your visit to the main republics of South America, and which you are carrying to an end now by tokens of friendship you are giving to Mexico and the people of the state of Jalisco. The people of this state believe that the best way to take part in this labor is to tell you through me: "Welcome be the noble emissary who, like the dove of the ark, brings the symbolic olive branch which announces that clouds have been dissipated and the sun of friendship is rising between the peoples of the new continent."

We should have been pleased to have you among us a longer time, to give you better tokens of our esteem and to show you the high appreciation we feel for the people of the United States and her great ruler, President Roosevelt. But inasmuch as this is impossible, owing to your important and urgent labors at home, allow me, Mr. Secretary, to state that if our demonstrations of friendship are short, they are made in the land of traditional frankness and true friendship.

Let us drink, ladies and gentlemen, to the health of his excellency, Mr. Root, his distinguished wife, and his "simpatica" daughter, and wishing for all of them all kinds of happiness, let us prove that we have shaken their hands in the spirit that sons of Jalisco always shake hands—our heart is our hand.

MR. ROOT'S REPLY

I thank you very heartily for your kind words, for your flattering description of myself, and for the spirit of friendship for my country which you exhibit. I am highly appreciative of all the hospitality, the warm welcome, and the graceful and most agreeable entertainment which you and your people of Guadalajara and of the state of Jalisco have given to my family and to myself.

I think it is perhaps fitting that I should make the last extended visit of all I have been making in Mexico, to the city of Guadalajara. The most striking feature of Mexican life to a stranger is that rare combination of history and progress which one finds. The two eras of history, the Spanish, and before that the Indian civilization, which has to so great an extent passed away, and beside that the modern development, the spirit of modern enterprise, the active progress of mining and agriculture and manufactures, the stimulus of sound finance, and the general determination of the people to take rank with the great productive nations of the earth,—nowhere have I found that combination more marked and distinct than I find it here in Guadalajara. As I said to you a short time ago, your excellency, the things that impressed me most on entering this city were, first, that it was clean; secondly, that there were many fine-looking people; thirdly, that it was cheerful; and, fourthly, that it had many beautiful buildings. I can add to that a fifth, that it is bright with the rainbow of hope for the fruits of its many enterprises.

This may be the last time I rise to speak to any audience in Mexico before my departure for my own country, and there are two things that I wish to say; one is, that nothing could have been more generous, more tactful, and more grateful to us than the hospitality and friendship which my family and I have received during the entire time since we crossed the border at Laredo. We are grateful for it, we are deeply appreciative of it. The other thing that I wish to say is that I have all the time since I came to Mexico been thinking about the question of the permanence of your new prosperity. I go back to my home encouraged and cheered by having found, as I believe, evidence, substantial evidence, that the new prosperity of Mexico is not evanescent and temporary, but is permanent. I do not believe that Mexico will ever again return to the disorder of the condition which characterized the first sixty years of her independence. I believe that during this long period of peace and order which has been secured for your people by your great, wise, strong President Diaz, there has grown up a new spirit among Mexicans and a new appreciation of individual duty to civilization in the maintenance of peace and order.

So I go back, not only charmed with the beauty of your country, not only delighted with the opportunity to see the wonderful historic monuments you possess, not only delighted with the hospitality of your homes and charmed with the character of your people, but I go back with the feeling that the Mexican people have joined forever the ranks of the great, orderly, self-controlled, self-governing republics of the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] This address was answered in appropriate terms by General Rincon Gallardo as the representative of President Diaz, and among other things he congratulated himself on the fact that the Mexican Committee had been granted the pleasing privilege of continuing to San Antonio in order to give there a welcome to the distinguished visitors. Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Garcia Cuellar also made an address. Neither of these addresses were preserved.

[6] Yale lectures on the Responsibilities of Citizenship, 1907. See also: Addresses on Government and Citizenship, by ELIHU ROOT; pp. 3-76. Harvard University Press, 1916.



ADDRESSES IN THE UNITED STATES ON LATIN AMERICAN RELATIONS



THE CENTRAL AMERICAN PEACE CONFERENCE

In December, 1907, a Central American Peace Conference was held at Washington, between delegates representing the five Central American republics—Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Salvador. Mexico and the United States were invited to participate in a friendly capacity and accepted the invitation. The conference grew out of the initiative taken during the previous summer by the presidents of the United States and Mexico, in an endeavor to secure an adjustment of then pending disputes between several of these republics, in some form that would secure permanent peace among them and foster their development. The conference was called together by the following note of the Secretary of State, addressed to the delegates:

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, November 11, 1907.

EXCELLENCIES: The plenipotentiaries of the five Central American republics of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Salvador, appointed by their respective Governments in pursuance of the protocol signed in Washington on September 17, 1907, having arrived in the city of Washington for the purposes of the conference contemplated in the said protocol, I have the honor to request that the said plenipotentiaries, together with the representatives of the United Mexican States and of the United States of America, appointed pursuant to the second article of said protocol, convene in the building of the Bureau of American Republics in the city of Washington, on the fourteenth day of November, instant, at half past two in the afternoon.

I avail myself of this opportunity to offer to Your Excellencies the assurances of my highest consideration.

ELIHU ROOT.

The formal sessions of the conference began December 13, and closed December 20. During this period nine treaties and conventions were concluded between the five republics, as follows:

1. A general treaty of peace and amity.

2. A convention additional to the general treaty of peace and amity.

3. A convention for the establishment of a Central American court of justice.

4. A protocol additional to the convention for the establishment of a Central American court of justice.

5. An extradition convention.

6. A convention for the establishment of an International Central American Bureau.

7. A convention for the establishment of a Central American pedagogical institute.

8. A convention concerning future Central American Conferences.

9. A convention concerning railway communications.

The most important were the general treaty of peace and amity, and the convention for the establishment of a Central American court of justice. The texts of these various conventions are found in Malloy's Treaties and Conventions of the United States, Volume II, pp. 2391-2420.

The Mexican Government was represented by His Excellency Senor Don Enrique C. Creel, ambassador at Washington, and the United States by Honorable William I. Buchanan.

At the opening session of the conference Mr. Root made the following address:

ADDRESS OPENING THE CENTRAL AMERICAN PEACE CONFERENCE, DECEMBER 13, 1907

Usage devolves upon me as the head of the Foreign Office of the country in which you are assembled to call this meeting together; to call it to order and to preside during the formation of your organization. I wish to express to you, at the outset, the high appreciation of the Government of the United States of the compliment you pay to us in selecting the city of Washington as the field of your labors in behalf of the rule of peace and order and brotherhood among the peoples of Central America. It is most gratifying to the people of the United States that you should feel that you will find here an atmosphere favorable to the development of the ideas of peace and unity, of progress and mutual helpfulness, in place of war and revolution and the retardation of the principles of liberty and justice.

So far as a sincere and friendly desire for success in your labors may furnish a favorable atmosphere, you certainly will have it here. The people of the United States are sincere believers in the principles that you are seeking to apply to the conduct of your international affairs in Central America. They sincerely desire the triumph and the control of the principles of liberty and order everywhere in the world. They especially desire that the blessings which follow the control of those principles may be enjoyed by all the people of our sister republics on the western hemisphere, and we further believe that it will be, from the most selfish point of view, for our interests to have peaceful, prosperous, and progressive republics in Central America.

The people of the United Mexican States and of the United States of America are now enjoying great benefits from the mutual interchange of commerce and friendly intercourse between the two countries of Mexico and the United States. Prosperity, the increase of wealth, the success of enterprise—all the results that come from the intelligent use of wealth—are being enjoyed by the people of both countries, through the friendly intercourse that utilizes for the people of each country the prosperity of the other. We in the United States should be most happy if the states of Central America might move with greater rapidity along the pathway of such prosperity, of such progress; to the end that we may share, through commerce and friendly intercourse, in your new prosperity, and aid you by our prosperity.

We cannot fail, gentlemen, to be admonished by the many failures which have been made by the people of Central America to establish agreement among themselves which would be lasting, that the task you have before you is no easy one. The trial has often been made and the agreements which have been elaborated, signed, ratified, seem to have been written in water. Yet I cannot resist the impression that we have at last come to the threshold of a happier day for Central America. Time is necessary to political development. I have great confidence in the judgment that in the long course of time, through successive steps of failure, through the accompanying education of your people, through the encouraging examples which now, more than ever before, surround you, success will be attained in securing unity and progress in other countries of the new hemisphere. Through the combination of all these, you are at a point in your history where it is possible for you to take a forward step that will remain.

It would ill become me to attempt to propose or suggest the steps which you should take; but I will venture to observe that the all-important thing for you to accomplish is that while you enter into agreements which will, I am sure, be framed in consonance with the most peaceful aspirations and the most rigid sense of justice, you shall devise also some practical methods under which it will be possible to secure the performance of those agreements. The mere declaration of general principles, the mere agreement upon lines of policy and of conduct, are of little value unless there be practical and definite methods provided by which the responsibility for failing to keep the agreement may be fixed upon some definite person, and the public sentiment of Central America brought to bear to prevent the violation. The declaration that a man is entitled to his liberty would be of little value with us in this country, were it not for the writ of habeas corpus that makes it the duty of a specific judge, when applied to, to inquire into the cause of a man's detention, and set him at liberty if he is unjustly detained. The provision which declares that a man should not be deprived of his property without due process of law would be of little value were it not for the practical provision which imposes on specific officers the duty of nullifying every attempt to take away a man's property without due process of law.

To find practical definite methods by which you shall make it somebody's duty to see that the great principles you declare are not violated, by which if an attempt be made to violate them the responsibility may be fixed upon the guilty individual—those, in my judgment, are the problems to which you should specifically and most earnestly address yourselves.

I have confidence in your success because I have confidence in your sincerity of purpose, and because I believe that your people have developed to the point where they are ready to receive and to utilize such results as you may work out. Why should you not live in peace and harmony? You are one people in fact; your citizenship is interchangeable—your race, your religion, your customs, your laws, your lineage, your consanguinity and relations, your social connections, your sympathies, your aspirations, and your hopes for the future are the same.

It can be nothing but the ambition of individuals who care more for their selfish purposes than for the good of their country, that can prevent the people of the Central American states from living together in peace and unity.

It is my most earnest hope, it is the hope of the American Government and people, that from this conference may come the specific and practical measures which will enable the people of Central America to march on with equal step abreast of the most progressive nations of modern civilization; to fulfill their great destinies in that brotherhood which nature has intended them to preserve; to exile forever from that land of beauty and of wealth incalculable the fraternal strife which has hitherto held you back in the development of your civilization.

ADDRESS CLOSING THE CENTRAL AMERICAN PEACE CONFERENCE, DECEMBER 20, 1907

I beg you, gentlemen, to accept my hearty and sincere congratulations. The people of Central America, withdrawn to a great distance from the scene of your labors, may not know, but I wish that my voice might reach each one of them to tell them that during the month that has passed their loyal representatives have been doing for them in sincerity and in the discharge of patriotic duty a service which stands upon the highest level of the achievements of the most advanced modern civilization. You have each one of you been faithful to the protection of the interests of your several countries; you have each one of you exhibited patience, kindly consideration, regard for the rights and feelings of others, and a willingness to meet with open mind the opinions and wishes of your fellow-countrymen; you have pursued the true method by which law, order, peace, and justice are substituted for the unrestrained dominion of the strong over the weak, and you have reached conclusions which I believe are wise and are well adapted to advance the progress of each and all of the Central American republics toward that much-to-be-desired consummation in the future of one great, strong, and happy Central American republic.

May the poor husbandman who cultivates the fields of your five republics, may the miner who is wearing out his weary life in the hard labors of your mines, may the mothers who are caring for the infant children who are to make the peoples of Central America in the future, may the millions whose prosperity and happiness you have sought to advance here, may the unborn generations of the future in your beloved countries, have reason to look back to this day with blessings upon the self-devotion and the self-restraint with which you have endeavored to serve their interests and to secure their prosperity and peace.

With this hope the entire body of my countrymen will join, and with the expression of this hope I declare the Peace Conference of the Republics of Central America, convened in the city of Washington in this year nineteen hundred and seven, to be now adjourned.



THE PAN AMERICAN CAUSE

RESPONSE TO THE TOAST OF THE AMBASSADOR OF BRAZIL AT A DINNER IN HONOR OF REAR-ADMIRAL HUET DE BACELLAR AND THE CAPTAINS OF THE BRAZILIAN SHIPS ON A VISIT TO THE JAMESTOWN EXPOSITION, WASHINGTON, D.C., MAY 18, 1907

THE BRAZILIAN AMBASSADOR, HIS EXCELLENCY MR. NABUCO

This is the second time that I have the honor and the good fortune of meeting in this room the representatives of the American nations in Washington, including the Secretary of State of the United States. These are the great Pan American festivals of the Brazilian Embassy. But what a great stride our common cause has made since we met here last year! All of that progress is principally due to Mr. Root's devotion to the cause that he made his own and which I have no doubt he will make also a national one.

I drink to the progress of the Pan American cause in the person of its great leader, the Secretary of State.

MR. ROOT

I thank you, Mr. Ambassador, for the too flattering expression with which you have characterized the efforts that, by the accident of position, I have been enabled to make in the interpretation of that spirit which in the fullness of time has ripened, developed and become ready for universal expression and influence.

It is a great pleasure for me to look again into the tropical forests of Brazil; to come under the magic influence of your part of the solar spectrum; and to be introduced again to the delightful influences of your language through the words of the representative of King Carlos of Portugal.

I think any one who is trying to do something is at times—perhaps most of the time—inclined to become despondent, because any single man can do so little. But if the little that one man can do happens to be in the line of national or world tendencies, he may count himself happy in helping forward the great work.

How many thousands of men, born out of time, give their lives to causes which are not ripe for action! I think that we, my friends, are doing our little; happy in contributing to a cause that has fully ripened. I confess that in passing from the courts to diplomacy; from the argument of causes, the conclusion of which would be enforced by the power of the marshal or the sheriff, having behind him the irresistible power of the nation—passing from such arguments to the discussion that proceeds between the foreign offices of independent powers, I found myself groping about to find some sanction for the rules of right conduct which we endeavor to assert and maintain.

It has long been a widely accepted theory that the only sanction for the right conduct of nations, for those rules of conduct which nations seek to enforce upon each other, is the exercise of force; that behind their diplomatic argument rests, as the ultimate argument, the possibility of war. But I think there has been developing in the later years of progress in civilization that other sanction, of the constraining effect of the public opinion of mankind, which rests upon the desire for the approval of one's fellowmen. The progress of which you have spoken, Mr. Ambassador, in American international relations, is a progress along the pathway that leads from the rule of force as the ultimate sanction of argument to the rule of public opinion, which enforces its decrees by an appeal to the desire for approbation among men.

That progress is towards the independence, the freedom, the dignity, the happiness of every small and weak nation. It tends to realize the theory of international law, the real national equality. The process is one of attrition. Isolation among nations leaves no appeal for the enforcement of rules of right conduct, but the appeal to force. Communication, intercourse, friendship, the desire for good opinion, the exercise of all the qualities that adorn, that elevate, that refine human nature, bring to the defense of the smaller nation the appeal to the other sanction, the sanction of public opinion.

What we are doing now, because the time has come for it to be done, is to help in our day and generation in the creation of a public opinion in America which shall approve all that is good in national character and national conduct and punish all that is wrong with that most terrible penalty, the disapproval of all America. As that process approaches its perfection, the work of our friends, of the armies and navies of America, will have been accomplished.

It is not a work of selfishness; it is a work for universal civilization. It is a work by which we will repay to France and Portugal and to Sweden—to all our mother lands across the Atlantic—all the gifts of civilization, of literature, of art, of the results of their long struggles upward from barbarism to light, with which they have endowed us. For in the vast fields of incalculable wealth that the American continents offer to the enterprise and the cultivation of the world, the older nations of Europe will find their wealth, and opportunity for the exercise of their powers in peace and with equality.

It was a great pleasure to me—it was a cause of pride to me—to hear so distinguished an English scholar as the Ambassador from France speak the beautiful language of France so perfectly tonight. It is a great pleasure for me to find that throughout the United States the young men are in constantly increasing numbers learning to speak not only French, but Spanish and Portuguese. It was a great pleasure to find throughout South America last summer so many, not merely of the most distinguished and highly cultivated men, speaking English, but so large a number of the people in the cities that I visited.

It all makes for that attrition, that practical intercourse, which is the process of civilization; and in destroying the isolation, the separation of American states from each other, in building up an American public opinion, we are preparing ourselves the more perfectly to unite with our friends of Europe in a world public opinion, which shall establish the reign of justice and liberty and humanity throughout the world by slow, practical, untiring processes of intercourse and friendship in place of the rules of brutal force.



THE PAN AMERICAN UNION

There has been, especially in recent years, a very strong feeling that the points which the American republics have in common greatly exceed their differences and that stated conferences of the American republics would not only tend to accentuate the points in common but would enable them to take common action in matters of common interest, remove unwarranted suspicions which often exist between and among peoples which do not come into contact, and tend to lessen the very differences.

In 1881, the Honorable James G. Blaine, then secretary of state of the United States, stated that in the opinion of the President of the United States "the time is ripe for a proposal that shall enlist the good-will and active cooperation of all the states of the western hemisphere, both north and south, in the interest of humanity and for the common weal of nations."[7] Mr. Blaine proposed on behalf of the President, that a congress meet in the city of Washington. The congress or conference actually took place in that city in 1889-1890, during the secretaryship of state of Mr. Blaine. This is commonly called the International American Conference. All of the American countries, with the exception of Santo Domingo, were represented, and they agreed upon "the establishment of an American International Bureau for the collection, tabulation, and publication, in the English, Spanish, and Portuguese languages, of information as to the productions and commerce, and as to the customs laws and regulations of their respective countries; such bureau to be maintained in one of the countries for the common benefit and at the common expense, and to furnish to all the other countries such commercial statistics and other useful information as may be contributed to it by any of the American republics."[8]

This was the origin of the International Bureau of the American Republics, out of which has grown the Pan American Union, "a voluntary organization of the twenty-one American republics, including the United States, maintained by their annual contributions, controlled by a governing board composed of the diplomatic representatives in Washington of the other twenty governments and the secretary of state of the United States, who is chairman ex officio, and devoted to the development and conservation of peace, friendship, and commerce between them all."[9]

Modestly housed at first, the success of the Union required larger quarters for the performance of its work. Advantage was taken of this need to erect the building which was to be the visible and worthy symbol of Pan Americanism. Mr. Andrew Carnegie, a delegate on behalf of the United States to the first Pan American Conference in Washington, contributed $950,000 towards the construction of this building, the United States contributed the land, and the other American republics their respective quotas.

The circumstances under which the funds for the erection of this building were obtained appear in the records of the Governing Board of the Pan American Union, from which the following resolutions and correspondence have been obtained:

Resolution of the Third International Conference at Rio de Janeiro, adopted August 13, 1906

The undersigned, Delegates of the Republics represented in the Third International American Conference, duly authorized by their Governments, have approved the following Resolution:

The Third International American Conference Resolves:

1. To express its gratification that the project to establish a permanent centre of information and of interchange of ideas among the Republics of this Continent, as well as the erection of a building suitable for the Library in memory of Columbus has been realized.

2. To express the hope that, before the meeting of the next International American Conference the International Bureau of American Republics will be housed in such a way as to permit it to properly fulfil the important functions assigned to it by this Conference.

Made and signed in the City of Rio de Janeiro, on the thirteenth day of the month of August, nineteen hundred and six, in English, Portuguese and Spanish, and deposited in the Department of Foreign Relations of the Government of the United States of Brazil, in order that certified copies thereof be made, and forwarded through diplomatic channels to each one of the Signatory States.

For Ecuador.—Emilio Arevalo, Olmedo Alfaro.

For Paraguay.—Manoel Gondra, Arsenio Lopez Decoud, Gualberto Cardus y Huerta.

For Bolivia.—Alberto Gutierrez, Carlos V. Romero.

For Colombia.—Rafael Uribe Uribe, Guillermo Valencia.

For Honduras.—Fausto Davila.

For Panama.—Jose Domingo de Obaldia.

For Cuba.—Gonzalo de Quesada, Rafael Montoro, Antonio Gonzalez Lanuza.

For the Dominican Republic.—Emilio C. Joubert.

For Peru.—Eugenio Larabure y Unanue, Antonio Miro Quesada, Mariano Cornejo.

For El Salvador.—Francisco A. Reyes.

For Costa Rica.—Ascension Esquivel.

For the United States of Mexico.—Francisco Leon de La Barra, Ricardo Molina-Huebbe, Ricardo Garcia Granados.

For Guatemala.—Antonio Batres Jauregui.

For Uruguay.—Luis Melian Lafinur, Antonio Maria Rodriguez, Gonzalo Ramirez.

For the Argentine Republic.—J. V. Gonzalez, Jose A. Terry, Eduardo L. Bidau.

For Nicaragua.—Luis F. Corea.

For the United States of Brazil.—Joaquim Aurelio Nabuco de Araujo, Joaquim Francisco de Assis Brasil, Gastao de Cunha, Alfredo de Moraes Gomes Ferreira, Joao Pandia Calogeras, Amaro Cavalcanti, Joaquim Xavier da Silveira, Jose P. da Graca Aranha, Antonio da Fontoura Xavier.

For the United States of America.—William I. Buchanan, L. S. Rowe, A. J. Montague, Tulio Larrinaga, Paul S. Reinsch, Van Leer Polk.

For Chile.—Anselmo Hevia Riquelme, Joaquin Walker Martinez, Luis Antonio Vergara, Adolfo Guerrero.

Resolution of the Governing Board and letter of the Secretary of State, Mr. Elihu Root, to Mr. Andrew Carnegie, approved at the meeting of December 19, 1906

Whereas, the Chairman of the Governing Board of the International Bureau of the American Republics has laid before this, the said Board, the following letter sent by him as chairman to Mr. Andrew Carnegie and has asked for the approval thereof by the Board—that is to say:

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, December 4, 1906.

MR DEAR MR. CARNEGIE: Your active and effective cooperation in promoting better communication between the countries of America as a member of the commission authorized by the Second Pan American Conference held in Mexico, your patriotic citizenship in the greatest of American Republics, your earnest and weighty advocacy of peace and good will among the nations of the earth, and your action in providing a suitable building for the International Tribunal at The Hague embolden me to ask your aid in promoting the beneficent work of the Union of American Republics, which was established by the Conference of Washington in 1889, continued by the Conference of Mexico in 1902, and has now been made permanent by the Conference of Rio de Janeiro in 1906. There is a general feeling that the Rio Conference, the South American journey of the Secretary of State, and the expressions of courtesy and kindly feeling which accompanied them have given a powerful impulse to the growth of a better acquaintance between the people of all the American countries, a better mutual understanding between them, the establishment of a common public opinion, and the reasonable and kindly treatment of international questions in the place of isolation, suspicion, irritation, strife, and war.

There is also a general opinion that while the action of the Bureau of American Republics, designed to carry on this work from conference to conference, has been excellent so far as it has gone, the scope of the Bureau's work ought to be enlarged and its activity and efficiency greatly increased.

To accomplish this, a building adequate to the magnitude and dignity of the great work to be done is indispensable. With this view the nations constituting the Union have expressed their willingness to contribute, and some of them have contributed, and the Congress of the United States has, at its last session, appropriated, to the extent of $200,000, funds available for the purchase of a suitable site in the city of Washington. With this view also the Conference at Rio de Janeiro, on the 13th of August, 1906, adopted resolutions looking to the establishment of a 'permanent center of information and of interchange of ideas among the Republics of this Continent as well as a building suitable for the library in memory of Columbus,' and expressed the hope that 'before the meeting of the next International American Conference the International Bureau of American Republics shall be housed in such a way as to permit it to properly fulfill the important functions assigned to it by this conference.'

Those functions are, in brief, to give effect to the work of the conference; to carry out its resolutions; to prepare the work of future conferences; to disseminate through each American country a knowledge of the affairs, the sentiments and the progress of every other American country; to promote better communication and more constant intercourse; to increase the interaction among all the Republics of each upon the others in commerce, in education, in the arts and sciences, and in political and social life, and to maintain in the city of Washington a headquarters, a meeting place, a center of influence for the same peaceful and enlightened thought and conscience of all America.

I feel sure of your hearty sympathy in the furtherance of this undertaking, so full of possibilities for the peace and the prosperity of America and of mankind, and I appeal to you in the same spirit that has actuated your great benefactions to humanity in the past to provide for the erection, upon the site thus to be supplied by governmental action, of a suitable building for the work of the Union, the direction and control of which has been imposed by our respective Governments upon the Governing Board, of which I have the honor to be Chairman.

With great respect and esteem, I am, my dear Mr. Carnegie,

Very sincerely yours,

ELIHU ROOT,

Secretary of State and ex officio Chairman of the Governing Board of the Bureau of American Republics.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the action of the Secretary of State, as Chairman of this Board, in sending the aforesaid letter be, and it hereby is, approved.

Mr. Carnegie to Mr. Root. NEW YORK, January 1, 1907.

HON. ELIHU ROOT.

Secretary of State and ex officio Chairman of the Governing Board of the Bureau of South American Republics, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: I am greatly pleased that you and your colleagues of the South American Republics have done me the honor to suggest that I might furnish a suitable home in Washington for the Bureau of American Republics.

The approval of your application by the Governing Board of the International Bureau and President Roosevelt's hearty expressions of satisfaction are most gratifying.

You very kindly mention my membership of the first Pan American Conference and advocacy of the Pan American Railway, the gaps of which are being slowly filled. The importance of this enterprise impresses itself more and more upon me, and I hope to see it accomplished.

I am happy, therefore, in stating that it will be one of the pleasures of my life to furnish to the Union of all the Republics of this hemisphere the necessary funds ($750,000) from time to time as may be needed for the construction of an international home in Washington.

The cooperation of our own Republic is seen in the appropriation of funds by Congress for the purchase of the site, and in the agreement between the Republics for the maintenance of the Bureau we have additional evidence of cooperation, so that the forthcoming American Temple of Peace will be the joint work of all of the Republics. Every generation should see them drawing closer together.

It is a cheering thought that all these are for the first time to be represented at the forthcoming Hague Conference. Henceforth they are members of that body, whose aim is the settlement of international disputes by that "High Court of Nations" or other similar tribunal.

I beg to express to each and all of them my heartfelt thanks for being permitted to make such a New Year's gift as this. I have never felt more keenly than I do this New Year's morning how much more blessed it is to give than to receive, and I consider myself highly honored by being considered worthy to provide the forthcoming union home, where the accredited representatives of all the Republics are to meet and, I trust, to bind together their respective nations in the bonds of unbroken peace.

Very truly, yours, ANDREW CARNEGIE.

Resolutions approved by the Governing Board of the International Bureau of the American Republics, January 30, 1907.

Resolved, That the letter of Mr. Andrew Carnegie to the Chairman of the Board, dated January 1, 1907, be received and filed and spread upon the minutes of the Board.

Resolved, That the Governing Board of the Bureau of American Republics express to Mr. Andrew Carnegie its acceptance and grateful appreciation of his generous and public-spirited engagement to supply the funds for the proposed new building for the Union of American Republics. The Board shares with Mr. Carnegie the hope that the institution whose work will thus be promoted may further the cause of peace and justice among nations and the sincere and helpful friendship of all the American Republics for each other.

Resolved, That the Chairman of the Board communicate a copy of the foregoing resolutions to Mr. Carnegie.

The Governing Board of the International Bureau of the American Republics further resolves:

1. That the letter of the Honorable the Secretary of State, Mr. Elihu Root, to Mr. Andrew Carnegie; the answer of this distinguished philanthropist, and the resolution of the Governing Board accepting this splendid gift be kept on file with the important documents of the Bureau; and

2. That the text of these letters and the resolutions thereon be artistically engrossed under the title of "Carnegie's Gift to the International Bureau of the American Republics," and, properly framed, to form a part of the exhibit of the Bureau at the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition.

On May 11, 1908, Mr. Root, then secretary of state, whose forethought and personal efforts had made its construction possible, delivered the address at the laying of the corner stone, and later, on April 26, 1910, when he was no longer secretary of state but senator of the United States and friend of the Americas, he delivered the principal address at the dedication of the building. These two addresses follow:

ADDRESS AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE OF THE BUILDING FOR THE PAN AMERICAN UNION WASHINGTON, D.C., MAY 11, 1908

We are here to lay the corner stone of the building which is to be the home of the International Union of American Republics.[10]

The wise liberality of the Congress of the United States has provided the means for the purchase of this tract of land—five acres in extent—near the White House and the great executive departments, bounded on every side by public streets and facing to the east and south upon public parks which it will always be the care of the National Government to render continually more beautiful, in execution of its design to make the national capital an object of national pride and a source of that pleasure which comes to rich and poor alike from the education of taste.

The public spirit and enthusiasm for the good of humanity, which have inspired an American citizen, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, in his administration of a great fortune, have led him to devote the adequate and ample sum of three-quarters of a million dollars to the construction of the building.[11]

Into the appropriate adornment and fitting of the edifice will go the contributions of every American republic, already pledged and, in a great measure, already paid into the fund of the Union.

The International Union for which the building is erected is a voluntary association, the members of which are all the American nations from Cape Horn to the Great Lakes. It had its origin in the first Pan American conference held at Washington in 1889, and it has been developed and improved in efficiency under the resolutions of the succeeding conferences in Mexico and Brazil. Its primary object is to break down the barriers of mutual ignorance between the nations of America by collecting and making accessible, furnishing and spreading, information about every country among the people of every other country in the Union, to facilitate and stimulate intercourse, trade, acquaintance, good understanding, fellowship, and sympathy. For this purpose it has established in Washington a bureau or office under the direction of a governing board composed of the official representatives in Washington of all the republics, and having a director and secretary, with a force of assistants and translators and clerks.

The bureau has established a rapidly increasing library of history, travel, description, statistics, and literature of the American nations. It publishes a Monthly Bulletin of current public events and existing conditions in all the united countries, which is circulated in every country. It carries on an enormous correspondence with every part of both continents, answering the questions of seekers for information about the laws, customs, conditions, opportunities, and personnel of the different countries; and it has become a medium of introduction and guidance for international intercourse.

The governing board is also a permanent committee charged with the duty of seeing that the resolutions of each Pan American conference are carried out and that suitable preparation is made for the next succeeding conference.

The increasing work of the bureau has greatly outgrown the facilities of its cramped quarters on Pennsylvania Avenue, and now at the close of its second decade and under the influence of the great movement of awakened sympathy between the American republics, the Union stands upon the threshold of more ample opportunity for the prosecution of its beneficent activity.

Many noble and beautiful public buildings record the achievements and illustrate the impulses of modern civilization. Temples of religion, of patriotism, of learning, of art, of justice, abound; but this structure will stand alone, the first of its kind—a temple dedicated to international friendship. It will be devoted to the diffusion of that international knowledge which dispels national prejudice and liberalizes national judgment. Here will be fostered the growth of that sympathy born of similarity in good impulses and noble purposes, which draws men of different races and countries together into a community of nations, and counteracts the tendency of selfish instincts to array nations against each other as enemies. From this source shall spring mutual helpfulness between all the American republics, so that the best knowledge and experience and courage and hope of every republic shall lend moral power to sustain and strengthen every other in its struggle to work out its problems and to advance the standard of liberty and peace with justice within itself, and so that no people in all these continents, however oppressed and discouraged, however impoverished and torn by disorder, shall fail to feel that they are not alone in the world, or shall fail to see that for them a better day may dawn, as for others the sun has already arisen.

It is too much to expect that there will not be controversies between American nations to whose desire for harmony we now bear witness; but to every controversy will apply the truth that there are no international controversies so serious that they cannot be settled peaceably if both parties really desire peaceable settlement, while there are few causes of dispute so trifling that they cannot be made the occasion of war if either party really desires war. The matters in dispute between nations are nothing; the spirit which deals with them is everything.

The graceful courtesy of the twenty republics who have agreed upon the capital of the United States for the home of this International Union, the deep appreciation of that courtesy shown by the American Government and this representative American citizen, and the work to be done within the walls that are to rise on this site, cannot fail to be powerful influences towards the creation of a spirit that will solve all disputed questions of the future and preserve the peace of the Western World.

May the structure now begun stand for many generations to come as the visible evidence of mutual respect, esteem, appreciation, and kindly feeling between the peoples of all the republics; may pleasant memories of hospitality and friendship gather about it, and may all the Americas come to feel that for them this place is home, for it is theirs, the product of a common effort and the instrument of a common purpose.

ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE BUILDING OF THE PAN AMERICAN UNION, WASHINGTON, D. C. APRIL 26, 1910

I am sure that this beautiful building must produce a lively sense of grateful appreciation in all who care for the growth of friendship among Americans; to Mr. Carnegie, not merely for his generous gift but for the large sympathy and far vision that prompted it; and to the associate architects, Mr. Albert Kelsey and Mr. Paul Cret, who, not content with making this structure express their sense of artistic form and proportion, have entered with the devotion and self-absorption of true art into the spirit of the design for which their bricks and marble are to stand. They have brought into happy companionship architectural suggestions of the North and of the South; and have wrought into construction and ornament in a hundred ways the art, the symbolism, the traditions, and the history of all the American republics; and they have made the building a true expression of Pan Americanism, of open mind and open heart for all that is true and noble and worthy of respect from whatever race or religion or language or custom in the western continents.

Nor should we forget the fine enthusiasm and understanding with which Mr. Borglum and Mr. Conti and Mrs. Farnham and Mrs. Whitney have brought sculpture to aid the architects' expression; nor the honest and faithful work of Mr. Norcross, the builder; nor the kind help of Mr. William Smith, of the Botanical Garden, who has filled the patio with tropical plants rare and strange to northern eyes, but familiar friends to the Latin American; nor the energy and unwearying labors of Mr. Barrett, the director of the bureau.

The active interest of President Taft and Secretary Knox is evidence that the policy of Pan American friendship, re-inaugurated by the sympathetic genius of Secretary Blaine, is continuous and permanent in the United States; and the harmony in which the members of the governing board have worked to this end is a good omen for the future.

This building is to be, in its most manifest utilitarian service, a convenient instrument for association and growth of mutual knowledge among the people of the different republics. The library maintained here, the books and journals accessible here, the useful and interesting publications of the bureau, the enormous correspondence carried on with seekers for knowledge about American countries, the opportunities now afforded for further growth in all these activities, justify the pains and the expense.

The building is more important, however, as the symbol, the ever-present reminder, the perpetual assertion, of unity, of common interest and purpose and hope among all the republics. This building is a confession of faith, a covenant of fraternal duty, a declaration of allegiance to an ideal. The members of The Hague conference of 1907 described the conference in the preamble of its great arbitration convention as:

Animated by the sincere desire to work for the maintenance of general peace.

Resolved to promote by all the efforts in their power the friendly settlement of international disputes.

Recognizing the solidarity uniting the members of the society of civilized nations.

Desirous of extending the empire of law and of strengthening the appreciation of international justice.

That is the meaning of this building for the republics of America. That sentiment which all the best in modern civilization is trying to live up to, we have written here in marble for the people of the American continents.

The process of civilization is by association. In isolation, men, communities, nations, tend back towards savagery. Repellent differences and dislikes separate them from mankind. In association, similarities and attractions are felt and differences are forgotten. There is so much more good than evil in men that liking comes by knowing. We have here the product of mutual knowledge, cooperation, harmony, friendship. Here is an evidence of what these can accomplish. Here is an earnest of what may be done in the future. From these windows the governing board of the International Union will look down upon the noble river that flows by the home of Washington. They will sit beneath the shadow of the simple and majestic monument which illustrates our conception of his character, the character that, beyond all others in human history, rises above jealousy and envy and ignoble strife. All the nations acknowledge his preeminent influence. He belongs to them all. No man lives in freedom anywhere on earth who is not his debtor and his follower. We dedicate this place to the service of the political faith in which he lived and wrought. Long may this structure stand, while within its walls and under the influence of the benign purpose from which it sprang, the habit and the power of self-control, of mutual consideration and kindly judgment, more and more exclude the narrowness and selfishness and prejudice of ignorance and the hasty impulses of super-sensitive amour propre. May men hereafter come to see that here is set a milestone in the path of American civilization towards the reign of that universal public opinion which shall condemn all who through contentious spirit or greed or selfish ambition or lust for power disturb the public peace, as enemies of the general good of the American republics.

One voice that should have spoken here today is silent, but many of us cannot forget or cease to mourn and to honor our dear and noble friend, Joaquim Nabuco. Ambassador from Brazil, dean of the American Diplomatic Corps, respected, admired, trusted, loved, and followed by all of us, he was a commanding figure in the international movement of which the erection of this building is a part. The breadth of his political philosophy, the nobility of his idealism, the prophetic vision of his poetic imagination, were joined to wisdom, to the practical sagacity of statesmanship, to a sympathetic knowledge of men, and to a heart as sensitive and tender as a woman's. He followed the design and construction of this building with the deepest interest. His beneficent influence impressed itself upon all of our actions. No benison can be pronounced upon this great institution so rich in promise for its future as the wish that his ennobling memory may endure and his civilizing spirit may control, in the councils of the International Union of American Republics.

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 latitude of Cuba on the north to the latitude 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 constitutional 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 constitution in all material respects the exact counterpart of the Constitution of the United States. Its constitution 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 constitutional 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 constitution 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 breasts 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 shores 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 God-speed.



OUR SISTER REPUBLIC—BRAZIL

ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO DR. LAURO MUeLLER, 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 Mueller, 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 Mueller, 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 gratitude, paying it as friends should pay it for friends.

Dr. Mueller, 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 noble 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 lust of conquest and the desire for dominion over other lands, I met in Brazil the most noble 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 noble 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 surpassing 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. Mueller 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, asserting 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. Mueller'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. Mueller, 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 multitude 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 assertion, 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 passed 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. Mueller, 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 competition, 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 ambassador 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 ambassador 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 ambassador 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 ambassador 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 institutions, 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 canals 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.

Since the first election of President McKinley, the people of the United States have for the first time accumulated a surplus of capital beyond the requirements of internal development. That surplus is increasing with extraordinary rapidity. We have paid our debts to Europe and have become a creditor instead of a debtor nation; we have faced about; we have left the ranks of the borrowing nations and have entered the ranks of the investing nations. Our surplus energy is beginning to look beyond our own borders, throughout the world, to find opportunity for the profitable use of our surplus capital, foreign markets for our manufactures, foreign mines to be developed, foreign bridges and railroads and public works to be built, foreign rivers to be turned into electric power and light. As in their several ways England and France and Germany have stood, so we in our own way are beginning to stand and must continue to stand towards the industrial enterprise of the world.

That we are not beginning our new role feebly is indicated by $1,518,561,666 of exports in the year 1905 as against $1,117,513,071 of imports, and by $1,743,864,500 exports in the year 1906 as against $1,226,563,843 of imports. Our first steps in the new field indeed are somewhat clumsy and unskilled. In our own vast country, with oceans on either side, we have had too little contact with foreign peoples readily to understand their customs or learn their languages; yet no one can doubt that we shall learn and shall understand and shall do our business abroad, as we have done it at home, with force and efficiency.

Coincident with this change in the United States, the progress of political development has been carrying the neighboring continent of South America out of the stage of militarism into the stage of industrialism. Throughout the greater part of that vast continent, revolutions have ceased to be looked upon with favor or submitted to with indifference; the revolutionary general and the dictator are no longer the objects of admiration and imitation; civic virtues command the highest respect; the people point with satisfaction and pride to the stability of their governments, to the safety of property and the certainty of justice; nearly everywhere the people are eager for foreign capital to develop their natural resources and for foreign immigration to occupy their vacant lands.

Immediately before us, at exactly the right time, just as we are ready for it, great opportunities for peaceful commercial and industrial expansion to the south are presented. Other investing nations are already in the field—England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain; but the field is so vast, the new demands are so great, the progress so rapid, that what other nations have done up to this time is but a slight advance in the race for the grand total.

The opportunities are so large that figures fail to convey them. The area of this newly awakened continent is 7,502,848 square miles—more than two and one half times as large as the United States without Alaska, and more than double the United States including Alaska. A large part of this area lies within the temperate zone, with an equable and invigorating climate, free from extremes of either heat or cold. Farther north in the tropics are enormous expanses of high table-lands, stretching from the Atlantic to the foothills of the Andes, and lifted far above the tropical heats; the fertile valleys of the western cordilleras are cooled by perpetual snows even under the equator; vast forests grow untouched from a soil of incredible richness. The plains of Argentina, the great uplands of Brazil, the mountain valleys of Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia are suited to the habitation of any race, however far to the north its origin may have been; hundreds of millions of men can find healthful homes and abundant sustenance in this great territory.

The population in 1900 was only 42,461,381, less than six to the square mile. The density of population was less than one-eighth of that in the state of Missouri, less than one-sixtieth of that in the state of Massachusetts, less than one-seventieth of that in England, less than one per cent of that in Belgium.

With this sparse population the production of wealth is already enormous. The latest trade statistics show exports from South America to foreign countries of $745,530,000, and imports of $499,858,600. Of the five hundred millions of goods that South America buys, we sell them but $63,246,525, or 12.6 per cent. Of the seven hundred and forty-five millions that South America sells, we buy $152,092,000, or 20.4 per cent—nearly two and a half times as much as we sell.

Their production is increasing by leaps and bounds. In eleven years the exports of Chile have increased forty-five per cent, from $54,030,000 in 1894 to $78,840,000 in 1905. In eight years the exports of Peru have increased one hundred per cent, from $13,899,000 in 1897 to $28,758,000 in 1905. In ten years the exports of Brazil have increased sixty-six per cent, from $134,062,000 in 1894 to $223,101,000 in 1905. In ten years the exports of Argentina have increased one hundred and sixty-eight per cent, from $115,868,000 in 1895 to $311,544,000 in 1905.

This is only the beginning; the coffee and rubber of Brazil, the wheat and beef and hides of Argentina and Uruguay, the copper and nitrates of Chile, the copper and tin of Bolivia, the silver and gold and cotton and sugar of Peru, are but samples of what the soil and mines of that wonderful continent are capable of yielding.

Ninety-seven per cent of the territory of South America is occupied by ten independent republics living under constitutions substantially copied or adapted from our own. Under the new conditions of tranquillity and security which prevail in most of them, their eager invitation to immigrants from the Old World will not long pass unheeded. The pressure of population abroad will inevitably turn its streams of life and labor towards those fertile fields and valleys. The streams have already begun to flow; more than two hundred thousand immigrants entered the Argentine Republic last year; they are coming this year at the rate of over three hundred thousand. Many thousands of Germans have already settled in southern Brazil. They are most welcome in Brazil; they are good and useful citizens there, as they are here; I hope that many more will come to Brazil and every other South American country, and add their vigorous industry and good citizenship to the upbuilding of their adopted home.

With the increase of population in such a field, under free institutions, with the fruits of labor and the rewards of enterprise secure, the production of wealth and the increase of purchasing power will afford a market for the commerce of the world worthy to rank even with the markets of the Orient, as the goal of business enterprise. The material resources of South America are in some important respects complementary to our own; that continent is weakest where North America is strongest as a field for manufactures; it has comparatively little coal and iron. In many respects the people of the two continents are complementary to each other; the South American is polite, refined, cultivated, fond of literature and of expression and of the graces and charms of life, while the North American is strenuous, intense, utilitarian. Where we accumulate, they spend. While we have less of the cheerful philosophy which finds sources of happiness in the existing conditions of life, they have less of the inventive faculty which strives continually to increase the productive power of man and lower the cost of manufacture. The chief merits of the peoples of the two continents are different; their chief defects are different. Mutual intercourse and knowledge cannot fail greatly to benefit both. Each can learn from the other; each can teach much to the other, and each can contribute greatly to the development and prosperity of the other. A large part of their products find no domestic competition here; a large part of our products will find no domestic competition there. The typical conditions exist for that kind of trade which is profitable, honorable, and beneficial to both parties.