Chapter VI: Part 6

Nowhere in the world has this progress been more marked than
in Latin America. Out of the wrack of Indian fighting and
race conflicts and civil wars, strong and stable governments
have arisen. Peaceful succession in accord with the people's
will has replaced the forcible seizure of power permitted by
the people's indifference. Loyalty to country, its peace,
its dignity, its honor, has arisen above partizanship for
individual leaders.

You add:

We wish to increase our prosperity, to expand our trade, to
grow in wealth, in wisdom, and in spirit, but our conception
of the true way to accomplish this is not to pull down
others and profit by their ruin, but to help all friends to
a common prosperity and a common growth, that we may all
become greater and stronger together.

The University of Lima, an important factor in our national life, accepts on its part, and in harmony with public thought, your noble invitation.

This University, the distinguished creation of the great Spanish monarchs, proud of its noble lineage of five centuries, jealous of its glories, believes it to be its duty and considers it a special honor to offer you, the illustrious messenger, the deep thinker, and the highest co-worker in the government of Theodore Roosevelt, the peacemaker of the world, a post of honor.

The Faculty of Political and Administrative Sciences, founded thirty years ago by the distinguished President Manuel Pardo, and organized by the eminent public writer Pradier Fodéré--this Faculty, which professes, without limitations, the doctrines of international and political law as proclaimed in your country, is the one which with just right offers you this University emblem, which I am pleased to place in the hands of Your Excellency [addressing the President of Peru, and handing him the medal of the University] that you may kindly deliver it to our illustrious guest.

SPEECH OF DOCTOR RAMÓN RIBEYRO

DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCES

September 14, 1906

The presence among us of the eminent statesman, the Secretary of State of the United States, is indeed of great significance and surpassing importance in the course of our political life, as a singular and unmistakable token of friendship offered by that powerful republic, and as a generous effort to create between the nations of America a stable régime of true understanding and concord.

This work of peace, which is linked with an unvarying respect for the rights of all without regard to the extent of their power, with the close union of their interests, and with a political unity of purpose which springs from the historical origin of the republics of America and the analogy of their institutions, is outlined in a masterly manner in the address which our illustrious guest recently delivered before the congress of American delegates convened at Rio de Janeiro.

The general idea he has expressed therein of the principles of democratic régime, of its severe trials and accidental mistakes, of the virtues which sustain popular government, and of the public education that must prepare and secure it, reveals to us the secret of the prosperity and welfare of the freest and most flourishing republic that has ever existed, and how it has reached the preponderant rank it now occupies among nations.

The noble purpose of our powerful sister of the North, who with a persevering and ever steadfast persistency presses on, is the endeavor to combine continental interests lacking sufficient cohesion, and to promote their common development, thus seeking to reach "the complete rule of justice and peace among nations in lieu of force and war."

These words of Mr. Root contain, in their severe simplicity, a complete statement of his mission of friendship and advice. He seeks to stimulate the common aim of harmonizing the several interests on a permanent basis upon which is to be established the uniform rule of our common existence, the rule of justice never subservient to private and selfish convenience; a barrier against the arbitrary and brutal decisions of force, nearly always dissembled under plausible forms and motives of international tradition.

There exists a fundamental sentiment which opposes the cumulus of violence and usurpation, which in a great degree constitutes historic international law and corrects the deductions made from purely speculative theories,--a sentiment we accept without demur, and which is asserted like the axioms that serve as the basis and foundation of all reasoning and as a rule inspiring human actions.

This concept is that of a law of coexistence, an intuition of the universal conscience, which all human society upholds by reason of the sole fact of its existence.

But the completely empiric and egotistical manner in which nations have understood and applied the right of sovereign independence in their outward dealings, has, up to the present time, been the almost insuperable obstacle to the universal establishment of a rule of justice which governs, in a permanent and uniform manner, the concourse of interests; each state following one of its own modeling, in accordance with the power it holds and the ambitions it is thereby enabled to pursue.

This tendency, whether open or covert, hardly restrained by the formalities of modern civilization, which seldom succeeds in masking the painful reality, has created the singular spectacle witnessed at the present time,--that is, the undefined aggravation of a military situation which absorbs the greater part of the resources of nations, wrung from the labor of humanity.

The constant fear of armed aggression has brought about political alliances of a purely transitory character, which assure nothing and, in truth, mean nothing but the mutual imputation of violence and outrage, unhappily but too well demonstrated as justifiable motives for apprehension, by reason of the ominous antecedents of an international régime founded on the supremacy of power.

This precarious guaranty, the fruit of an unsteady and purely political combination which may undergo the most unexpected alterations, cannot assure a stable situation, because it is not in itself the constitution of a common, strong, and commanding law; but, on the contrary, is the distrust of the efficacy of the latter and a certain traditional disdain for a humane and peaceful solution of international affairs.

When the anxiety of danger or an unforeseen obstacle does not prevent recourse to arms, war breaks out if the motive is simply the securing of an advantage sustained by a military power which the country chosen as the object of aggression cannot forcibly check.

True it is that at the present time wars are less frequent and more humane in the manner they are conducted than heretofore; but their causes are ever the same, and the intervals between them are only due to the increasing number of military powers, and to the fear of consequent complications of political interests which it is hazardous to provoke.

Treaties of peace since the seventeenth century, which recorded the birth of the modern law of nations, have on some occasions passed through real transformation in obedience to the law of evolution of human societies, which favor equilibrium, not as established by frail or artificial alliances, nor by combinations of the powerful, but by its ethnical factors and the amplitude of the national life based primarily on the progress of its institutions, in the ever-increasing intervention of the people in their own affairs and the reality and soundness of its political and civil liberty.

The definite establishment of an international juridical organ, sufficiently authorized and efficacious in its action, is yet a future event. Law in this respect has not as yet gone beyond the limits of a sphere that is at most one of pure speculation,--a worthy ideal, it is true, but one which in actuality has only succeeded in modifying the forms of violence by recording in the customary code of nations a few rules to lessen the brutality of the action, without eliminating the arbitrariness inherent in the sovereignty of arms.

In the work of common security and prosperity that involves the future of this continent, and once carried into effect, will signalize the most effective advance in the law of nations, a prominent part belongs to the great republic that has staked her power and fortune on peace. In this work we have endeavored to coöperate in good faith and without reserve, and in it, also, the ardent sympathy and the boundless confidence of the Peruvian people will follow.

And since the unmerited honor has fallen to my lot to address myself on this memorable occasion to the distinguished personage, to the high dignitary of the nation which represents the greatest intensity of national life on account of the unrestricted development of the human faculties and the most certain and practical evolution of law among nations, I believe that I interpret the unanimous sentiment of my colleagues and of my country, in furnishing him the complete evidence of our cordial adherence and of our faith in the work intrusted to his talents and to his high character.

REPLY OF MR. ROOT

I am deeply sensible of the great honor which you confer upon me, an honor coming from this primate of the universities of the New World; an honor which receives me into the company of men learned, devoted to science, the disciples of truth, men eminent in the republic of letters. I am the more appreciative of this emblem because I am myself the son of a college professor, born within the precincts of a learned institution, and all my life closely associated with higher education in the United States of America. But I realize, sir, that my personality plays no considerable part in the ceremony of today. Happy is he who comes, by whatever chance, to stand as the representative of a great cause; as the representative of ideas which conciliate the feelings and arouse the enthusiasm of men; for the cause sheds light upon his person, however small, and the honor of his purpose reflects honor on him.

With the greatest satisfaction I have heard from the lips of the learned rector and professor of this university so just and high an estimate of the contributions made by my country to the cause of ordered liberty and justice in the world. I feel that what has been said here today is of far greater weight than any ordinary compliment, because it comes from men who speak under the grave responsibility of their high station as instructors of their countrymen, and after deliberate study, resulting in definite and certain conclusions.

It is a matter of most interesting reflection that after the nations of the Old World, from which we took our being, had sought for many years to gain wealth and strength and profit by the enforcement of a narrow and mistaken colonial policy, the revolt of the colonies of the New World brought to the mother nations infinitely greater blessings even than they were seeking. The reflex action of the working of the spirit of freedom on these shores of the new hemisphere upon the welfare of the countless millions of the Old World, has been of a value incalculable and inconceivable to the minds against whose mistaken policy we revolted.

I have always thought, sir, that the chief contribution of the United States of America to political science, was the device of incorporating in written constitutions an expression of the great principles which underlie human freedom and human justice, and putting it in the power of the judicial branch of the government to pass judgment upon the conformity of political action to those principles.

When in the fullness of time the hour had come for the new experiment in government among men, and it was the fate of the young and feeble colonies upon the coast of the North Atlantic to make the experiment, the Old World was full of the most dismal forebodings as to the result. The world was told that the experiment of democratic government meant the rule of the mob; that it might work well today, but that tomorrow the mob which had had but half a breakfast and could expect no dinner, would take control; and that the tyranny of the mob was worse than the tyranny of any individual.

The provisions of our constitutions guard against the tyranny of the mob, for at the time when men can deal in harmony with the principles of justice, when no selfish motive exists, when no excited passions exist, the constitution declares the great principles of justice--that no man shall be deprived of his property without due process of the law; that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation; that a person accused of crime shall be entitled to be informed of the charge against him, and given opportunity to defend himself. These provisions are essential to the preservation of liberty; and in the hands of judicial power rests the prerogative of declaring that whenever a congress, or a president, or a general, or whatever officer of whatever rank or dignity infringes, by a hair's breadth, upon any one of these great impersonal declarations of human rights, his acts cease to have official effect. The substitution of the divine quality of judgment, of the judicial quality in man, that quality which is bound by all that honor, by all that respect for human rights, by all that self-respect can accomplish, to lay aside all fear or favor and decide justly--the substitution of that quality for the fevered passions of the hour, for political favor and political hope, for political ambition, for personal selfishness and personal greed,--that is the contribution, the great contribution, of the American Constitution to the political science of the world.

If we pass to the field most ably and interestingly discussed in the paper to which we have just listened, to the field of international justice, we find the same principle less fully developed. I had almost said we find the need for the application of the same principle. All international law and international justice depend upon national law and national justice. No assemblage of nations can be expected to establish and maintain any higher standard in their dealings with one another than that which each maintains within its own borders. Just as the standard of justice and civilization in a community depends upon the individual character of the elements of the community, so the standard of justice among nations depends upon the standard established in each individual nation. Now, in the field of international arbitration we find a less fully developed sense of impersonal justice than we find in our municipal jurisprudence. Many years ago the Marquis of Salisbury, in a very able note, pointed out the extreme difficulty which lies in the way of international arbitration, arising from the difficulty of securing arbitrators who will act impartially, the trouble being that the world has not yet passed, in general, out of that stage of development in which men, even if they be arbitrators, act diplomatically instead of acting judicially. Arbitrations are too apt, therefore, to lead to diplomatic compromises rather than to judicial decisions. The remedy is not in abandoning the principle of arbitration, but it is by pressing on in every country and among all countries the quickened conscience, the higher standard, the judicial idea, the sense of the responsibility for impartial judgment in international affairs, as distinguished from the opportunity for negotiation in international affairs. We are too apt, both those who are despondent about the progress of civilization and those who are cynical about the unselfishness of mankind, to be impatient in our judgment, and to forget how long the life of a nation is, and how slow the processes of civilization are; how long it takes to change character and to educate whole peoples up to different standards of moral law. The principle of arbitration requires not merely declarations by governments, by congresses; it requires that education of the people of all civilized countries up to the same standard which now exists regarding the sacredness of judicial functions exercised in our courts.

It does not follow from this that the declaration of the principle of arbitration is not of value; it does not follow that governments and congresses are not advancing the cause of international justice; a principle recognized and declared always gains fresh strength and force; but for the accomplishment of the results which all of us desire in the substitution of arbitration for war, we must not be content with the declaration of principles; we must carry on an active campaign of universal national and international education, elevating the idea of the sacredness of the exercise of the judicial function in arbitration as well as in litigation between individuals. Still deeper than that goes the duty that rests upon us. Arbitration is but the method of preventing war after nations have been drawn up in opposition to each other with serious differences and excited feelings. The true, the permanent, and the final method of preventing war, is to educate the people who make war or peace, the people who control parliaments and congresses, to a love for justice and regard for the rights of others. So we come to the duty that rests here--not in the whims or the preference or the policy of a monarch, but here, in this university, in every institution of learning throughout the civilized world, with every teacher--the responsibility of determining the great issues of peace and war through the responsibility of teaching the people of our countries the love of justice, teaching them to seek the victories of peace rather than the glories of war; to regard more highly an act of justice and of generosity than even an act of courage or an act of heroism. In this great work of educating the people of the American republics to peace, there are no political divisions. As there is, and has been since the dawn of civilization, but one republic of science, but one republic of letters, let there be but one republic of the politics of peace, one great university of the professors and instructors of justice, of respect for human rights, of consideration for others, and of the peace of the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Mr. Everett to Señor Osma, November 16, 1852.

PANAMA

THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

SPEECH OF HIS EXCELLENCY RICARDO ARIAS

SECRETARY OF GOVERNMENT AND FOREIGN RELATIONS

In the National Assembly, at Panama, September 21, 1906

You have just visited the wealthiest capitals of South America, real emporiums of its richness; there you have been received with great magnificence. Our outward manifestations of joy on the occasion of your visit may, therefore, appear to you very humble; but you can rest assured that none of them will surpass us in the intensity of sympathetic feeling toward your person and toward the noble American people that you so worthily represent.

We Panamanians always remember with gratitude the interest we inspired in you from the very first days of our national existence, and we bear in mind very specially your timely speech delivered before the Union League Club of Chicago,[4] when our destiny was pending on the scales of a decision of your Senate; and therefore we avail ourselves of this joyful opportunity to receive you with the cordiality due to an old and good friend.

It has been, and it is yet, the vehement desire of your country to bring into closer ties, as far as possible, its political and commercial relations with the Latin American countries. The similarity of traditions and institutions, the vicinity and continuity of their territories, and the vast field of commercial expansion which they offer, fully justify that natural, legitimate desire, which is also mutually beneficial; but there being between yours and the latter countries essential differences of language, race, disposition, and education, there is bound to exist in them the suspicion which is naturally engendered by the unknown, and thus it is that the first steps taken toward the accomplishment of your desire should have been the removal of that suspicion by means of friendly intercourse and mutual acquaintance.

With the tact brought forth by your vast intelligence and learning, you fully understood that those do not love each other well who are not intimately acquainted; and it is owing to this fact that you decided to come in person to visit and to know the Latin Americans by your own observation and study. No doubt you carry with you a joyful impression of the progress and nobleness of disposition of our southern brothers, together with the assurance that your mission will achieve a new and splendid triumph for that American diplomacy whereof you are the skilled director, and the principal object of which is the accomplishment of the desire of which I have already spoken.

Being desirous to coöperate in the aims you have in view and with the hope of dispelling certain existing misunderstandings concerning the motives and intentions which originated our present pleasant relations, in a statement which I recently addressed to your government through its minister plenipotentiary here, I recounted the historical events which engendered our national existence and those special relations which link us to your country, in order that when the seal of diplomatic silence is removed, and that statement becomes public property, the world may know, through the unimpeachable testimony of history, that only ideals of the highest altruism served as a guide to the foundation of our republic and to the celebration of the treaty concerning the construction of the interoceanic canal for our benefit and _pro mundi beneficio_.

Panama offers you a splendid field to promote the wise international policy which animates your mind. We being of similar conditions to our Latin American brothers, being linked to your country by the closest ties that can exist between two independent nations, you having the means of exerting decisive influence upon our future life and we being situated in the constant path of universal transit, shall be an evident, shining example of the benefit which your country can confer upon the countries of our race.

The fruits of your influence are already felt and seen. Peace, which we consider a blessing, is a permanent fact. Under its shelter, and under the assurances given us by your illustrious President in his famous letter of October 18, 1904, addressed to the Secretary of War, Panama has entered with firm step upon the path of material, intellectual, and moral development. Those who knew us a little over two years ago, disheartened and ruined by bad government and civil war, and see today the change that has taken place in such a short time, carry to the north and south the gratifying news of our regeneration and thereby contribute to dispel unfounded suspicions regarding yourselves.

These good results are the forerunners of greater benefits in the future, and of the effect of the coöperation of the agents of your government in the progress of the country in general, of their friendly and timely advice, and of their decided moral support whenever there has been need thereof.

I will profit by this opportunity to convey to you the gratitude of the government and people of Panama for the special consideration which has been extended to them by the government of your country. This has been evidenced principally by the diplomatic staff sent to us, from the very able Honorable William I. Buchanan, your first minister plenipotentiary, to the popular Honorable Charles E. Magoon, who can hardly be replaced, and whose separation from the post he occupies with general satisfaction has caused great regret in the country; and later you sent us, doing us an unmerited honor, in the first place, by special order of your very noble President, your Secretary of War, Honorable William H. Taft, who established the relations between our two countries on the happy basis of mutual cordiality and justice, on which they are now established; and now, Mr. Secretary, you do us the great honor of coming yourself on a visit, placing us on a level with the powerful Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay; and, furthermore, which appears to be the extreme limit of what is possible, you allow us to look forward to the coming visit of your great President, the most distinguished of existing rulers--a special honor which has not been vouchsafed even to the most powerful nations of the world. Panama, overwhelmed with so many marks of appreciation, will preserve them as an everlasting remembrance of gratitude toward your noble country; and in return, though it be but partial, we will follow your advice, we will coöperate without reserve and with enthusiasm in the great work of the interoceanic canal, which is bound to be the most magnificent monument of the grandeur of your people; and we will likewise support you in the mission of American brotherhood which you have undertaken, founding a nation which shall distinguish itself by its love of work, of honor, of order, and of justice.

REPLY OF MR. ROOT

I thank you for your kind welcome to me and for the friendship to my country expressed in that welcome, and I thank you for the honor conferred upon me by this reception in the legislative body which is charged with the government of this republic. You have truly said, sir, that I am deeply interested in the affairs of the people of Panama. At the time of the events which led to your independence, I studied your history carefully and thoroughly from original documents, in order to determine in my own mind what the course of my country ought to be. From that study have resulted a keen sense of the manifold injuries and injustices under which the people of Panama have suffered in years past, a strong sympathy with you in your efforts and aspirations toward a better condition, a fervent hope for your prosperity and welfare.

It is with the greatest pleasure that I have heard the expressions of friendship for my country, because of my feeling toward you and because of the special relations which exist between the two countries. We are engaged together in the prosecution of a great, a momentous enterprise--an enterprise which has been the dream not only of the early navigators who first colonized your coasts, but of the most progressive of mankind for four centuries. Its successful accomplishment will make Panama the very center of the world's trade; you will stand upon the greatest highway of commerce; more than the ancient glories of the isthmus will be restored; and there lies before you in the future of this successful enterprise wealth, prosperity, the opportunity for education, for cultivation, and for intercourse with all the world such as has never before been brought to any people. The success of the enterprise will unite the far-separated Atlantic and Pacific coasts in my country; it will give to us the credit of great deeds done, and make the Atlantic and Pacific for us as but one ocean; and the success of this enterprise will give to the world a new highway of commerce and the possibility of a distinct and enormous advance in that communication between nations which is the surest guaranty of peace and civilization.

The achievement of this work is to be accomplished by us jointly. You furnish the country, the place, the soil, the atmosphere, the surrounding population among which the people who do the work are to live and where the work is to be maintained. We furnish the capital and the trained constructive ability which has grown up in the course of centuries of development of the northern continent. The work is difficult and delicate; the two peoples, the Anglo-American and the Spanish-American, are widely different in their traditions, their laws, their customs, their methods of thinking and speaking and doing business. It often happens that we misunderstand each other; it often happens that we fail to appreciate your good qualities and that you fail to appreciate ours; and that with perfectly good intentions, with the best of purposes and kindliest of feelings, we clash, we fail to understand each other, we get at cross purposes, and misconception and discord are liable to arise. Let us remember this in all our intercourse; let us be patient with each other; let us believe in the sincerity of our mutual good purposes and kindly feelings, and be patient and forbearing each with the other, so that we may go on together in the accomplishment of this great enterprise; together bring it to a successful conclusion; together share in the glory of the great work done and in the prosperity that will come from the result.

Mr. President and gentlemen, let me assure you that in the share which the United States is taking and is to take in this work, there is and can be but one feeling and one desire toward the people of Panama. It is a feeling of friendship sincere and lasting; it is a feeling of strong desire that wisdom may control the deliberations of this assembly; that judgment and prudence and love of country may rule in all your councils and may control all your actions; it is a desire and a firm purpose that so far as in us lies, there shall be preserved for you the precious boon of free self-government. We do not wish to govern you or interfere in your government, because we are larger and stronger; we believe that the principle of liberty and the rights of men are more important than the size of armies or the number of battleships. Your independence which we recognized first among the nations of the earth, it is our desire to have maintained inviolate. Believe this, be patient with us, as we will be patient with you; and I hope, I believe, that at some future day we shall all be sailing through the canal together, congratulating each other upon our share in that great and beneficent work.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] "The Ethics of the Panama Question"; address before the Union League Club of Chicago, February 22, 1904--see _Addresses on International Subjects_, pp. 175-206, published by the Harvard University Press.

COLOMBIA

CARTAGENA

ADDRESS OF THE MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS, HIS EXCELLENCY VÁSQUEZ-COBO

At a Breakfast given to Mr. Root, September 24, 1906

Upon receiving your excellency within the confines of our heroic and glorious Cartagena, I present to you a cordial greeting of welcome, in the name of Colombia, of his excellency the President of the Republic, and in my own.

You return to your own country to enjoy merited honors and laurels after a long tour, giving a hearty embrace of friendship to our sisters, the republics of the South; and in breaking your journey upon our burning shores we receive you as the herald of peace, of justice, and of concord with which the great republic of the North greets the American continent. I trust to God that these walls, the austere witnesses of our glory, will serve as a monument whereby this visit may be noted in history.

The honorable Minister Barrett, the worthy and estimable representative of your excellency's Government, has just completed a journey through a large part of our vast territory; he, better than any one, will be able to tell your excellency what he has seen in our beautiful and fertile valleys and mountains, in our flourishing cities and fields, and among our five millions of lusty, high-minded, peace-loving, and hard-working inhabitants, who today think only of peace and useful and honest toil.

This is the nation that greets you today and with loyalty and frankness clasps the hand of her sister of the North.

Mr. Secretary, upon thanking you for the honor of this visit, I fervently pray that a happy outcome may crown your efforts in the great work of American fraternity, and I drink to the prosperity and greatness of the United States, to its President, and especially to your excellency.

REPLY OF MR. ROOT

Believe, I beg you, in the sincerity of my appreciation and my thanks for the courtesy with which you have received me, and for the honor which you have shown me. When the suggestion was made that upon my return from a voyage encircling the continent of South America, I should stop at Cartagena for an interview with you, sir, before returning to my own country, I accepted with alacrity and with pleasure, because it was most grateful to me to testify by my presence upon your shores to my high respect for your great country, the country of Bolívar; to my sincere desire that all questions which exist between the United States of Colombia and the United States of America may be settled peacefully, in the spirit of friendship, of mutual esteem, and with honor to both countries. Especially, also, I was glad to come to Colombia as an evidence of my esteem and regard for that noble and great man whom it is the privilege of Colombia to call her President today--General Reyes. I have had the privilege of personal acquaintance with him, and I look upon his conduct of affairs in the chief magistracy of your republic with the twofold interest of one who loves his fellowmen and desires the prosperity and happiness of the people of Colombia, and of a personal regard and friendship for the President himself.

I have been much gratified during my visit to so many of the republics of South America to find universally the spirit of a new industrial and commercial awakening, to find a new era of enterprise and prosperity dawning in the southern continent.

Mr. Minister and gentlemen, it will be the cause of sincere happiness to me if through the present friendly relations, based upon personal knowledge acquired here, I may do something toward helping the republic of Colombia forward along the pathway of the new development of South America. With your vast agricultural and mineral wealth, with the incalculable richness of your domain, the wealth and prosperity of Colombia are sure to come some time. Let us hope that they will come while we are yet living, in order that you may transfer to your children not the possibility but the realization of the increased greatness of your country. Let us hope that some advance of this new era of progress may come from the pleasant friendships formed today. While I return my thanks to you for your courtesy, let me assure you that there is nothing that could give greater pleasure to the President and to the people of the United States of America than to feel that they may have some part in promoting the prosperity and the happiness of this sister republic.

I ask you to join me in drinking to the peace, the prosperity, the order, the justice, the liberty of the republic of Colombia, and long life and a prosperous career in office to its President--General Reyes.

THE VISIT TO MEXICO

Following Secretary Root's visit to South America, with its
auspicious results, the President of Mexico, Porfirio Díaz,
extended an official invitation to visit the republic
immediately to the south of us, in the belief that such a
visit would have equally happy results in strengthening and
increasing the "steadfast friendship" existing between the
two neighboring nations.

Mr. Root, together with his wife and daughter, started for
Mexico by special train, arriving in San Antonio on
September 28, 1907. On the evening of the day of his arrival
in San Antonio, a banquet was tendered to Mr. Root and the
Mexican Committee which had come to San Antonio to welcome
him and escort him into their country.

On Sunday the 29th, the Root party, together with the
Mexican Committee, proceeded across the boundary into
Mexico, and were met at the station of Nuevo Laredo by a
Mexican delegation. Thence they continued to Mexico City,
where the honors extended to Mr. Root were in keeping with
the traditional hospitality of the ancient capital of the
Montezumas. During his stay the degree of honorary member of
the Mexican Academy of Legislation and Jurisprudence was
conferred upon him.

A Mexican publication of 314 pages, entitled _El Señor Root
en Mexico_, contains in parallel Spanish and English columns
a detailed account of the visit, which extended from
September 28 to October 16. It is to be regretted that this
volume is defective in that many of the speeches made during
the visit are not fully reported. It is possible, however,
to gather from those which have been preserved, a keen sense
of the cordial reception accorded him by the officials and
representative citizens of the republic, and the earnest and
eloquent terms in which he reciprocated the expressions of
regard for his country and of appreciation of his own
services to his country and the world.

The most progressive epoch in Mexico's history was the
thirty years of Díaz's supremacy; and it was in the heyday
of that period that Mr. Root made his visit to Mexico and
paid to President Díaz the tributes which appear in the
following pages. During these thirty years, he was always a
firm friend of the United States, and no diplomatic
misunderstandings arose which were not peaceably adjusted in
a spirit of neighborly friendship. Díaz shares with
President Roosevelt the honor of submitting the first
international controversy to the Hague Tribunal of
Arbitration for determination, in what is known as "The
Pious Fund of the Californias."

THE VISIT TO MEXICO

SAN ANTONIO

SPEECH OF MR. ROOT

At a Banquet of the International Club in Honor of Mr. Root and the Mexican Envoys, September 28, 1907

Upon his arrival in San Antonio, Texas, on his way to
Mexico, Mr. Root was met by a reception committee designated
by President Díaz, which had come to San Antonio to welcome
him and to escort him to the national capital. While in San
Antonio, Mr. Root and the Mexican Reception Committee were
the guests of the International Club of that city; and on
the evening of the day of their arrival, a banquet was
tendered them by that club. At this banquet Mr. Root made
what may be called the first address of his Mexican visit.
The opening remarks of this speech were not reported in full
in the volume entitled _El Señor Root en Mexico_, or
elsewhere; nor were the speeches of the members of the
Mexican Reception Committee. Mr. Root began by a reference
to the ideals adopted by men and by nations, declaring his
opinion that a nation has a right to exist only in so far as
it shows its ability to care for the welfare of other
nations and the relations of every man with his fellowmen.
He spoke of the rising tide of American business which is
powerfully spreading towards the south by reason of the
financial conditions in the east of the United States, every
day becoming more stringent through the volume and
accumulation of resources. After this introduction, he spoke
at some length about the Panama Canal, the construction of
which already was in its opening stage. On this subject he
said:

The Panama Canal is now an unquestionable certainty. Relations between the United States and the different nations which are grouped around the Caribbean Sea, are becoming every day closer. It is impossible to anticipate at present the tonnage which will pass through that waterway, nor can we predict the number of vessels which will be required for its transportation; but we do already know, that never in the world has a new and universal trade route been opened, without bringing about a change in the history of the entire world. And it is for this reason I feel that upon us has fallen the mission of assisting all those nations which will find themselves involved in the new influence. At present we are doing everything within our power to assist Cuba in establishing self-government. We have endeavored to stretch out our hand to unhappy Santo Domingo, ruined by its civil wars, so that it may rise and also govern itself. We have plunged into a discussion which really has no further object than that of settling the disputes and the differences which have arisen between the United States and the republic of Colombia. And all this we do, not only through the new interest which the prosperity of all those countries develops in ourselves, but principally through a profound comprehension of the truth contained in the principle above enunciated, that a nation only lives as far as it demonstrates its right to existence by its usefulness to humanity. And one of the most conclusive guarantees of the success of this effort is found in the solid and loyal friendship which exists between the United States and Mexico, with which nation, day after day, and year after year, we are working within the limits of a peaceful and humanitarian national policy, which at the same time is wise and intelligent. Our two republics, now so prosperous, harmoniously work to promote a similar prosperity amongst their sister republics to the south; and I sincerely hope that this happy state of affairs may be prolonged for a long time to come, and that success may finally crown our united efforts. In this manner the two republics will fully prove their right to live, and will show the world that their citizens are able and competent to govern themselves without the assistance of either kings or aristocracies, seeing that they can fill the highest mission of man, which consists in the maintenance of law, order, justice, liberty, and peace....

I also desire to say how greatly I appreciate the distinguished courtesy shown to myself and to the Government of the United States, by the long journey which has been undertaken by the committee charged with the representation of President Díaz and the Mexican Government, crossing the frontier of their country into the state of Texas, in order to give me welcome on the occasion of the visit I am about to make. Indeed, it causes me the greatest satisfaction to be able to declare, without any reserve whatever, that this action is entirely in accordance with the conduct observed by Mexico in all international matters which have arisen between the two countries, since I have taken any part in the government of our own. With an immense boundary line which is only marked by the changeable and capricious currents of the Río Grande; with the constant traffic across our common frontier; with thousands of Americans residing in that country; with the countless number of enterprises in which Americans are interested on the other side of the Río Grande, and with the resources of the two countries, there are always a number of questions to be solved by the representatives of one and the other, and there can be no doubt that they will always be solved with the same good-will and courtesy of which such evident proof has been given by General Rincón Gallardo, by Mr. Limantour and by their travelling companions in coming here tonight.[5]

RECEPTION BY THE MEXICAN DELEGATION AT NUEVO LAREDO

SPEECH OF WELCOME BY GENERAL PEDRO RINCÓN GALLARDO

September 29, 1907

Especially appointed for this purpose by the President, in behalf of the government of the republic, we have the honor to tender to your excellency the most cordial welcome on your happy arrival in Mexico, whose people, of whom we must consider ourselves the faithful echo, pledge the continued good relations with the people of the United States. The reception is an homage to your well-known merits, and the people are anxious to receive your excellency as their illustrious guest and highly esteemed friend. The people of Mexico, during your excellency's brief sojourn amongst us, will show how true is their esteem for you and how proud they will feel on the occasion of this visit of your excellency, accompanied by Mrs. and Miss Root; an event the memory of which will remain forever engraved on our hearts.

MR. ROOT'S REPLY

I beg you to believe that I am highly appreciative of the cordial and hospitable greeting with which I have been received by you on the threshold of your beautiful and wonderful country. I hope that the visit which now begins will not merely give me personally the opportunity I have long desired, to see this great country and its marvels, to meet its public men, and especially to see its illustrious President. I hope that it will also serve, as it is intended to serve, as evidence of the desire of the government and people of the United States to strengthen and increase the steadfast friendship which they have long felt for the people and government of Mexico.

CITY OF MEXICO

SPEECH OF PORFIRIO DÍAZ

PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC

At a Banquet at the National Palace, October 2, 1907

In the name of the Mexican people and of their government I tender you this banquet, acknowledging thereby those sentiments of sympathy which are felt and which distinguish one and another, the people of the United States, the great citizen who presides over its high destinies, and the illustrious statesman who honors us with his interesting and very welcome visit. Bonds of sympathy and fellow-feeling, Mr. Secretary, which are not new, but which germinated in the breasts of our fathers at the inception of the independence of our country, our fathers who contemplated with patriotic enthusiasm the daring exploits in war and imitated the political examples set by your heroic liberators; sentiments which we, of subsequent generations, have also cultivated; because, in studying the causes which produce the prodigious national prosperity with which your country has astounded the world, we become accustomed to admire, to magnify perhaps, the indomitable will, energy, labor, and civic and patriotic solidarity which constitute the energetic and abundantly productive type of your countrymen.

The Mexican people, Mr. Secretary, are honored as well as pleased to have you in their midst--honored, because you are the fountain of honor as a noted statesman of our century, and highly pleased because your clear and rapid conception promises us that, seeing with your own eyes the kind and well-merited feelings with which we harbor your countrymen who seek in our land the generous treatment proportionate to their intelligence, perseverance, and indefatigable labor, you may affirm that in Mexico we profess ideas which, carried out in cordial reciprocity, must make happy and loyal friends the two nations which are united by contiguity.

In conclusion, gentlemen, I extend my thanks to the distinguished ladies who have had the kindness to honor and embellish our tables with their presence; and permit me to invite you to drink with them and with me, hoping that the national harmonizing of individual rights and just liberties, which is called the United States of America, may be perpetuated in its increasing moral and material progress, which has given prestige throughout the world to government by popular representation.

I drink also to the personal happiness of that great friend of universal peace, president of the grand republic, the Honorable Theodore Roosevelt, and to the hope that our illustrious guest and his lovable family may find in Mexico a reception as pleasing as their interesting visit is to the Mexican people.

MR. ROOT'S REPLY

I thank you most sincerely for the kind and gracious words which you have used regarding my poor self, regarding my President, from whom I bring to you and to the Mexican people a message of deep and warm friendship and good wishes, and regarding my country, which I believe is fitly represented by this brief visit of friendship, made with the purpose, not of creating, for they are already created, but of increasing and advancing the ideas of amity and mutual helpfulness between two great republics.

I cannot keep my mind from reverting to a former visit by an American Secretary of State to the republic of Mexico. Thirty-eight years ago, Mr. Seward, a really great American Secretary of State, visited your country. How vast the difference between what he found and what I find! Then was a country torn by a civil war, sunk in poverty, in distress. Now I find a country great in its prosperity, in its wealth, in its activity and enterprise, in the moral strength of its just and equal laws, and unalterable purpose to advance its people steadily along the pathway of progress.

Mr. President, the people of the United States feel that the world owes this great change chiefly to you. They are grateful to you for it, for they rejoice in the prosperity and happiness of Mexico. We believe, sir, that we are richer and happier because you are richer and happier, and we rejoice that you are no longer a poor and struggling nation needing assistance, but that you are strong and vigorous, so that we can go with you side by side in demonstrating to the world that republics are able to govern themselves wisely; side by side in helping to carry to our less fortunate sisters the blessing of peace.

Mr. President, I have said that we need not create, but wish to strengthen, the ties of friendship. It is my hope that through more perfect understanding, through personal intercourse, through the more complete unity of action to be acquired by the individual intercourse of the men of Mexico and the men of the United States, not only may our friendship be increased, but our power for usefulness--for that usefulness which demonstrates the right of nations to be perpetuated--may be enlarged.

For the generous hospitality, for the spirit of friendship with which you and the people of Mexico have welcomed me as a representative of the United States, I thank you and them, and I hope that there may be found in this visit and in this welcome not merely the pleasure of a holiday, but a step along the pathway of two great nations in their service to humanity.

RECEPTION AT THE MUNICIPAL PALACE

SPEECH OF GOVERNOR GUILLERMO DE LANDA Y ESCANDÓN

October 3, 1907

Last year, in accordance with the wishes of your President, you undertook to visit and become acquainted with Latin America, and for that purpose you made an extended voyage which was fruitful in happy results.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century adventurous Spanish and Portuguese navigators sailed from the Atlantic into the Pacific, effecting important discoveries of which the object was to rescue from darkness populous regions which, since then, have become part of the civilized world. You have sailed over nearly the same route four centuries later, proclaiming a message of peace and concord in all those regions whose inhabitants greeted you with acclamations from the northern ports of Brazil around to those of Colombia and Panama.

You are now crowning your mission by visiting the Mexican Republic, and you arrive at this capital animated by the same aspirations which actuated you when you set foot on the cruiser _Charleston_ in the port of New York on July 4, 1906.

Your aims are so noble and great that they cannot but be sincere. The course you have set before yourself would not be possible for one whose head did not harbor the loftiest ideals, and whose heart did not quicken to the finest sentiments.

Your President is a great man; rectitude and loyalty are the dominant features of his character. A soldier, and a brave one, he knows what war is, and therefore he abhors it with all the force of his large heart; the war which engages his thoughts is war upon war itself.

It would not befit me at this moment, much as I should wish to do so, to extol the character of the supreme magistrate of my country. But I may say that, though a soldier like your own President, he detests war in the same degree, and that the ideals and aims of both these great men are alike directed toward an object sublime and desired of all men--peace.

The nations which both statesmen govern follow their lead in this respect with energetic unanimity; and it is safe to augur the happiest results from a concert so auspicious.

You, sir, second the purposes of both of those leaders with a zeal which nothing can cool; your mind has been formed at the bar--in the school of justice; and, like our two Presidents, you abominate injustice and insincerity.

You also know what war is, and you share the aversion of the two great American statesmen who are the standard bearers of peace in the new world.

Welcome, excellency, to this ancient capital of the empire of Montezuma. She opens her gates to you and to your family, and offers you the sincerest hospitality, hoping you may preserve of her recollections as lasting as will be her memory of the visit of one whose happy mission it has been to carry everywhere the spirit of peace, good-will, and fraternity.

MR. ROOT'S REPLY

Governor Landa, your welcome now is as it has been from the first instant of my visit, both graceful and grateful. I have been most delighted by the many interesting things I have seen here.