The visit of the Secretary of State to South America in 1906 was not a
summer outing. It was not an ordinary event; it was and it was intended
to be a matter of international importance. It was the first time that a
Secretary of State had visited South America during the tenure of his
office, and the visit was designed to show the importance which the
United States attaches to the Pan American conferences, and by personal
contact to learn the aims and views of our southern friends, and to show
also, by personal intercourse, the kindly consideration and the sense of
honorable obligation which the Government of the United States cherishes
for its neighbors to the south without discriminating among them, and to
make clear the destiny common to the peoples of the western world. These
were the reasons which prompted Mr. Root to undertake this message of
good will and of frank explanation, and these were also the reasons
which caused the President of the United States in his message to
Congress to dwell upon the visit, its incidents and its consequences.
Thus President Roosevelt said in his message of December 3, 1906:
The Second International Conference of American Republics,
held in Mexico in the years 1901-02, provided for the
holding of the third conference within five years, and
committed the fixing of the time and place and the
arrangements for the conference to the governing board of
the Bureau of American Republics, composed of the
representatives of all the American nations in Washington.
That board discharged the duty imposed upon it with marked
fidelity and painstaking care, and upon the courteous
invitation of the United States of Brazil, the conference
was held at Rio de Janeiro, continuing from the twenty-third
of July to the twenty-ninth of August last. Many subjects of
common interest to all the American nations were discussed
by the conference, and the conclusions reached, embodied in
a series of resolutions and proposed conventions, will be
laid before you upon the coming-in of the final report of
the American delegates. They contain many matters of
importance relating to the extension of trade, the increase
of communication, the smoothing away of barriers to free
intercourse, and the promotion of a better knowledge and
good understanding between the different countries
represented. The meetings of the conference were harmonious
and the conclusions were reached with substantial unanimity.
It is interesting to observe that in the successive
conferences which have been held the representatives of the
different American nations have been learning to work
together effectively, for, while the First Conference in
Washington in 1889, and the Second Conference in Mexico in
1901-02, occupied many months, with much time wasted in an
unregulated and fruitless discussion, the Third Conference
at Rio exhibited much of the facility in the practical
dispatch of business which characterizes permanent
deliberative bodies, and completed its labors within the
period of six weeks originally allotted for its sessions.
Quite apart from the specific value of the conclusions
reached by the conference, the example of the
representatives of all the American nations engaging in
harmonious and kindly consideration and discussion of
subjects of common interest is itself of great and
substantial value for the promotion of reasonable and
considerate treatment of all international questions. The
thanks of this country are due to the Government of Brazil
and to the people of Rio de Janeiro for the generous
hospitality with which our delegates, in common with the
others, were received, entertained, and facilitated in their
work.
Incidentally to the meeting of the conference, the Secretary
of State visited the city of Rio de Janeiro and was
cordially received by the conference, of which he was made
an honorary president. The announcement of his intention to
make this visit was followed by most courteous and urgent
invitations from nearly all the countries of South America
to visit them as the guest of their Governments. It was
deemed that by the acceptance of these invitations we might
appropriately express the real respect and friendship in
which we hold our sister republics of the southern
continent, and the Secretary, accordingly, visited Brazil,
Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Panama, and Colombia. He
refrained from visiting Paraguay, Bolivia, and Ecuador only
because the distance of their capitals from the seaboard
made it impracticable with the time at his disposal. He
carried with him a message of peace and friendship, and of
strong desire for good understanding and mutual helpfulness;
and he was everywhere received in the spirit of his message.
The members of government, the press, the learned
professions, the men of business, and the great masses of
the people united everywhere in emphatic response to his
friendly expressions and in doing honor to the country and
cause which he represented.
In many parts of South America there has been much
misunderstanding of the attitude and purposes of the United
States toward the other American republics. An idea had
become prevalent that our assertion of the Monroe Doctrine
implied, or carried with it, an assumption of superiority,
and of a right to exercise some kind of protectorate over
the countries to whose territory that doctrine applies.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. Yet that impression
continued to be a serious barrier to good understanding, to
friendly intercourse, to the introduction of American
capital and the extension of American trade. The impression
was so widespread that apparently it could not be reached by
any ordinary means.
It was part of Secretary Root's mission to dispel this unfounded
impression, and there is just cause to believe that he has succeeded. In
an address to the Third Conference at Rio on the thirty-first of
July--an address of such note that I send it in, together with this
message--he said:
We wish for no victories but those of peace; for no
territory except our own; for no sovereignty except the
sovereignty over ourselves. We deem the independence and
equal rights of the smallest and weakest member of the
family of nations entitled to as much respect as those of
the greatest empire, and we deem the observance of that
respect the chief guaranty of the weak against the
oppression of the strong. We neither claim nor desire any
rights or privileges or powers that we do not freely concede
to every American republic.
These words appear to have been received with acclaim in every part of
South America. They have my hearty approval, as I am sure they will have
yours, and I cannot be wrong in the conviction that they correctly
represent the sentiments of the whole American people. I cannot better
characterize the true attitude of the United States in its assertion of
the Monroe Doctrine than in the words of the distinguished former
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Argentina, Doctor Drago, in his speech
welcoming Mr. Root at Buenos Ayres. He spoke of--
the traditional policy of the United States, which, without
accentuating superiority or seeking preponderance, condemned
the oppression of the nations of this part of the world and
the control of their destinies by the Great Powers of
Europe.
It is gratifying to know that in the great city of Buenos
Ayres, upon the arches which spanned the streets, entwined
with Argentine and American flags for the reception of our
representative, there were emblazoned not only the names of
Washington and Jefferson and Marshall, but also, in
appreciative recognition of their services to the cause of
South American independence, the names of James Monroe, John
Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and Richard Rush. We take especial
pleasure in the graceful courtesy of the Government of
Brazil, which has given to the beautiful and stately
building first used for the meeting of the conference the
name of "Palacio Monroe." Our grateful acknowledgments are
due to the Governments and the people of all the countries
visited by the Secretary of State, for the courtesy, the
friendship, and the honor shown to our country in their
generous hospitality to him.
In view of the statements made by Mr. Root himself in his various
addresses, and in view of President Roosevelt's statement of them, and
of the results of the visit, it does not seem necessary further to
detain the reader. It is, however, proper to call attention to the fact
that, in addition to the speeches delivered by Mr. Root in South
America, which were published by the Government of the United States in
an official volume, the reader will find Mr. Root's addresses during a
visit to Mexico which he made in 1906, upon his return from South
America; Mr. Root's addresses before the Central American Peace
Conference, which met in Washington in the fall of 1907; and the various
addresses which Mr. Root made in the United States in his official and
unofficial capacity, explaining to his countrymen the aims and
aspirations of the American peoples to the south of our own Republic,
the progress they have made since their emancipation from European
tutelage, and the future before them which, like ripening fruits, they
need only stretch forth the hand to pluck. The undiscovered land--for to
many of us it is unknown--is a land of exquisite beauty, grace and
courtesy, which the reader may here visit, if he choose, in company with
Mr. Root.
* * * * *
Mr. Root's addresses on his South American trip were all in English. The
addresses of welcome and congratulation were in the language of the
country in which they were delivered. They appear in translated form in
the present volume, and attention is called to the fact that they are
translations, in order to relieve the speakers of responsibility for any
infelicities of expression in their English form.