AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY AND PLENIPOTENTIARY FROM THE UNITED STATES OF
BRAZIL TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, PRESIDENT OF THE CONFERENCE
You do not come here tonight as a stranger to take your place as an
honorary president of this conference. You were the first to express a
desire that the conference should meet this year; it was you who, in
Washington, brought to a happy conclusion the difficult elaboration of
its program and of its rules. Neither can we forget that at one time you
expected to be one of us, a plan you abandoned in order that you might
divide your time among all the republics that claimed the honor of your
visit. The meeting of this conference is thus to a great extent your own
work. In nothing else since you came to your high post have you taken a
more direct and personal interest. You seem to divine in the spirit that
animates you with regard to our continent the mark that your name will
leave in history.
I believe that you and the conference understand each other fully. The
periodical meeting of this body, exclusively composed of American
nations, assuredly means that America forms a political system separate
from that of Europe--a constellation with its own distinct orbit.
By aiming, however, at a common civilization and by trying to make of
the space we occupy on the globe a vast neutral zone of peace, we are
working for the benefit of the whole world. In this way we offer to the
population, to the wealth, and to the genius of Europe a much wider and
safer field of action in our hemisphere than if we formed a disunited
continent, or if we belonged to the belligerent camps into which the Old
World may become divided. One point specially will be of great interest
for you, who so heartily desire the success of this work. The conference
is convinced that its mission is not to force any nation belonging to it
to do anything she would not be freely prepared to do upon her own
initiative; we all recognize that its sole function is to impart our
collective sanction to what has already become unanimous in the opinion
of the whole continent.
This is the first time, sir, that an American Secretary of State
officially visits a foreign nation, and we all feel happy that the first
visit was to Latin America. You will find everywhere the same admiration
for your great country, whose influence in the advance of moral
culture, of political liberty, and of international law has begun
already to counterbalance that of the rest of the world. Mingled with
that admiration you will also find the sentiment that you could not rise
without raising with you our whole continent; that in everything you
achieve we shall have our share of progress.
There are few rolls of honor so brilliant in history as that of men who
have occupied your high position. Among them any distinction on the
ground of their merits would be fated to be unjust; a few names,
however, that shine more vividly in history, such as those of Jefferson,
Monroe, Webster, Clay, Seward, and Blaine--the latter the creator of
these conferences--suffice to show abroad that the United States have
always been as proud of the perfection of the mould in which their
Secretaries of State have been cast and as zealous in this respect as
they have been in the case of their Presidents. We fully appreciate the
luster added to this conference by the part you take in it tonight. It
is with sincere gratification that we welcome you. Here, you may be
sure, you are surrounded by the respect of our whole continent for your
great nation; for President Roosevelt, who has shown himself during his
term of office, and will ever remain, whatever position he may choose to
occupy in public life, one of the leaders of mankind; and for yourself,
whose sound sense of justice and whose sincere interest in the welfare
of all American nations reflect the noblest inspiration that animated
the greatest of your predecessors.
This voyage of yours demonstrates practically to the whole world your
good faith as a statesman and your broad sympathy as an American; it
shows the conscientiousness and the care with which you wish to place
before the President and the country the fundamental points of your
national external policy.
You are now exploring political seas never navigated before, lands not
yet revealed to the genius of your statesmen and toward which they were
attracted, as we are all attracted one to another, by an irresistible
continental gravitation. We feel certain, however, that at the end of
your long journey you will feel that, in their ideals and in their
hearts, the American republics form already a great political unit in
the world.