I beg you to believe that I highly appreciate and thank you for the
honor you do me.
I bring from my country a special greeting to her elder sisters in the
civilization of America.
Unlike as we are in many respects, we are alike in this, that we are all
engaged under new conditions, and free from the traditional forms and
limitations of the Old World in working out the same problem of popular
self-government.
It is a difficult and laborious task for each of us. Not in one
generation nor in one century can the effective control of a superior
sovereign, so long deemed necessary to government, be rejected, and
effective self-control by the governed be perfected in its place. The
first fruits of democracy are many of them crude and unlovely; its
mistakes are many, its partial failures many, its sins not few. Capacity
for self-government does not come to man by nature. It is an art to be
learned, and it is also an expression of character to be developed among
all the thousands of men who exercise popular sovereignty.
To reach the goal toward which we are pressing forward, the governing
multitude must first acquire knowledge that comes from universal
education; wisdom that follows practical experience; personal
independence and self-respect befitting men who acknowledge no
superior; self-control to replace that external control which a
democracy rejects; respect for law; obedience to the lawful expressions
of the public will; consideration for the opinions and interests of
others equally entitled to a voice in the state; loyalty to that
abstract conception--one's country--as inspiring as that loyalty to
personal sovereigns which has so illumined the pages of history;
subordination of personal interests to the public good; love of justice
and mercy, of liberty and order. All these we must seek by slow and
patient effort; and of how many shortcomings in his own land and among
his own people each one of us is conscious!
Yet no student of our times can fail to see that not America alone but
the whole civilized world is swinging away from its old governmental
moorings and intrusting the fate of its civilization to the capacity of
the popular mass to govern. By this pathway mankind is to travel,
whithersoever it leads. Upon the success of this our great undertaking
the hope of humanity depends.
Nor can we fail to see that the world makes substantial progress toward
more perfect popular self-government.
I believe it to be true that, viewed against the background of
conditions a century, a generation, a decade ago, government in my own
country has advanced, in the intelligent participation of the great mass
of the people, in the fidelity and honesty with which they are
represented, in respect for law, in obedience to the dictates of a sound
morality, and in effectiveness and purity of administration.
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 risen above
partisanship for individual leaders. The rule of law supersedes the rule
of man. Property is protected and the fruits of enterprise are secure.
Individual liberty is respected. Continuous public policies are
followed; national faith is held sacred. Progress has not been equal
everywhere, but there has been progress everywhere. The movement in the
right direction is general. The right tendency is not exceptional; it is
continental. The present affords just cause for satisfaction; the future
is bright with hope.
It is not by national isolation that these results have been
accomplished, or that this progress can be continued. No nation can live
unto itself alone and continue to live. Each nation's growth is a part
of the development of the race. There may be leaders and there may be
laggards; but no nation can long continue very far in advance of the
general progress of mankind, and no nation that is not doomed to
extinction can remain very far behind. It is with nations as it is with
individual men; intercourse, association, correction of egotism by the
influence of others' judgment; broadening of views by the experience and
thought of equals; acceptance of the moral standards of a community, the
desire for whose good opinion lends a sanction to the rules of right
conduct--these are the conditions of growth in civilization. A people
whose minds are not open to the lessons of the world's progress, whose
spirits are not stirred by the aspirations and the achievements of
humanity struggling the world over for liberty and justice, must be left
behind by civilization in its steady and beneficent advance.
To promote this mutual interchange and assistance between the American
republics, engaged in the same great task, inspired by the same purpose,
and professing the same principles, I understand to be the function of
the American Conference now in session. There is not one of all our
countries that cannot benefit the others; there is not one that cannot
receive benefit from the others; there is not one that will not gain by
the prosperity, the peace, the happiness of all.
According to your program, no great and impressive single thing is to be
done by you; no political questions are to be discussed; no
controversies are to be settled; no judgment is to be passed upon the
conduct of any state, but many subjects are to be considered which
afford the possibility of removing barriers to intercourse; of
ascertaining for the common benefit what advances have been made by each
nation in knowledge, in experience, in enterprise, in the solution of
difficult questions of government, and in ethical standards; of
perfecting our knowledge of each other; and of doing away with the
misconceptions, the misunderstandings, and the resultant prejudices that
are such fruitful sources of controversy.
And some subjects in the program invite discussion that may lead the
American republics toward an agreement upon principles, the general
practical application of which can come only in the future through long
and patient effort. Some advances at least may be made here toward the
complete rule of justice and peace among nations, in lieu of force and
war.
The association of so many eminent men from all the republics, leaders
of opinion in their own homes; the friendships that will arise among
you; the habit of temperate and kindly discussion of matters of common
interest; the ascertainment of common sympathies and aims; the
dissipation of misunderstandings; the exhibition to all the American
peoples of this peaceful and considerate method of conferring upon
international questions--this alone, quite irrespective of the
resolutions you may adopt and the conventions you may sign, will mark a
substantial advance in the direction of international good
understanding.
These beneficent results the Government and the people of the United
States of America greatly desire.
We wish for no victories but those of peace; for no territory except our
own; for no sovereignty except 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. 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.
Within a few months, for the first time, the recognized possessors of
every foot of soil upon the American continents can be and I hope will
be represented with the acknowledged rights of equal sovereign states in
the great World Congress at The Hague. This will be the world's formal
and final acceptance of the declaration that no part of the American
continents is to be deemed subject to colonization. Let us pledge
ourselves to aid each other in the full performance of the duty to
humanity which that accepted declaration implies; so that in time the
weakest and most unfortunate of our republics may come to march with
equal step by the side of the stronger and more fortunate. Let us help
each other to show that for all the races of men the liberty for which
we have fought and labored is the twin sister of justice and peace. Let
us unite in creating and maintaining and making effective an
all-American public opinion, whose power shall influence international
conduct and prevent international wrong, and narrow the causes of war,
and forever preserve our free lands from the burden of such armaments as
are massed behind the frontiers of Europe, and bring us ever nearer to
the perfection of ordered liberty. So shall come security and
prosperity, production and trade, wealth, learning, the arts, and
happiness for us all.
Not in a single conference, nor by a single effort, can very much be
done. You labor more for the future than for the present; but if the
right impulse be given, if the right tendency be established, the work
you do here will go on among all the millions of people in the American
continents long after your final adjournment, long after your lives,
with incalculable benefit to all our beloved countries, which may it
please God to continue free and independent and happy for ages to come.