The Federal Senators, representatives of the Brazilian nation,
representing the people of twenty states of the Union and of the Federal
District, here congregated to receive you, through me, salute you, and
through you, salute President Roosevelt and the whole people of the
United States of America. You are truly welcome amongst us, and you are
welcome amongst us because we know your history; we know the history of
your country; we know the history of your great men, from Washington to
Roosevelt. You are truly and sincerely welcome amongst us, because you
are the fortunate messenger, the happy harbinger of a coming
civilization that is looming already in the not-far-distant future,
bringing in your hands the snowy and brilliant credentials of
brotherhood and peace. Though you come here, Mr. Root, amid the
cannon's roar, or the din of popular acclamations, the echo in its grand
unanimity that these words awaken in the hearts of the Brazilian people
throughout all the land, from north to south, from east to west, should
convince you that we, the Brazilian people, trust that the great work
that is now being done through the delegates of the nineteen American
republics assembled here for the Third Conference of the Pan American
Congress, will bear fruit--that it will bear fruit just the same as that
of which the basis was laid a long time ago in Philadelphia, on July 4,
1776, written by Thomas Jefferson and signed by the delegates of nine
out of the thirteen colonies that had risen in arms against the
mother-country. On that eventful and never-to-be-forgotten day,
Pennsylvania's delegate--the great, the wise, the noble Benjamin
Franklin--with his heart full of sad misgivings, full of sad forebodings
about the final issue of the war, raising himself from the chair on
which he had been sitting, observed on its back, embroidered on the
tapestry, the figure of a beaming sun with its golden rays. "I do not
know," he said, "if this is the image of a rising or a setting sun;
please God Almighty that it may be that of a rising sun, enlightening
the birth of a free and prosperous people!" And it was--and it was. His
wish--his dear wish--was fulfilled; his prophecy was realized. The
country you represent, Mr. Root, is now the wonder of the world for its
greatness, for its power, for its prosperity.
What we desire--what the Brazilian people desire--what we hope, is that
in your case, the same prophecy may be made and the same prophecy may be
realized in relation to the results we expect from the Pan American
Conference, strengthening with indissoluble bonds of harmonious concord
and a very lasting peace, American brotherhood; banishing from the lands
of the New World all ambition of conquest and the bloody strife of
fratricidal wars.
To the American people, our brothers, our friends, and our companions,
the Brazilian nation, treading the same paths and controlled by the same
great desire to attain its destinies in the history of the world, sends
through you its most affectionate, its most fraternal, its most hearty
salutation.