I thank you most sincerely for your kind expressions and for your
gracious hospitality. It is with the greatest pleasure that I have come
to the great republic of Brazil, that I might by my presence testify to
the high consideration entertained by the Republic of the North for her
sister republic; that I might testify to the strong desire of the United
States of America for the continuance of the growth of friendship
between her and the United States of Brazil. Both of us--both of our
countries,--have of recent years been growing so great and rich that we
can afford now to visit our friends, and also to entertain our friends.
Let us therefore know each other better. I am sure that the more
intimately we know each other the better friends we shall be. I know
that because I know the feelings of my countrymen, and I know it because
I experience your whole-hearted hospitality.
It has been a delight for me to see your beautiful, bright, and cheerful
city, which, with its people happy and giving evidence of well-being and
prosperity, with its comfortable homes, with its noble monuments, with
its great public buildings and institutions of beneficence, with its
beautiful flowers and noble trees, justifies all that I had dreamed of
in this august city of the great empire which reaches from the Amazon to
the Uruguay.
I thank you for your reference to the President of the United States.
His great, strong, human heart beats in unison with everything that is
noble in the heart of any nation and with every aspiration of true
manhood. Every effort tending to help a people on in civilization and in
prosperity finds a reflex and response in his desire for their
happiness. He is a true and genuine friend of all Americans, north and
south. In his name I thank you for the welcome you have given me, and in
his name I propose a toast to the President of the United States of
Brazil.