I have already thanked you for that welcome message which greeted my
first advent in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro. I have now to add my
thanks, both for the gracious invitation which brings me here and for
the surpassing kindness and hospitality with which I and my family have
been welcomed to Montevideo. It is most gratifying to hear from the lips
of one of the masters of South American diplomacy, one who knows the
reality of international politics, so just an estimate of the attitude
of my own country toward her South American sisters. The great
declaration of Monroe, made in the infancy of Latin American liberty,
was an assertion to all the world of the competency of Latin Americans
to govern themselves. That assertion my country has always maintained;
and my presence here is, in part, for the purpose of giving evidence of
her belief that the truth of the assertion has been demonstrated; that,
in the progressive development which attends the course of nations, the
peoples of South America have proved that their national tendencies and
capacities are, and will be, on and ever on in the path of ordered
liberty. I am here to learn more, and also to demonstrate our belief in
the substantial similarity of interests and sympathies of the American
self-governing republics.
You have justly indicated that there is nothing in the growing
friendship between our countries which imperils the interests of those
countries in the Old World from which we have drawn our languages, our
traditions, and the bases of our customs and our laws.
I think it may be safely said that those nations who planted their
feeble colonies on these shores, from which we have spread so widely,
have profited far more from the independence of the American republics
than they would have profited if their unwise system of colonial
government had been continued. In the establishment of these free and
independent nations in this continent they have obtained a profitable
outlet for their trade, employment for their commerce, food for their
people, and refuge for their poor and their surplus population. We have
done more than that. We have tried here their experiments in government
for them. The reflex action of the American experiments in government
has been felt in every country in Europe without exception, and has been
far more effective in its influence than any good quality of the old
colonial system could have been. And now our prosperity but adds to
their prosperity. Intercourse in trade, exchange of thought in learning,
in literature, in art--all add to their power and their prosperity,
their intellectual activity, and their commercial strength. We still
draw from their stores of wealth commercially, spiritually,
intellectually, and physically, and we are beginning to return, in rich
measure, with interest, what we have got from them. We have learned
that national aggrandizement and national prosperity are to be gained
rather by national friendship than by national violence. The friendship
for your country that we from the North have is a friendship that
imperils no interest of Europe. It is a friendship that springs from a
desire to promote the common welfare of mankind by advancing the rule of
order, of justice, of humanity, and of the Christianity which makes for
the prosperity and happiness of all mankind. It is not as a messenger of
strife that I come to you; but I am here as the advocate of universal
friendship and peace.