With the liveliest feelings of consideration and sympathy I have the
honor to offer this manifestation to His Excellency Mr. Elihu Root,
Secretary of State of the United States of America.
Yielding to the generous impulses of your American heart, and of your
brain of a thinker and of a statesman, you have felt a desire, Mr. Root,
to visit these countries, to address to them words of friendship and of
interest in their welfare, in the name of the honorable government which
you represent, and to shed over this continent the rays of the noble
ideal of American fraternity.
Your visit will undoubtedly produce fruitful results on behalf of
liberty and of justice, of peace and of progress, of order and of
improvement, which you have proclaimed as being the highest principles
inspiring the policy of the United States in the special mission for
which their peculiar virtues and energy have marked them out in the
destiny of humanity.
When those austere founders of American independence laid the
foundations of the great republic of the North, and gave it its
constitution, they were not inspired by narrow-minded ideas or by
selfish and transitory interest, but by a profound conviction of the
rights of man and a deep feeling of liberty and of justice, which, in
its irresistible consequences, would bring about the social and
political transformation which came to pass in the world at the end of
the eighteenth century, and was destined to constitute the gospel of
liberty and of democracy in our modern regime.
This same people, although still in its youth, did not hesitate, shortly
after, all alone, to guarantee the independence of all the American
countries, placing before the great powers of the world the pillars of
Hercules of the Monroe Doctrine, forming an impassable gateway to a free
and unconquerable America.
Today this same people excites the admiration of the whole world by its
grandeur. Its government brings to its level the harmony of humanity;
reestablishes, on the one hand, peace between the empires of Europe and
of Asia, and, on the other, between the republics of Central America;
patronizes the congress of The Hague, and in it obtains the recognition
of the personality of the American nations, thus giving proof of the
interest it takes, with equal concern, in the future of the peoples
civilized for a century, as well as in that of the countries just
commencing their existence. The American Constitution, the Monroe
Doctrine, together with the policy of President Roosevelt, and of his
Secretary of State, Mr. Root, voice in this manner, through the pages of
history, the same language of liberty, of justice, humanity, and
Americanism.
How deep is the lesson to be learned from these facts!
The ancient ideas founded right upon force, the regime of the social
bodies was that of privilege, and individual efforts were tied by bonds
imposed in the name of the authorities. The modern ideas, such as the
United States proclaim, found all right upon justice, and the social
regime upon liberty and equality. The human being is not an instrument
for the display of arbitrary power, but is the whole object of social
life, the mission of which is the development of its energies, its moral
conscience, the improvement and welfare of individuals and of nations.
According to the ancient ideas, the greatness of the nations was
measured by their military power and by the limits of their conquests of
force. According to modern ideas, as represented by the United States,
the greatness of nations is measured by the conquests obtained by
individual and collective efforts, thereby creating the fruitful and
happy reign of truth, of justice, of labor, and of peace.
War was formerly a glory; nowadays it is a calamity. Later on it will be
condemned as the sad ancestral remains of barbarism and savagery.
The evolution of ideas is that which now rules the world; and if people
do not always comprehend this fact it is because the selfish and
personal prejudices, passions, and interests disturb and impair their
judgment.
In modern progress, the regime of privilege and of force can no longer
create rights nor lend security for the future or the aggrandizement of
nations; and nowadays those individuals do not render a service to their
native land who, while they sacrifice permanent interests, think they
can calculate the meridian of their country by the artificial
reflections of a moment, transitory and perishable.
The regime of force or of armed peace consumes the vital forces and the
resources of nations; and then from the abyss of inequality, of
affliction, and danger produced, bursts forth once more the social and
political problem demanding, with threats, the reform of the evil, and
laying down the maxim that only the ideal of justice, of liberty, and of
human solidarity can possibly stand forth, firm and unshaken, amidst the
ruins in which the wild ideas of greatness held by the military powers
of the world will remain buried forever.
It is not by means of a regime of force, but by that of liberty, peace,
and labor, that the United States of America has been enabled to form a
marvelous abode of vitality and human progress; and its government, with
a perfect insight into the greatness of that country and of its destiny,
today addresses the present and the future of our world, and with
special interest explains to America the only paths that will lead the
nations to the attainment of tranquillity and well-being.
Once that existence is obtained, you have said, Mr. Root, that it is
necessary to live and advance worthily and honorably,--and that this
object cannot be attained by a regime of domestic oppression and of
privilege, nor by the external one of isolation or of war, but by that
of liberty, order, justice, economical progress, moral improvement,
intellectual advance, respect for the rights of others, and a feeling of
human solidarity. You have clearly stated:
No nation can live unto itself alone and continue to live.
Each nation's growth is a part of the development of the
race.... A people whose minds are not open to the lessons of
the world's progress, whose spirits are not stirred by the
aspirations and achievements of humanity, struggling the
world over for liberty and justice, must be left behind by
civilization in its steady and beneficent advance.
In the life of nations there must always prevail an ideal and a harmony
of right, of liberty, of peace, and fraternity, although this can only
be obtained by persevering efforts, by sacrifices, and by a long and
distressing march. It is necessary to "labor more for the future than
for the present" and unite together all the nations engaged in the same
great task, inspired by a like ideal and professing similar principles.
Peru has read your words, Mr. Root, with profound attention. She is
proud to say that in the modest sphere she occupies in the concert of
nations, she accepts your ideas as her own, and declares that they also
constitute her profession of faith as regards her international policy.
With your superior judgment you have exactly comprehended the
difficulties, critical moments, and convulsions which the countries of
this continent have undergone in order to establish a republican
government, together with a regime of liberty and democracy. They are
still in the first period of their development and have yet many
problems to solve.
To develop the immense resources and wealth with which nature has so
wonderfully endowed these countries; to render their territory
accessible to labor and civilization by opening up means of
communication, granting all facilities and giving security for the life,
health, and welfare of their inhabitants; to obtain the population which
their immense territories require: to educate and instruct the people,
making them understand their liberty, their duties, and their rights; to
develop their faculties and energies, their labor forces, their
industrial and commercial capacity and power; to elevate their moral
dignity; to consolidate and strengthen the national unity; to insure
definitely the government of the people, in justice, in order, and in
peace; to attract capital and foreign immigration; to develop and give
impulse to commercial relations with other countries; to maintain a
frank and true international harmony and solidarity; to respect all
mutual and reciprocal rights and settle all disagreements by friendly,
just, and honorable means--to perform, in short, the work of human
civilization; these are undoubtedly the points which ought to occupy,
first of all, the thoughts of the administration of these countries, in
order to secure their tranquillity, their welfare, and their
aggrandizement, just as the United States have secured theirs by the
genius of their people and the power of their ideals.
If the nations of America, instead of living apart from each other and
separated by distrust, threats, and quarrels--which unsettle them,
rendering their energy and development fruitless, just as they have kept
up a state of anarchy, for a long time, in their internal
existence--would unite themselves together by the natural ties which the
community of their origin, of their civilization, of their necessities,
and their destinies clearly indicate, we should then witness the
realization of the ideal you have conceived of a great, prosperous, and
happy America; the union of sister republics, free, orderly, laborious,
lovers of justice, knowledge, sciences, and arts, cooperating, each one
and all of them worthily and effectively, for the realization of the
great work of human civilization and culture.
The standard and observance of justice should bring about the definite
disappearance of the disagreements which may have caused separation
among the South American countries, just as family quarrels are effaced
on the exhibition of a just and generous sentiment of sincere
brotherhood and harmony which vibrates throughout this continent as an
intense aspiration of the American soul, and as a noble ideal of concord
and of justice.
It is never too late to recognize what is right and to proceed with
rectitude. My memory suggests an important event some few years back in
the history of the relations between Peru and the United States,
described most correctly by the representative of your government as one
of those most worthy of note in the annals of diplomacy. I refer to the
serious question which arose in 1852 between our respective countries
relative to the Lobos guano islands, when the United States held that
they did not belong to the territory and sovereignty of Peru, and that
as they had been occupied by American citizens your country would uphold
these parties in the work of exploitation; but as soon as the Government
of the United States, after a lengthened and lively controversy, became
convinced of the right which Peru had on her side, it at once
spontaneously put an end to the question by a memorable note of its
Secretary of State, recognizing the absolute sovereignty of Peru over
those islands and declaring that "he makes this avowal with the greater
readiness, in consequence of the unintentional injustice done to Peru,
under a transient want of information as to the facts of the case."[3]
When powerful nations, laying aside the instruments of oppression and
violence which they have in their hands, rise to such a height of moral
elevation, universal respect and sympathy will form the unfading halo of
their grandeur.
And thus it happened with the United States of America; and Peru has now
the honor once more to express its thanks for the generous friendship
and constant interest with which the United States have always paid
attention to everything affecting the welfare and progress of our
country.
Peru, which is the depositary of the secrets of wondrous and unknown
civilizations; which possesses great historical traditions; which was
long ago the metropolis of this continent, and then a Spanish colony;
which has an enormous extent of territory, with the most varied and
wonderful climates and wealth; after grievous domestic and foreign
vicissitudes, has firmly taken in hand the great work of its
reorganization; has acquired the knowledge of its public and private
duties; has given vigor to its character and to its spirit of
enterprise; has founded industries and labor centers; has fostered
agriculture, mining, and commerce; is using every effort to foster
public instruction, increasing the number of schools throughout the
country and giving civic education to its children; constructing
railroads and public works of national and future interest; opening the
minds and intelligence of its people to the currents of culture and
modern progress, and endeavoring to establish a solid and well-directed
public administration; her fiscal revenues, her trade, and the general
capitalization of fortunes have reached in a few years an extraordinary
development which demonstrates the potentiality of the country. Enjoying
public peace, she is using every effort to maintain a policy of frank
understanding and friendship with all nations, and sustains the
principle of arbitration for the solution of all her international
controversies, thus giving evident proof of the rectitude of her
sentiments, and that the only settlements which she defends and to which
she aspires are the honorable settlements dictated by right.
These ideas are likewise yours, Mr. Root. And I invite you, gentlemen,
to unite with us in expressing the hope that the principles proclaimed
by our enlightened guest, to whom we today offer the homage of our
respect and sympathy, may everlastingly rule in America.