I should be insensible, indeed, were I not to feel deeply grateful for
your courtesy, your hospitality, and your kindness; nor can I fail to be
gratified by the words of praise which you, Mr. Minister, have spoken of
my beloved country, and by the hearty and unreserved approval with which
you have met my inadequate expression of the sentiments the people of my
country feel toward their sister republics of South America. The words
which you have quoted, sir, do represent the feelings of the people of
the United States. We are very far from living up to the standards which
we set for ourselves, and we know our own omissions, our failings, and
our errors; we know them, we deplore them, and we are constantly and
laboriously seeking to remedy them; but we do have underneath as the
firm foundation of constitutional freedom, the sentiments which were
expressed in the quotations which you have made.
No government in the United States could maintain itself for a moment if
it violated those principles; no act of unjust aggression by the United
States against any smaller and weaker power would be forgiven by the
people to whom the government is responsible.
Mr. Minister, my journey in South America is drawing to a close. After
many weeks of association with the distinguished men who control the
affairs of the South American republics, after much observation of the
widely different countries I have visited, it is with the greatest
satisfaction that I find, in reviewing the new records of my mind, that
the impressions with which I came to South America have been
confirmed--the impression that there is a new day dawning, a new day of
industry, of enterprise, of prosperity, of wider liberty, of more
perfect justice among the people of the southern continent.
I find that the difference between the South America of today and the
South America as the records show it to have been a generation ago, is
as wide as the difference marked by centuries in the history of Europe.
Why is it? You are the same people--not so much better than your
fathers. The same fields offered to the hand of the husbandman their
bounteous harvests then as now; the same incalculable wealth slept in
your mountains then as now; the same streams carried down from your
mountain sides the immeasurable power ready to the hand of man for the
production of wealth then as now; the same ocean washed your shores
ready to bear the commerce of the world then as now. Whence comes the
change? The change is not in material things, but in spiritual things.
The change has come because in the slow but majestic progress of
national development, the peoples of South America have been passing
through a period of progress necessary to their development, necessary
to the building of their characters, up from a stage of strife and
discord, of individual selfishness, of unrestrained ambition, of
irresponsible power, and out upon the broad platform of love for
country, of national spirit, of devotion to the ideal of justice, of
ordered liberty, of respect for the rights of others; because the
individual characters of the peoples of the South American republics
have been developed to that self-control, to that respect for justice
toward their fellowmen, to that regard for the rights and feelings of
others which inhere in true justice. The development of individual
character has made the collective character competent for
self-government and the maintenance of that justice, that ordered
liberty, which gives security to property, security to the fruits of
enterprise, security to personal liberty, to the pursuit of happiness,
to the home, to all that makes life worth living; and under the
fostering care of that character, individual and national, the hidden
wealth of the mountains is being poured out to enrich mankind; under the
fostering care of that character, individual and national, new life is
coming to the fields, to the mines, to the factories, to commerce, to
all the material interests of South America.
Mr. Minister, this is but a part of a great world movement on a wider
field. It is no idle dream that the world grows better day by day. We
cannot mark its progress by days or by years or by generations; but
marking the changes by the centuries mankind advances steadily from
brute force, from the rule of selfishness and greed toward respect for
human rights, toward desire for human happiness, toward the rule of law
and the rule of love among men. My own country has become great
materially because it has felt the influence of that majestic progress
of civilization. South America is becoming great materially because it,
too, is feeling the influence that is making humanity more human.
We can do but little in our day. We live our short lives and pass away
and are forgotten. All the wealth, prosperity, and luxury with which we
can surround ourselves is of but little benefit and little satisfaction;
but if we--if you and I--in our offices and each one of us in his
influence upon the public affairs of his day, can contribute ever so
little, but something, toward the tendency of our countries, the
tendency of our race, away from greed and force and selfishness and
wrong, toward the rule of order and love--if we can do something to
contribute to that tendency which countless millions are working out, we
shall not have lived in vain.
You were kind enough to refer to an incident in the diplomatic history
of the United States and Peru, when my own country recognized its error
in regard to the Lobos Islands and returned them freely and cheerfully
to their rightful owner. I would rather have the record of such acts of
justice for my country's fair name than the story of any battle fought
and won by her military heroes.
We cannot fail to ask ourselves sometimes the question, What will be the
end of our civilization? Will some future generation say of us, in the
words of the Persian poet, "The lion and the lizard keep the courts
where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep"? Will the palaces we build be the
problem of the antiquarians in some future century? Will all that we do
come to naught? If not--if our civilization is not to meet the fate of
all that have gone before--it will be because we have builded upon a
firm foundation, a foundation of the great body of the plain, the common
people, and upon a character formed on the principles of justice, of
liberty, and of brotherly love. Our one hope for the perpetuity of our
civilization is that quality in which it differs from all civilizations
that have gone before--its substantial basis. I find that here in Peru
you are building upon that firm rock.
I find that here individual character is being developed so that the
people of Peru are collectively developing the necessary and essential
national character.
I find that the riches of your wonderful land are in the hands of a
people who are worthy to enjoy them.
I shall take away with me from Peru not only the kindest feelings of
friendship and of gratitude but the highest and most confident hope of
a great and glorious future for the people to whom I wish so well.
Mr. Minister, will you permit me the honor of asking all to join me in
drinking to the health of His Excellency the President of Peru?