You have just visited the wealthiest capitals of South America, real
emporiums of its richness; there you have been received with great
magnificence. Our outward manifestations of joy on the occasion of your
visit may, therefore, appear to you very humble; but you can rest
assured that none of them will surpass us in the intensity of
sympathetic feeling toward your person and toward the noble American
people that you so worthily represent.
We Panamanians always remember with gratitude the interest we inspired
in you from the very first days of our national existence, and we bear
in mind very specially your timely speech delivered before the Union
League Club of Chicago,[4] when our destiny was pending on the scales of
a decision of your Senate; and therefore we avail ourselves of this
joyful opportunity to receive you with the cordiality due to an old and
good friend.
It has been, and it is yet, the vehement desire of your country to bring
into closer ties, as far as possible, its political and commercial
relations with the Latin American countries. The similarity of
traditions and institutions, the vicinity and continuity of their
territories, and the vast field of commercial expansion which they
offer, fully justify that natural, legitimate desire, which is also
mutually beneficial; but there being between yours and the latter
countries essential differences of language, race, disposition, and
education, there is bound to exist in them the suspicion which is
naturally engendered by the unknown, and thus it is that the first steps
taken toward the accomplishment of your desire should have been the
removal of that suspicion by means of friendly intercourse and mutual
acquaintance.
With the tact brought forth by your vast intelligence and learning, you
fully understood that those do not love each other well who are not
intimately acquainted; and it is owing to this fact that you decided to
come in person to visit and to know the Latin Americans by your own
observation and study. No doubt you carry with you a joyful impression
of the progress and nobleness of disposition of our southern brothers,
together with the assurance that your mission will achieve a new and
splendid triumph for that American diplomacy whereof you are the skilled
director, and the principal object of which is the accomplishment of the
desire of which I have already spoken.
Being desirous to cooperate in the aims you have in view and with the
hope of dispelling certain existing misunderstandings concerning the
motives and intentions which originated our present pleasant relations,
in a statement which I recently addressed to your government through its
minister plenipotentiary here, I recounted the historical events which
engendered our national existence and those special relations which link
us to your country, in order that when the seal of diplomatic silence is
removed, and that statement becomes public property, the world may know,
through the unimpeachable testimony of history, that only ideals of the
highest altruism served as a guide to the foundation of our republic and
to the celebration of the treaty concerning the construction of the
interoceanic canal for our benefit and _pro mundi beneficio_.
Panama offers you a splendid field to promote the wise international
policy which animates your mind. We being of similar conditions to our
Latin American brothers, being linked to your country by the closest
ties that can exist between two independent nations, you having the
means of exerting decisive influence upon our future life and we being
situated in the constant path of universal transit, shall be an evident,
shining example of the benefit which your country can confer upon the
countries of our race.
The fruits of your influence are already felt and seen. Peace, which we
consider a blessing, is a permanent fact. Under its shelter, and under
the assurances given us by your illustrious President in his famous
letter of October 18, 1904, addressed to the Secretary of War, Panama
has entered with firm step upon the path of material, intellectual, and
moral development. Those who knew us a little over two years ago,
disheartened and ruined by bad government and civil war, and see today
the change that has taken place in such a short time, carry to the north
and south the gratifying news of our regeneration and thereby contribute
to dispel unfounded suspicions regarding yourselves.
These good results are the forerunners of greater benefits in the
future, and of the effect of the cooperation of the agents of your
government in the progress of the country in general, of their friendly
and timely advice, and of their decided moral support whenever there has
been need thereof.
I will profit by this opportunity to convey to you the gratitude of the
government and people of Panama for the special consideration which has
been extended to them by the government of your country. This has been
evidenced principally by the diplomatic staff sent to us, from the very
able Honorable William I. Buchanan, your first minister plenipotentiary,
to the popular Honorable Charles E. Magoon, who can hardly be replaced,
and whose separation from the post he occupies with general
satisfaction has caused great regret in the country; and later you sent
us, doing us an unmerited honor, in the first place, by special order of
your very noble President, your Secretary of War, Honorable William H.
Taft, who established the relations between our two countries on the
happy basis of mutual cordiality and justice, on which they are now
established; and now, Mr. Secretary, you do us the great honor of coming
yourself on a visit, placing us on a level with the powerful Brazil,
Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay; and, furthermore, which appears to
be the extreme limit of what is possible, you allow us to look forward
to the coming visit of your great President, the most distinguished of
existing rulers--a special honor which has not been vouchsafed even to
the most powerful nations of the world. Panama, overwhelmed with so many
marks of appreciation, will preserve them as an everlasting remembrance
of gratitude toward your noble country; and in return, though it be but
partial, we will follow your advice, we will cooperate without reserve
and with enthusiasm in the great work of the interoceanic canal, which
is bound to be the most magnificent monument of the grandeur of your
people; and we will likewise support you in the mission of American
brotherhood which you have undertaken, founding a nation which shall
distinguish itself by its love of work, of honor, of order, and of
justice.