Following Secretary Root's visit to South America, with its
auspicious results, the President of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz,
extended an official invitation to visit the republic
immediately to the south of us, in the belief that such a
visit would have equally happy results in strengthening and
increasing the "steadfast friendship" existing between the
two neighboring nations.
Mr. Root, together with his wife and daughter, started for
Mexico by special train, arriving in San Antonio on
September 28, 1907. On the evening of the day of his arrival
in San Antonio, a banquet was tendered to Mr. Root and the
Mexican Committee which had come to San Antonio to welcome
him and escort him into their country.
On Sunday the 29th, the Root party, together with the
Mexican Committee, proceeded across the boundary into
Mexico, and were met at the station of Nuevo Laredo by a
Mexican delegation. Thence they continued to Mexico City,
where the honors extended to Mr. Root were in keeping with
the traditional hospitality of the ancient capital of the
Montezumas. During his stay the degree of honorary member of
the Mexican Academy of Legislation and Jurisprudence was
conferred upon him.
A Mexican publication of 314 pages, entitled _El Senor Root
en Mexico_, contains in parallel Spanish and English columns
a detailed account of the visit, which extended from
September 28 to October 16. It is to be regretted that this
volume is defective in that many of the speeches made during
the visit are not fully reported. It is possible, however,
to gather from those which have been preserved, a keen sense
of the cordial reception accorded him by the officials and
representative citizens of the republic, and the earnest and
eloquent terms in which he reciprocated the expressions of
regard for his country and of appreciation of his own
services to his country and the world.
The most progressive epoch in Mexico's history was the
thirty years of Diaz's supremacy; and it was in the heyday
of that period that Mr. Root made his visit to Mexico and
paid to President Diaz the tributes which appear in the
following pages. During these thirty years, he was always a
firm friend of the United States, and no diplomatic
misunderstandings arose which were not peaceably adjusted in
a spirit of neighborly friendship. Diaz shares with
President Roosevelt the honor of submitting the first
international controversy to the Hague Tribunal of
Arbitration for determination, in what is known as "The
Pious Fund of the Californias."