ADDRESS AT THE BANQUET OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW
YORK TO THE OFFICERS OF THE FOREIGN AND UNITED STATES SQUADRONS WHICH
ESCORTED THE SPANISH CARAVELS TO NEW YORK, APRIL 28, 1893
It is my pleasant privilege to respond to a toast to an offspring of old
Spain, a direct lineal descendant, an inheritor of her blood, her faith
and her language.
It is only a young republic, only an American republic. No historic
centuries invest her with romance or with interest; but she is great in
glorious promise of the future, and great in manifest power to fulfill
the promise.
Far away to the southward, beyond the great empire of the Amazon, beyond
the equatorial heats, there stretches a vast land, from the latitude of
Cuba on the north to the latitude of Hudson Bay on the south, and from
the Andes to the Eastern Sea. In this land mighty rivers flow through
vast forests, and immeasurable plains stretch from ocean to mountains,
with a soil of inexhaustible fertility, under every variety of healthful
and invigorating climate.
All this we know; but we must not forget, and we cannot forget tonight,
that this great land, capable of supporting in plenty all the teeming
millions of Europe, is possessed by the people of a free constitutional
republic, of all the sisterhood of nations, in form, in feature and in
character, the most like to ourselves.
For forty years the Argentine Republic has lived and governed itself
under a constitution in all material respects the exact counterpart of
the Constitution of the United States. Its constitution was avowedly
modelled after ours. For forty years, in fourteen separate states like
our own, the people of Argentina have preserved the sacred right of
local self-government. For forty years they have maintained at the same
time the sovereignty of their nation; and by the constancy of their past
they have given a high and ever-increasing credit to their promise that
for the future, under Southern Cross as under Northern Star, government
by the people, of the people, and for the people, shall endure.
Under this constitutional system they have framed for themselves wise
and liberal laws. They have constructed extensive works of internal
improvement; and waterways, and railroads, and telegraph lines, all
invite to the development of their vast natural wealth. They have
established universal religious toleration. They have protected the
rights of private property and of personal liberty. They have created
and maintained a great system of public education. In more than three
thousand public common schools over a quarter of a million children are
today learning how to be good citizens. Grading up from these common
schools through lyceums in every state and two great universities, the
pathway of higher education is open to all the people of the republic.
Under such a constitution and such laws, Argentina has made greater
material progress and greater advance in the art of self-government,
during our generation, than any people upon the western hemisphere,
unless it be, perhaps, our own.
We remember, too, that the people of Argentina, like our own fathers,
won their liberty by struggle and by sacrifice. They made their fight
for independence at a time when Europe was exhausted by the Napoleonic
wars. They attracted but little attention and less aid from the Old
World. No Byron enshrined their heroism in deathless verse; no Rousseau
with the philosophy of humanity awoke for them generous and effective
enthusiasm in the breasts of a Lafayette or a Rochambeau, a Von Steuben
or a Kosciusko.
Alone and unaided they fought their fight. Dependent upon themselves, on
the ninth of July, seventy-seven years ago, they made their own
declaration of independence, commemorated in the name of that thing of
beauty and of power which today floats upon the bosom of the Hudson, a
peer among the embattled navies of the world. They made good that
declaration against all odds, through hardship, through suffering,
through seas of blood, with desperate valor and lofty heroism, worthy
the plaudits of the world.
And then they conquered themselves; learned the hard lesson of
subordinating personal ambition to law, to order, to the public weal.
And today more people than followed Washington with their hopes and
prayers enjoy the blessings of liberty and peace, and the security of
established and equal laws, won for them by the patriots who gave their
lives for their country on the plains of Argentina.
These people have not only done all this for themselves, but they also
have opened their arms to all the people of the earth, and have welcomed
to their shores the poor, the humble, the downcast of all lands. So that
scores of thousands of French, of Italians, of Germans, of English, of
Spaniards, coming not as their fathers came, in mailed forms to conquer
savage foes--but under peaceful flags--a million and a half of men from
all civilized lands of Europe, have come to share the peace, the plenty
and the freedom of the young republic; and to contribute to her
prosperity and wealth. Every guest at our board tonight may feel his
pulses beat in unison with the sentiment of health and prosperity to the
new land where his own kindred have found new homes and hopes.
If there be truth in the philosophy of history--if the crossing of
stocks, the blending of races, makes the strong new race, with capacity
and power to press forward and upward the standard of civilization, the
future is to find the people of Argentina in the forefront of human
progress.
And so, from the Hudson to the La Plata, from the plains to the Pampas,
from the Rockies to the Andes, from the old American republic to the
young American republic, from sister to sister, with the same
convictions and hopes and aspirations, we send sincere and hearty
greeting, congratulation and God-speed.