University o/ California • Berkeley
SPEECHES
><
INCIDENT TO THE
Visit of Philander Chase Knox
Secretary of State of the United States of America
TO THE
Countries of the Caribbean
FEBRUARY 23 TO APRIL 17, 1912
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1913
•i Cl B.AWC ARY CT /il
•
CONTENTS
PAGE
Itinerary vm
I
Speeches in Panama 1-16
Welcome upon arrival at Colon, February 27,
1912 :
His Excellency Demosthenes Arose-
mena 3
Mr. Philander C. Knox 5
At Panama City, at banquet given by Minis-
ter for Foreign Affairs, February 28, 1912:
His Excellency Aristides Arjona 6
Mr. Philander C. Knox n
II
Speeches in Costa Rica T7~29
At a dinner at San Jose, March 3, 1912:
His Excellency President Ricardo Jime-
nez 19
Mr. Philander C. Knox 24
At luncheon on board the "Maryland",
March 4, 1912 :
Mr. Philander C. Knox 29
III
Speeches in Nicaragua 31-68
At railroad station, Managua, March 5, 1912 :
Mr. Philander C. Knox 33
in
IV CONTENTS.
Speeches in Nicaragua — Continued.
Reception by President of Nicaragua, March
6, 1912: PAGE
His Excellency President Adolfo Diaz... 34
Mr. Philander C.Knox 38
At the National Assembly, March 6, 1912:
Dr. Ignacio Suarez 46
Mr. Philander C. Knox 53
At the Supreme Court, March 6, 1912:
Dr. Alfonso Solorzano 58
Mr. Philander C. Knox 61
At banquet given by Minister for Foreign
Affairs, March 6, 1912:
His Excellency Diego M. Chamorro 62
Mr. Philander C. Knox 67
IV
Speeches in Honduras 69-81
At luncheon given by Minister for Foreign
Affairs at Amapala, March 8, 1912:
His Excellency Mariano Vasquez 71
Mr. Philander C. Knox 74
At luncheon on the "Maryland," March 9,
1912 :
Mr. Philander C. Knox 77
His Excellency Mariano Vasquez 79
V
Speeches in Salvador 83-95
Welcome upon arrival at San Salvador,
March n, 1912 :
His Excellency PresidentManuelAraujo.. 85
Mr. Philander C. Knox 87
CONTENTS. V
Speeches in Salvador — Continued.
At banquet given by Minister for Foreign
Affairs, March n, 1912: PAGE
His Excellency Francisco Duenas 88
Mr. Philander C. Knox 91
VI
Speeches in Guatemala 97-126
Reception by President of Guatemala, March
14, 1912:
Mr. Philander C. Knox 99
His Excellency President Estrada Ca-
brera i o i
At banquet given by Minister for Foreign
Affairs, March 14, 1912:
His Excellency Luis Toledo Herrarte... 103
Mr. Philander C. Knox 107
At reception by Legislative Assembly, March
15, 1912:
Sefior Don Arturo Ubico in
Mr. Philander C. Knox 114
At University of Guatemala, March 15, 1912:
Licenciado Manuel Cabral 117
Mr. Philander C. Knox 120
At banquet given by President of Guatemala,
March 16, 1912 :
His Excellency Estrada Cabrera 121
Mr. Philander C. Knox 123
VI CONTENTS.
VII PAGE
Speeches in Venezuela 127-145
At Independence Hall, Caracas, March 23,
1912 :
Dr. Marquez Bustillos 129
Mr. Philander C. Knox 130
At Bolivar statue:
Mr. Philander C. Knox 131
At banquet given by Minister for Foreign
Affairs, March 24, 1912: t
His Excellency Manuel A. Matos 132
Mr. Philander C. Knox 135
Farewell to President of Venezuela, March
25, 1912:
Mr. Philander C. Knox 139
At railway station at Valencia, March 25,
1912 :
President of the State of Carabobo 140
Mr. Philander C. Knox 142
At Puerto Cabello, March 25, 1912:
Collector of Customs of Puerto Cabello.. 143
Mr. Philander C. Knox 145
VIII
Speeches in the Dominican Republic 147-153
Reception by President of Dominican Re-
public, March 27, 1912:
Mr. Philander C. Knox 149
His Excellency President Eladio Vic-
toria 153
CONTENTS. VII
IX PAGE
Speeches in Haiti 155-172
Welcome upon arrival at Port au Prince,
April 3, 1912:
M. Jerome Salomon, Mayor of Port au
Prince 157
Mr. Philander C. Knox 159
At luncheon given by Minister for Foreign
Affairs, April 3, 1912:
Mr. J. N. Leger 161
Mr. Philander C. Knox 163
At banquet given by President of Haiti,
April 3, 1912 :
His Excellency President Leconte 165
Mr. Philander C. Knox 167
At Bellevue Club, April 4, 1912:
Mr. Philander C. Knox 171
X
Speeches in Cuba 173-188
At banquet given by President of Cuba, Ha-
bana, April u, 1912:
His Excellency Sefior Manuel Sanguily.. 175
Mr. Philander C. Knox 184
XI
Speeches on board the "Washington", April 14,
1912 189-202
Mr. Philander C. Knox 191
Mr. Hale, of the World's Work 194
Hon. Martin W. Littleton 197
Judge Morgan O'Brien 200
XII
Statement to the press by Mr. Knox, Washing-
ton, April 17, 1912 203-208
ITINERARY
Date of
arrival.
Date of
departure.
Kev West, Fla
Feb. 2 •?
Feb 23
Colon, Panama
Feb 27
Feb 27
Panama City, Panama
Feb 27
Feb 20
Colon, Panama
Feb. 29
Feb 29
Port Limon, Costa Rica
Mar i
Mar i
San Jose de Costa Rica
Mar i
Mar 4
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Mar. 4
Mar 4
Corinto, Nicaragua
Mar 5
Mar 5
Managua Nicaragua
Mar 5
Mar 7
Corinto, Nicaragua
Mar. 7
Mar 7
Amapala, Honduras
Mar 8
Mar 9
Acajutla Salvador
Mar 10
Mar 10
San Salvador, Salvador
Mar. 10
Mar 13
Acajutla Salvador
Mar i "?
Mar i •?
San Jose de Guatemala
Mar 14
Mar 14
Guatemala City
Mar. 14
Mar 17
Puerto Barrios Guatemala
Mar 1 7
Mar 17
La Guaira, Venezuela
Mar. 22
Mar. 22
Caracas Venezuela
Mar 22
Mar 25
Puerto Cabello Venezuela
Mar 25
Mar 25
Santo Domingo City
Mar. 27
Mar. 28
St Thomas
Mar 30
Mar 30
San Juan Porto Rico
Mar "?i
Apr i
Port au Prince, Haiti
Apr. i
Anr. 4
Guantanamo Cuba...
Apr tj
Aor 5
Santiago de Cuba
Apr ^
Apr 6
Guantanamo Cuba
-t*-F1 • D
Apr. 6
Apr. 7
Kingston Jamaica
Apr 8
Apr 8
Port Antonio Jamaica
Apr 8
Apr 8
Habana Cuba
Apr. 1 1
Apr. 1 3
Piney Point Md . . .
Apr 16
Aor 1 7
Washington D C
Aor 1 7
VIII
Speeches in Panama
s 105 — i
Address of welcome of Senor Demosthenes Arose-
mena, Governor of Colon Province, on the arrival
of the Secretary of State at Colon, February 27,
1912.
[Translation.]
MR. SECRETARY:
As the representative of my country's Govern-
ment in this part of the Republic, the honor of
offering you a cordial greeting upon your arrival on
our shores in the name of the Panaman nation
devolves upon me.
The Panaman nation, to whom you are well
known, greets in you an eminent statesman of a
nation which marches in the vanguard of the civili-
zation and progress of the American continent, and
it highly appreciates the visit of so distinguished a
guest.
Panama, to whom you are especially persona
grata, regards as an honor the presence of so illustri-
ous a representative of the great American Union,
which, in an hour of trial for the Isthmians, fearlessly
assumed before the world an obligation which it has
fulfilled, and will, no doubt, in the future most loyally
fulfill, of guaranteeing and maintaining the sover-
eignty and independence of the youngest Republic of
this continent, and 400,000 Panamans are at this mo-
ment hoping that upon leaving our shores you will
3
4 PANAMA.
carry with you as agreeable a memory of the coun-
try as your visit will doubtless leave in their breasts.
Welcome, Mr. Secretary, to this Republic, which
gladly contributes to the aggrandizement and pros-
perity of your country with the only thing possi-
ble— with its territory.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
EXCELLENCY:
In the name of the people of the United States,
the President of the United States, for my party,
and for myself, I desire to express to you our deep
gratitude for the cordiality of this welcome when
we have first touched the shore in the Republic
of Panama and in the ancient city named for the
great discoverer of America. This reception is ex-
tremely flattering to me, because it indicates that
the people of Panama respond to the sentiment that
inspired the President of the United States, and
whose inspiration has been cordially and fully in-
dorsed by the people of the United States, to send
me hither as a bearer of a message of good feeling,
friendship, and kindliness to the people of this Re-
public and the other peoples of the Caribbean lit-
toral. I have sincerely to thank you all for this
manifestation of the sympathy which is thus shown
toward us, and I shall repeat to you only what I have
said before — that is, thanks — which I am sure will
find a response in the hearts of the American
people.
Speech of His Excellency A ristides Arjona, Minister
for Foreign Affairs of Panama, at a dinner
given to Mr. Knox at Panama City, February
28, 1912.
[Translation.]
MR. SECRETARY KNOX:
When the cable and the press announced a few
days ago your visit to some of the Central and
South American republics, the citizens who repre-
sent the brain and the heart of these nations, as if
moved by a single potent impulse, made ready with
their eyes fixed upon you, who can not be other
than a bearer of good tidings and an inspirer of
wholesome political policies for the Latin-American
countries.
These countries, Mr. Secretary, relatively young,
as compared with those of the old continent, are
eager, in this delicate period of their existence,
for such examples and teachings as may be offered
by your great nation, which holds properly the
first place in the civilization and progress of this
hemisphere.
The youth, the blood, the race, and the idiosyn-
cracies, in short, of these countries tend to make
them appear impulsive in the grave questions in
which a solution is needed for complicated social
and political problems, since, in truth, opposing
tendencies and judgments degenerate sometimes
ARJONA. 7
into internal complications with prejudicial conse-
quences to the Latin-American family. On the
other hand, in your country, the United States,
the model Republic, a clear, temperate judgment,
cold as the snows of those beautiful latitudes, can
at all times be brought to bear upon the series of
difficult problems which present themselves to the
intelligence and activity of statesmen like your-
self; and therefore Latin-American nations, guided
by a common purpose to become great, receive
with interest and pleasure your visit, which can
have no other object than to stimulate and benefit
them. Considering the facts thus, I do not hesitate
to acknowledge that only a noble altruism guides
you, that only lofty ideals inspire your acts, and
that only your marked interest in the future of these
entities of young America has impelled you to lay
aside your delicate and multifarious official duties
in your own country to come to strengthen the ties
of friendship, interest, and sympathy which join
them with your nation, increasing the prestige which
has been attained by the wise diplomacy of North
America.
The Republic of Panama, mistress of the two
greatest bodies of water which bathe the world, has
a thousand reasons to be grateful to you and to
your Government, and to-day has another reason
in considering that it is the first which you have
chosen to honor with your visit, you who intend to
proceed to the other countries, which will receive
you cordially, as an illustrious and distinguished
8 PANAMA.
guest, with ovations expressive of their feelings.
Panama knows that your mission is one of laudable
patriotism and international concord, and doubts not
that it will also know how to respond to the call of
American confraternity which you have addressed
to it, since it aspires loyally to aid you in the work
of Pan-American progress which you carry on with
such success and which will make your name im-
perishable in the records of the world of Columbus.
You know well, Mr. Secretary, that the Re-
public of Panama will always be in accord with
your lofty views of international policy. A thou-
sand reasons for perpetual gratitude and lasting
union bind the inhabitants of the Isthmus to the
American Government and people; therefore, your
triumphs will always have our sincere plaudits and
the possibility of your reverses as a nation will
always be considered by us as a personal calamity.
The gigantic work of the Interoceanic Canal,
which astonishes the whole world, is the principal
factor in the community of interests and the reci-
procity of sentiment which characterize the relations
between our countries. To protect this great work,
which is already nearing conclusion, the Republic
of Panama will omit neither care nor effort, since
it will always hold in remembrance the protection
received from your nation when it took its first
steps as a sovereign -state and the wise purpose
which has guided your country in all the acts in
which its assistance has been necessary to secure
the benefits acquired with our independence.
ARJONA. 9
The work of the representatives of your Gov-
ernment in this Republic and in the Zone of the
Canal has been most appropriate and beneficial.
Confining myself to the present, I will mention the
able diplomat, Mr. Dodge, who maintains upon a
high plane the relations between both countries.
At the head of the civil administration, Governor
Thatcher is a model of zeal and intelligence. Col-
onel Gorgas, with his well-disciplined officials in
the sanitary department, has effectively removed
the dark and horrible specter of epidemics; and,
finally, Colonel Goethals, the man of iron, of trained
mentality, of never-sufficiently-praised energy, the
supreme director of the stupendous work of the
canal, with his constant and honorable zeal to immor-
talize the name of the United States in that of the
colossal work, offers to your powerful country the
splendid spectacle, which all powers will witness
with delight, of the rapid passage of ships through
the channel which is being opened by the unceasing
blows of the marvelous arm of the North American
Nation. A day of glory, recorded with letters of
gold in the annals of the Republic of Panama, will
be that upon which traffic through the new road is
opened. The world, astounded, will contemplate
the celebration which will crown the glory of the
people and Government of the United States and
which, at the cost of enormous sacrifice, will be the
most valuable offering presented upon the altar of
universal progress.
IO PANAMA.
Welcome, therefore, illustrious Mr. Secretary.
Behold in the people of the Republic of Panama,
which has for you the immense gratitude of the pro-
tege, more than a friend, a true brother; and in the
name of the Government and of all the citizens of
my country accept this modest expression of appre-
ciation and sympathy which we have dedicated to
you for your entertainment. When you return to
your country, tell the American Government and
people, in the name of the Republic of Panama, that
we, the people of the Isthmus, are bound to them
with the same ties, with the same eternal bonds,
with which at no distant time, to the astonishment
of the world and for all eternity, the deep, blue
waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific will be united.
Reply oj Mr. Knox.
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:
It is an honor and a sincere pleasure to be your
guest and the recipient of the cordial welcome of
Panama. It is a privilege to stand upon the
threshold of the consummation of the greatest
work done by man in or for the world and to feel
that one is not a stranger upon the soil dedicated
from the creation to be the scene of the supreme
effort for human advancement when man's require-
ments demanded it and man's genius should be
equal to the task.
When the necessities of the world's first civili-
zation could be no longer supplied and its aspira-
tions no longer satisfied in its oriental abode it was
natural that the pioneers of those days should make
their first explorations by following the path of the
life-giving sun in its daily journeys toward the
West.
The fruits of their first timid ventures em-
boldened them to more ambitious endeavor, and
the ever-increasing rewards resulting from the dis-
covery of continents and seas beckoned them on
until, halted here by another world, they seemed to
have fulfilled their mission of companion discov-
erers with the sun, which passed on in solitude
toward and into the unknown.
1 2 PANAMA
It was not until 1513, when Balboa stood "silent
upon a peak in Darien " and gazed upon the waters
of the Pacific, that it was evident that the hand that
gave the seas and formed the land left it possible
to divide the hemisphere which halted western
progress, even as Moses had divided the Red Sea
that the children of Israel might pass, and though
the hands of the early navigators were unskilled
for the gigantic task their imaginations grasped
the possibility of its successful realization.
The history of the project to build an isthmian
canal is full of strange national and personal disap-
pointments. Perhaps the most tragic of them all
is that, coincident with Spain's loss of the last
vestige of her sovereignty in the New World, the
final act of the realization of the dreams of her
great navigators began.
After many vicissitudes and failures the comple-
tion of this stupendous work devolved upon the
people of the United States, who are thus thrown
into relations with the countries of the isthmian
region which, with our geographical propinquity,
make a broader understanding and a more sympa-
thetic reciprocal interest between us an essential
basis for the realization of the splendid possibilities
which seem to have been decreed from the begin-
ning of time.
The President of the United States believes
that the early completion of the Panama Canal
should mark the beginning of closer relations to
all Latin America, and especially to the Caribbean
KNOX. 13
littoral, as well as the relations of these countries to
each other, and, impelled by the thought that this
is an auspicious moment, through better acquaint-
ance, to lay the foundations upon which there
should rest a broader confidence, a closer sympathy,
and more practical reciprocal helpfulness, has sent
me hither as a bearer of a message of good will to
our sister American republics. It is the Presi-
dent's desire that I might personally meet your
most hospitable peoples, might see for myself your
beautiful countries, with their boundless resources
and economic possibilities, to the end that such di-
rect personal knowledge, understanding, and appre-
ciation might result in mutual advantage and in co-
operation for the development of all our countries.
Responding to the hospitality of the country which
has first and so generously received me and with
which the relations of my country are so cordially
intimate, I take this opportunity of assuring all the
American republics that the purpose of the United
States toward them is that we should live in amity
and essential harmony and that we desire only that
more peace, more prosperity, more happiness, and
more security should come in and become a part of
their individual and national lives.
While it is entirely clear to those who have
fairly and intelligently considered the history of the
relations of the United States to the other Ameri-
can republics that our politics have been without
a trace of sinister motive or design, craving neither
sovereignty nor territory, yet it is true that our mo-
14 PANAMA.
tives toward you have not always been fortunately
interpreted either at home or faithfully represented
by some of our nationals who have resided in your
midst.
While we have much to learn of each other and
are all to be vastly profited by clear and more sym-
pathetic ties, yet between the elder and the younger
republics there is much in common.
A commonwealth founded on freedom of con-
science and security of individual rights is not an
exclusive heritage of Saxon America, but one shared
by all the peoples of the hemisphere who, like our-
selves, have passed through the sore trials that
attend the founding of new communities in a new
land. However diverse our physical environments,
however great the contrast between the natural
obstacles to be surmounted, whether amid the snows
and pine forests of the north or in the sierras of
the Equator and the pampas of the south, the
aim of our respective enterprises, expressed in the
undying words of Lincoln, has been the same, to
bring forth on this continent new nations, conceived
in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all
men are created equal.
Much has been said about the effect of the open-
ing of the Panama Canal, but I believe it is given
to few of us to realize what magic possibilities are
potential in that event. As I conceive it, it will
create for our Western World an entirely new situa-
tion, a situation fraught with possibilities so vast
they daze the fancy of the mind. In this new
KNOX. 15
world we must be found drawn closer by sympathies
and mutual esteem, and working in harmony toward
beneficent ends. This must be so, for our greatest
interests are those that are common to us all. We
who live on the Western Hemisphere find ourselves
by force of geography in circumstances which make
our situation peculiar, and this fundamental fact
gives us privileges and imposes upon us duties and
obligations we would not otherwise have. It was
a perception of this, which your own thinkers and
statesmen have seen as clearly as our own, which
prompted the announcement by President Monroe
o'f the great and beneficent policy that now bears
his name. When the canal is opened and the ships
of all the countries of the world come sailing through
these Carib seas, the peculiarity of our position with
its special requirement will be accentuated and the
wisdom of that doctrine confirmed again and spe-
cially. It serves admittedly your interests as much
as ours. Even now it is a great bond between
us. In its future amplification I perceive it will be
a common heritage binding together the nations of
this hemisphere with a force no power can break,
and while it has in Providence been given to us of
the north to state and interpret it, it has never been
invoked to the detriment of the people of the south
or operated to their hurt.
In my judgment the Monroe Doctrine will reach
the acme of its beneficence when it is regarded by
the people of the United States as a reason why we
should constantly respond to the needs of those of
1 6 PANAMA.
our Latin-American neighbors who may find neces-
sity for our assistance in their progress toward bet-
ter government or who may seek our aid to meet
their just obligations and thereby to maintain hon-
orable relations to the family of nations. Great
as will be the glory of having physically divided a
hemisphere, a greater glory will be to have con-
tributed to the unity, happiness, and prosperity of
its people.
It is a paradox that the severance of the physical
ligament that joins the two continents of the New
World will more closely unite them. Culebra is
the clot in the artery of intercourse whose removal
will give free and full circulation throughout the
whole organism to the vivifying currents of friend-
ship, peace, commerce, and prosperity.
When the waters of the two oceans are blended
on the soil of Panama it will make curious changes
in the geography of the Americas. All that is south
of the Isthmus will be nearer to all that is north,
and all that is north will, in a peculiar sense, be
more closely drawn together. The Central Ameri-
can republics will be the tropical end of a vast
island whose northern limits will extend to the
eternal ice and whose southern boundary will be a
continuous procession of the commerce of the world.
II
Speeches in Costa Rica
S 105 2 17
Speech of His Excellency Ricardo Jimenez, Presi-
dent of Costa Rica, at a dinner given to Mr.
Knox at San Jose1, March j>, 1912.
[Translation.*]
You are welcome to Costa Rica, distinguished
representative of the United States of America,
that friendly country that from remote times and in
a variety of ways has exercised such a far-reaching
influence over the destinies of this Republic.
A little time after the thirteen colonies, accord-
ing to the terms of your Declaration of Independ-
ence, " assumed, among the powers of the earth, the
separate and equal station to which the laws of nature
and of nature's God entitle them", the Spanish col-
onies, stirred up by the revolutionary fermentation
of the north and encouraged by your noble exam-
ple, repeated and made good your words, applying
them to themselves, declaring that ''they were, and
of right ought to be, free and independent States";
and so it was, sir, that Costa Rica, without hatred
toward and even without disaffection for Spain,
and carried along by the wave of emancipation that
swept over the New World from Massachusetts to
the Argentine, abandoned her secular vassalage and
assumed the sovereign arbitration of her destiny.
* Translation furnished by Costa Rican Government.
19
2O COSTA RICA.
Nevertheless, it was very possible, above all in
Central America, that our exercise of sovereignty
would only have been a momentary eclipse of Euro-
pean domination, of this or that state, if it had not
been for the joint Anglo-American action and if
the United States had not pronounced in 1823,
through the mouth of President Monroe, its for-
midable veto. The American Eagle then spread
its wings over this continent and in its flight joined
that of the "nopal" and the condors of the south.
And from that epoch the schemes of conquest or
reconquest of the ancient colonies were consigned
to the dominions of things past and gone forever.
But there is another benefit that we owe to your
country, the greatest of all, without which all others
would be mere dross : We have cast our institutions
in the moulding-sand of yours. In our first at-
tempts in the exercise of self-government — the only
kind that deserves the decorous respect of men — we
learned to spell in your famous document of Decla-
ration of Independence that "all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights, that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"; and consist-
ent with these fundamental principles, as incon-
trovertible now at the beginning of the twentieth
century as they were at the end of the eighteenth, we
regulated our political system, and within that sys-
tem the smallest Republic of this hemisphere lives
happily, "without envying others or being envied
by them", in the same manner as your wonderful
JIMENEZ. 21
country, enjoying all the privileges of that same
system, also lives felicitously, a palpable demonstra-
tion that self-government, with powers distributed
and limited, with liberty of speech and a free press,
of effective and extensive individual rights, a gov-
ernment that derives its just powers from the con-
sent of the governed, is beneficent everywhere —
at least in America — with that same universality of
the mathematical laws that are equally appropriate
for fixing the course of the planets as they are for
arranging the most humble transactions of men.
I hope, sir, that the personal knowledge of our
institutions and customs may excite in you a feel-
ing of true pride and pleasure on seeing many of
the seeds of good government bearing fruit in this
little corner of America, snatched from your fields
of liberty by the winds that carry civilization from
country to country, and dropped by them here and
there in all parts of the world.
There will be perpetual peace between the
United States and the Republic of Costa Rica!
These were the prophetic words of Daniel Webster,
stamped on the treaty of 1851, which bears his
signature. Consecrated by the lapse of time the
things that have happened since then have con-
firmed this prophesy. Our mutual relations' of
countrymen with countrymen have grown in a con-
stant manner. We sell in the markets of the
United States 60 per cent of our exportations, and
in exchange we buy in them 60 per cent of the
articles that Costa Rica imports. This present
22 COSTA RICA.
condition of reciprocity is an excellent sign that
prognosticates the firmness of our future relations.
In negotiating, we enter into mutual relations with
others, and to have amicable intercourse with others
is to be known, to be appreciated, and to consoli-
date friendships. Attracted by the fertility of our
soils and the riches of our mines, and, I presume,
attracted also by our peacefulness and by the
respect we show to strangers, their properties and
creeds, you will find here a great number of your
fellow countrymen managing large capitals of their
own or of persons who reside in the United States.
Far from frowning upon their good luck, we are
pleased to see it; and as their gains are not derived
through legislative favors, their prosperity does not
diminish, but, on the contrary, helps to augment
vigorously the prosperity of the nation.
Lastly, Mr. Secretary, it is not possible to pass
over in silence that share which, through our initia-
tive and confident acts, your country has taken in
the limitation of the territory of this Republic. An
American hand, the just hand of Mr. Cleveland, of
blessed memory, marked our boundaries on the
north; and another American hand, the hand of
Mr. White, in which hangs, happily for you and
also' for us, the scales of justice, will trace our south-
ern frontier. In the arrangement that Costa Rica
and Panama made to this effect, you put, out of
consideration to both parties, the valuable contin-
gent of your skill, your benevolence and friendly
interest, and I am delighted to be able to take
JIMENEZ. 23
advantage of this occasion to express to you by word
of mouth the profound gratitude that from that
time we Costa Ricans owe to you, a gratitude that
expands, now that we find ourselves honored with
your visit. And I am confident that this advent
of yours will leave in us a wake of fellow feeling,
not like that made by the furrow that the ship forms
in the waters, to be destroyed by them immediately
afterwards, but a wake as wide and luminous as it is
permanent.
Based in these antecedents is inspired the cor-
diality with which I drink your health, Mr. Secretary,
and also that of President Taft, and in the same
way the health of the people of the United States;
and as that great country does not now see in any
quarter a cloud that may darken the splendor of its
power, I hope that it may never see the refulgent
sun of justice eclipsed on its horizons, so that its
greatness and moderation, without losing their
force for a moment, may continue shining over the
world until the end of time.
To your health, Mr. Secretary.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:
It is indeed a pleasure for me, Mr. President, to
acknowledge how deeply I appreciate the generous
sentiment you have proposed and the honor you do
me, and through me the American people, by show-
ering upon me your bounteous and cordial hospi-
tality, thereby evincing your sympathetic response
to the spirit which has inspired my mission to you.
I know that I am acknowledging no feigned friend-
ship or simulated courtesy, but that the great heart of
Costa Rica has responded to the heart of her most
northern sister republic. The similarity of our
political organizations, our geographical proximity,
the tendency of our commercial and industrial inter-
ests and policies, and our traditional and long-con-
tinued relations of friendship and good will inspired
in the President of the United States the sincere
desire that our sympathies, cooperation, and good
understanding should increase, and for that reason
he directed me to visit the Republic of Costa Rica
and our other sister republics in the region of the
Caribbean Sea, in order that I might carry to them
a message of good will from the people and Gov-
ernment of the United States, and, further, that I
might make that personal acquaintance with your
public men and hospitable peoples to the end that
24
KNOX. 25
such direct personal knowledge and understanding
and appreciation might result in mutual advantage
and cooperation for the advancement of our com-
mon interests.
It was with a feeling of genuine wonder and
admiration that I arrived at your capital city after
the marvelous ride from the coast, along the won-
derful Revantazon, following its tortuous and diffi-
cult windings through the most beautiful tropical
foliage until, arriving at the highlands, the verdure
of the Temperate Zone at once met the eye. The
ability to make this journey in so much comfort
was, Mr. President, a suggestion of what the Costa
Ricans have accomplished along other lines, and
fully prepared me for the abundant evidences of the
industry, thrift, tenacity, and culture of your people
which I met at every hand.
It is with a feeling of gratified expectancy that
one finds at every turn expressions of the tradi-
tional love of your people for education, not only
in its practical forms, but for the higher arts, nota-
bly architecture and music, and to see in the happy
and radiant faces of the children the reflection of
the beauty of their mothers and sturdy qualities
of their fathers.
It is given to few countries to make the just
boast that within her borders the school-teachers
outnumber the soldiers and that resting upon her
bosom in the very center of America is the first
perfect type of an international court of arbitral
justice.
26 COSTA RICA.
The attitude of the Government of the United
States toward the peaceful settlement of interna-
tional disputes, of which this court forms a model,
has been consistently maintained since the founda-
tion of our Government, as is evidenced by the
Treaty of Ghent. The attitude of the Republic of
Costa Rica has likewise been consistent and is am-
ply evidenced by the course adopted for the settle-
ment of the century-old boundary dispute with
Panama. I repeat, Mr. President, that the people
of Costa Rica may justly felicitate themselves that
in their very midst is the home of the Central
American Court of Justice, the one tribunal before
which one nation may bring another — yes, before
which an individual may bring a nation to deter-
mine before the bar of impartial justice the differ-
ences that exist between them. My Government
and, I am sure, the Government of Mexico feel
proud of the part played by them in the Central
American Peace Conference, convoked under their
auspices, out of which grew this international fo-
rum, which is the prototype of the court it has long
been the desire of the United States to see estab-
lished by the nations of the earth. In this connec-
tion, Mr. President, let me express the feeling of
profound satisfaction that the people and Govern-
ment of the United States entertain, not only be-
cause of the rapidly increasing prosperity of Costa
Rica, but because of her love for peace, because of
the respect she inspires in the family of nations,
because she has laid the foundations of perpetual
KNOX. 27
freedom upon the eternal rock of justice and occu-
pies an exceptional and enviable position among
the American republics and to the general distribu-
tion of property among her people, and because of
the constantly increasing intimacy and friendliness
between her people and our own.
It is but a short time, Mr. President, until at
Panama a new highway of commerce will be opened
to the world. That event, so conspicuous and sig-
nificant, will remove the countries of the Caribbean
Sea from their comparative isolation and place them
upon the greatest highway on the globe, a highway
from the northern to the southern, from the west-
ern to the eastern world. The republics of this
hemisphere will be thrown into a new day and a
new condition. It would be folly to enter that
new day without a proper conception of its oppor-
tunities and possibilities for our common good.
We should go into the new epoch as befits it, with
new aspirations and enthusiasms and with greater
promise. The casual relations which once marked
our intercourse are now happily not casual, but they
must be closer and more friendly still — so close,
indeed, that as we labor to better human conditions
this common end will be a bond of trust and hope.
I bear you, then, not only a message of good
will, but one bespeaking a mutual understanding
and union in aspiration and effort toward further-
ing the progress of the Western World through
deeds of reciprocal helpfulness.
28 COSTA RICA.
The free and equal republics which have estab-
lished themselves upon this hemisphere have a sin-
gular harmony of destiny, and that is to bring their
common form of government to the highest point
of efficiency for the maintenance of popular rights.
The greatest strength of these republics, whose her-
itage is so wonderful, lies in unity of aim and effort.
While we will all be more or less, in the future
as in the past, engrossed in questions affecting our
internal development and our own acute problems,
it is wise to seize every opportunity to impress
upon the world and upon ourselves that ours is a
Pan-American union of lofty Pan-American public
opinion, doing justice and exacting justice, disclaim-
ing ignoble suspicion, and putting to scorn interna-
tional acts of unworthiness when, unhappily, they
may be found among us.
Ladies and gentlemen, I propose the health, the
happiness, and the prosperity of the President and
people of Costa Rica.
Speech of Mr. Knox at a luncheon given on board
the "Maryland"' at Punt arenas, Costa Rica,
March 4, 1912.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
Of course the thing that we would love the
most would be to say that now we are welcoming
you to the shores of our country, as you have wel-
comed me and my party to yours, but as this seems
to be a physical impossibility the next best thing is
to welcome you to the decks of an American ship,
which, in a sense, is American soil.
I want to tell you in all sincerity and from the
bottom of my heart that when from the quarter-deck
of the Maryland we view the disappearing shores
of your hospitable land we will not only carry with
us deep regret at parting, but lasting memories of
your cordial hospitality and kindness to us while
we were here, and as a parting toast I propose the
health, the prosperity, good fortune in all things,
and the perpetuity of your Republic; the beauty
and grace of your women, the valor, industry,
thrift, and tenacity of your men, Costa Rica, and
her people.
29
Ill
Speeches in Nicaragua
Speech of Mr. Knox at the railroad station at
Managua, Nicaragua, March 5, 1912*
MR. MAYOR, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:
My especial regret at this moment is that I have
not an acquaintance with the beautiful language of
your good people which will enable me to respond
in fitting terms to your words of welcome. I can
not take any other meaning from them, however,
than that you have extended to me a kindly greet-
ing, and in the name of the people of my country
and of the President of the United States I sincerely
thank you. It is not only a privilege to be here,
but a great satisfaction to stand in this capital city
and look into the eyes of the people for whom my
friendship has always been great. I appreciate the
honor that was done me by the citizens of Nicara-
gua in sending to the seashore so many of your dis-
tinguished men and beautiful women to greet us at
the threshold of your country, and I am sincerely
thankful to the municipal authorities of the city of
Managua, as well as the authorities of the Republic,
not only for myself but for my party, for my peo-
ple, and for my President for the great cordiality
you have shown me.
*The Secretary did not receive a copy of the speech to which this is
a reply.
00
s 105 3
Speech of His Excellency Adolf o Diaz, President
of Nicaragua, welcoming Mr. Knox, Managua,
March 6, 1912.
[Translation.]
HONORABLE SECRETARY KNOX:
You are in a country where your name has long
been known, because on a memorable occasion for
our liberty you linked it with the history of our
struggles for advancement by an act of justice of
the American Government, inspired by the senti-
ment of that great people which abhors tyranny
not only within its own frontiers, but in every
place to which it may carry the beneficent influ-
ence of its policy.
As an admirer of that policy by reason of its
evident results in other fortunate Latin countries,
I live in the firm intention of accepting that friendly
influence so long as I myself have any influence
in the destinies of my country, whether as a ruler
or as a citizen.
Unfortunate has been the existence of Central
American democracy. A prolonged and bloody
struggle has consumed the vigorous life of these
nations during almost an entire century of sterile
uprisings. To refer only to my own country; it
has been a republic for almost a hundred years
without having known republican methods in all
34
DIAZ. 35
that time, except at brief intervals. Our political
struggles have unfortunately not been a luminous
contest of ideas and principles; they have been a
terrible duel between despotism, on one hand, and,
on the other, the ill-directed efforts of the people in
search of happiness never attained — a duel, a hor-
rible duel, which has at length left the Republic,
if not dead, at least almost utterly exhausted.
Horrible disasters have happened among us
which have been viewed, if not with indifference,
at least with passive calmness by the rest of the
civilized world, because in international regulations
the egotistical doctrine has prevailed that in the
matter of good government each nation should
concern itself only with its own people, as if those
who suffer the oppression of tyranny were not
human beings, like other unfortunates to whom
succor is never denied among Christians. This
doctrine, thanks principally to the United States,
is disappearing among nations to give place to the
more generous one of mutual assistance.
In the light of these principles I entered the
revolution of Bluefields with firm faith, a faith
maintained unchanged even amidst the greatest
vicissitudes of that terrible war, because I knew
that we were engaged not in one of the many up-
risings, vain efforts, common in our disorganization,
without positive results, but in a real revolution,
an absolute overthrow not only of the despot but
also of his baneful system, and thereafter a triumph
36 NICARAGUA.
of justice and the establishment of order and last-
ing peace in Nicaragua.
I knew then, and I believe to-day, notwith-
standing my transition from a revolutionist to a
member of the Government, that this happy out-
come can not be obtained without the assistance
of your country. We are weak and we need your
strong help for the regeneration of our debilitated
land. The hand which your Government gener-
ously and fraternally extends to us I accept without
reserve or fear, for I know it belongs to a people
which has made a religion of liberty and, educated
in and for freedom, loves its independence above
everything and respects the independence of others.
In this work for the welfare of Nicaragua, in-
creasing the hope of its ultimate success, your name
is pledged. It has been connected, to the joy of
our people, with two of our principal events: With
your famous note, in which, as the mouthpiece of
civilization, you pronounced the doom of tyranny
before the world, and with the treaty you signed in
Washington with our Minister Castrillo, the clauses
of which are a guaranty of peace, the basis of a
future of prosperity and order, and the confirma-
tion of which by the American Senate all good
Nicaraguans are to-day anxiously awaiting in order
to enter tranquilly upon the enjoyment of their
assured rights and the anticipation of that future
of development and wealth.
The name of your worthy President, William
H. Taft, and your own name are pronounced by all
DIAZ. 37
Nicaraguans, from the statesman to the humblest
countryman, as though they were names of person-
ages of our fatherland, due to the fact that every day
the bonds are becoming closer between your great
and happy country and my own small country,
worthy, however, of equal happiness because it con-
sists of a generous race inhabiting a rich soil.
This sincere friendship between the powerful
and the weak is meritorious for both — for the one
because of its altruism ; for the other because of its
confidence. Yes, sir, unlimited confidence in the
proven morality of the American Government, and
even greater confidence in the people of your great
nation, who in every circumstance would be the
first and most earnest defenders of justice for the
weak, even against their own Government.
In this new political life of Nicaragua, which,
scarcely begun, is already showing the effect of
almost forgotten liberties — in this work of regen-
eration you have been one of the most active
agents, bringing to us at this opportune moment of
our transformation the influence of your power
without offending us with your strength. For this
reason you may count upon firm affection in Nica-
ragua; for this reason you are received like an old
acquaintance, and I, in the name of the people and
of the Government of Nicaragua, greet you cor-
dially, and hope your sojourn may be pleasant in
this country, where your name signifies an ideal.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:
On behalf of the Government and people of the
United States permit me to express my sincere
appreciation and thanks for your kindly greeting.
I have come to Nicaragua to express to you the
keen feeling of neighborly sympathy entertained
by my Government for the Government and people
of Nicaragua, and it is indeed a pleasure to meet
you here and be privileged to speak to you face to
face.
Thanks to the frank and most cordial relations
which happily exist between our respective coun-
tries our people are rapidly becoming more deeply
interested in the welfare and development and con-
sequent prosperity of Nicaragua, and are more than
ever before manifesting a desire to cultivate even
closer and more intimate relations. Movements
toward closer association and truer friendship
between the peoples of different countries are not
arbitrarily created by outward efforts; they spring
from within. Their primary impulse is the grow-
ing conviction of neighboring countries that the
development and prosperity of each is in harmony
with the advancement of the welfare of all. Such
movements are tremendously facilitated by the
38
KNOX. 39
confidence and friendship that follows acquaintance,
and that fact is the inspiration of my mission.
Although the interest of the people of the
United States in the welfare of your country is
keen there is not and never has been any desire
either on the part of the American Government or
people to mix unduly or unbidden in the internal
affairs of Nicaragua, but to the request for assist-
ance in the regeneration of Nicaragua my Gov-
ernment was happy promptly to respond.
The political and economic situation that had
arisen, due to many years of misrule, rendered the
task of reorganization of your Government exceed-
ingly difficult, and your leaders, because of the
frank friendship and good faith of the United States
toward the Nicaraguan people as a whole, naturally
turned to the American Government for council
and assistance in the arduous task before them.
My Government was glad to send to Managua a
special commissioner to aid in making a fixed pro-
gram which the leaders pledged themselves to carry
out and in which was contemplated loyal coopera-
tion in the rehabilitation of Nicaragua. The Gov-
ernment of the United States was glad to suggest,
upon the invitation of Nicaragua, a competent
financial adviser who should make a careful study
of the economic conditions of the country and
counsel the Government of Nicaragua as to the
best methods to be pursued in dealing with this
most difficult and important problem, and also to
assist you in devising means to be adopted to deal
4<3 NICARAGUA.
with the claims against Nicaragua and to dispose in
an adequate and just manner of the outstanding
and legally or economically unsound and ruinous
concessions.
The United States was likewise, upon your in-
vitation, glad to conclude a convention with Nica-
ragua which will provide a sufficient measure of se-
curity for a new foreign loan, essential for your
financial reorganization and internal public im-
provements. While this convention is still pending
before the United States Senate it has become nec-
essary for Nicaragua to make some provision for
the immediate reformation of the local currency,
and in order to accomplish this a short-time loan
has been negotiated and my Government has gladly
approved the name of an American collector gen-
eral of customs, who has been appointed by the
Government of Nicaragua.
The Nicaraguan people are to be congratulated
that they have at the head of the nation a man
quick to realize the necessities of the country and
of courage sufficient to expeditiously set on foot
the best and surest means of meeting the country's
needs.
It must here be remembered that the progress
already made and the continuance of Nicaragua
along the path to national regeneration depend
almost entirely upon the preservation of peace
and contentment in the country, and that the
surest means of reaching this end is the faithful
KNOX. 41
observance of the pledges made by the leaders of
all parties.
In the zone of the Caribbean the responsibili-
ties of the United States are becoming increasingly
great as the opening of the great waterway which
is to change the trade routes of the world draws
nearer and the desire of the United States to see
order and prosperity becomes even more intensified.
We are especially interested in the prosperity
of all the people of Nicaragua. Their prosper-
ity means contentment and contentment means
repose. The United States have always cherished
sentiments of the warmest regard and most cordial
esteem for the people of Nicaragua, and from the
very commencement of the independent existence
of Nicaragua the Government of the United States
has steadfastly adhered to the traditional policy that
found expression in the words of President Monroe
and which indicated a sympathetic interest in see-
ing this country develop and progress unrestricted
and unfettered by the interference of foreign na-
tions. Encouraged by that sympathy Nicaragua
was able to add to its jurisdiction a strip of terri-
tory along the Atlantic coast which, with the estab-
lishment of better means of communication be-
tween the eastern and western portions of the
country, will add greatly to the resources and the
political prestige of the Republic. The people of
the United States most earnestly desire that Nica-
ragua should steadily advance to that place in the
family of nations to which its situation, its wealth,
42 NICARAGUA.
and the capacity of its people for self-government
justly entitle it, and in that spirit of cordial good
will and warm friendship the Government of the
United States stands prepared to lend such counsel
and assistance as may be requested and as may be
proper in the establishment of a government calcu-
lated to maintain order, enforce law, discharge its
international obligations, and promote peace, prog-
ress, and prosperity.
I was much impressed, sir, by the lofty stand-
ard Nicaragua has set for herself, so eloquently ex-
pressed by you in your gracious words of welcome
to our minister, whom you have so recently re-
ceived. When you assured him that Nicaragua
"had established as a firm base of government the
respect for human life, the absolute right to prop-
erty, the suppression of the odious system of forced
contributions, the complete independence of the
courts, the freedom of the press, and the observ-
ance of all individual guaranties", you justly con-
cluded that these facts were "eloquent testimony of
the unvarying purpose that animates the Govern-
ment of Nicaragua to be faithful to its interna-
tional obligations and to the promises of liberty and
justice given to its citizens".
It has .probably never happened that neighboring
countries, which have been more or less afflicted
with international and internal troubles of frequent
recurrence arising from similar causes, have adopted
such radical and effective means for their preven-
tion as did the five Central American republics in
KNOX. 43
the three treaties signed at Washington in 1907
under the friendly counsel and sympathy of the
United States and Mexico.
By the convention for the establishment of a
Central American Court of Justice they bound
themselves to create and maintain a permanent tri-
bunal and to submit to it all controversies and ques-
tions which may arise a.mong them of whatever
nature. By the general treaty of peace and amity
they agreed to the maintenance of peace in their
mutual relations, and to that end, taking into con-
sideration the central geographical position of Hon-
duras, they stipulated for its complete neutrality in
event of conflict between the other republics, and,
in order to remove one of the most frequent sources
of trouble, provision was made calculated to sup-
press revolutionary activity on the part of the resi-
dents in adjacent republics. By the addition to
that convention, and for the purpose of further dis-
couraging and preventing internal disturbances in
the five republics, they agreed to refuse to recognize
revolutionary governments in each other's countries
until first constitutionally recognized in the country
where occurring; they agreed not to intervene in
any country in case of civil war; and they agreed
to constitutional reform. The mere fact that these
high resolutions may not have been strictly observed
in particular cases should by no means discourage
the signatory parties, the important fact being that
these five republics have indicated their sincere
desire for international peace and domestic tran-
44 NICARAGUA.
quillity, and have devised complete and adequate
means to that end, the faithful adherence of which
will become more and more habitual as the excel-
lent example of the more advanced republics con-
tinues to prompt it.
Mindful of the part the United States took in
encouraging the making of these treaties and the
moral obligations arising therefrom it is not the
intention of our Government or our people to refrain
from lending every possible proper aid and encour-
agement to the parties to these conventions to con-
stantly carry into effect their wise and beneficent
provisions.
If this or any other government is to endure in
this or any other land it is necessary that wisdom,
vigilance, patience, and loyalty should abide in its
halls of legislation, its chambers of justice, in the
centers of executive power, and with the dominating
mass of its people.
The establishment and preservation of the insti-
tutions of free government, here as elsewhere,
depend not upon those who think first of serving
themselves and to that end would sacrifice their
country; not upon those who think only of defeat-
ing the opposition and to that end would sacrifice
the world; but upon those who think only of the
welfare of their country and to that end would sac-
rifice themselves.
In Nicaragua there is to-day present the oppor-
tunity and the acute necessity for a display of the
very highest and most enduring type of patriotism.
KNOX. 45
There is now a call to her true sons to give the best
that is within them to anxious and concerted effort
for the public weal, to execute the compromises,
adjustments, and concessions essential for the gen-
eral welfare, and, by consistent and loyal adherence
to the understandings and agreements that have
been reached for the rehabilitation of their Govern-
ment, to place their names first upon their country's
enduring roll of fame.
Speech of the President of the National Constitu-
tional Assembly of Nicaragua, Dr. Ignacio
Suarez, at a solemn session of that body held at
Managua in honor of Mr. Knox, March 6t
1912.
[Translation.]
MOST EXCELLENT MR. SECRETARY:
The National Constitutional Assembly wishes
to accord you this reception to give you a cordial
welcome in testimony of the lively sympathy and
high esteem which the people and Government of
the United States inspire in them, and you, Mr.
Secretary, who, in the high character of Secretary
of State of the great American nation, have con-
tributed indirectly with your moral influence to the
pacification of our country. Hence, I have the
honor to express these sentiments in the name of
the National Congress, prophesying the most per-
fect success of the mission which has brought you
here.
You are not, therefore, to us merely the diplo-
matic representative of a powerful nation whom we
admire and respect and to whom \ve are bound by
ties of old and friendly relations, but also a wel-
come guest, owing to your having given proof that
you are animated by a lofty spirit of American
brotherhood.
46
SUAREZ. 47
It can not be denied, however, that your visit,
which the peoples of America and ourselves espe-
cially, have been awaiting with suspense, has awak-
ened fears and misgivings in timid minds, who see
in it a peril to our autonomy. Undoubtedly it is
because they are unaware of the many proofs which
on divers and solemn occasions North American
statesmen have given officially which eliminate all
tendency to expansion or to interference in foreign
dominions which might compromise the latter's
sovereignty and independence.
It must be recognized also that a propaganda
nearly continental in proportions denouncing ex-
pansionism has been initiated. This propaganda
first took form in the famous Monroe Doctrine, so
opportunely formulated, now amplifying and re-
stricting its terms, or diluting it in a strong solution
of unbiased criticism in order to arrive at the exact
conception of its true meaning.
Those unfounded fears of which I have just
made mention arise from this. To dissipate them
it is enough for me to recall some of those proofs,
unimpeachable through having been confirmed in
the international practice of the United States.
The glorious conqueror of Vicksburg, in 1881,
calmed the restlessness of the Mexicans who at-
tributed intentions of annexation to his journey,
assuring them, at a banquet given to him by the
deputies of Oaxaca, that the people of the United
States would under no circumstances accept annexa-
48 NICARAGUA.
tion, not even if nine-tenths of the people of Mexico
should ask for it, and he added :
We do not need new territory; we have yet to develop
what we have. We wish to see our neighbors prosper and
become strong enough in order that the projects which
are formed by other countries in relation to them may in
no way endanger their safety.
And later, in 1885, in order to dispel new fears
in the same Republic, the United States minister,
Mr. Henry R. Jackson, in a reception given on
July 4, pronounced these energetic and quieting
words :
May the hand be paralyzed that dares to strike out a
single star of the pleiad of American republics! May the
stateman perish who pulls out petals or pistils from a sin-
gle flower! Allow to each nation the full enjoyment of its
institutions, customs, and local laws. Let it govern itself
according to its pleasure. If American freedom for all
nations does not consist in this, then our Constitutions,
Federal and State, can be naught but lies and our flag a
farce.
The Attorney General, Mr. Gushing, upon giv-
ing an opinion requested by the Secretary of State,
Mr. William L. Marcy, on a claim of Peru against
the United States, thus expressed himself:
It seems to me that considerations of expediency con-
cur with all sound ideas of public law to indicate the
propriety of a return to more reserve in all this matter,
as between the Spanish American Republics and the
United States; that is, to abstain from applying to them
any rule of public law which we do not admit to have
applied to us; to do only as we would be done by; and
SUAREZ. 49
to consult their well-being, and cultivate their friendship,
by adhering to the impartial assertion, whether in claim
or in rejection of claim, of the established rules of the
international jurisprudence of Christendom.
Such wise and worthy words even the venerable
founder of American democracy would not have
disdained to pronounce.
I omit other more recent declarations, for they
are better known, such as those of Secretary of
State Root on his trip through South America,
calculated also to communicate to weak nations the
security of their independence.
There can be no doubt that justice will triumph
and that the way will be opened through which
invigorating and fruitful currents will urge on to
fields of progress.
The evolution taking place in private law, influ-
enced by the principles of true justice which does
not lose sight of the common destiny of mankind,
is already more important than international law,
and from day to day the violence of nation against
nation becomes rarer where such violence is
grounded only on the supremacy of strength.
I have the pleasure here to state that the United
States has in nearly all cases abided by the principles
above laid down. In evidence of this are the many
cases of arbitration with small nations : The Vene-
zuelan flour claim of 1836, which it dropped
when convinced that it was in the wrong; the
abuses of a mixed commission on claims against
Paraguay, removed in 1862 by this declaration
s 105 4
5O NICARAGUA.
of the President: "The people and Government of
the United States are too honorable to connive at
oriental trickery in favor of their citizens to the
detriment of justice"; to Peru was given entire
satisfaction in 1852 by the Secretary of State, Mr.
Everett, "in consequence of unintentional injustice
done", according to his expression, when the sov-
ereignty of this Republic in certain guano islands
which American citizens wished to take possession
of was put in jeopardy.
And I could continue with similar quotations.
I shall not omit the Venezuelan case, owing to the
special circumstances which attached to it. This
Republic was condemned to pay by a mixed com-
mission an indemnity to American citizens in the
sum of $1,253,310.30. It paid one-half, more or
less, and it then refused to pay the rest because
great frauds had been disclosed which placed the
real amount of the debt at $80,000. The American
Congress, at the request of the Executive, author-
ized the use of force for obtaining payment; but
Venezuela held out in its refusal until President
Arthur and Secretary Frelinghuysen recognized that
it was right, and to this effect Congress was in-
formed, and this high body thereupon unanimously
resolved that another commission should be ap-
pointed to revise the first decision.
I have gone into these details at length to make
clear the procedure of your powerful country with
the other weak ones of the continent; and the last
cited in particular attracts the attention, for it
SUAREZ. 51
treats of a decision clothed with all the force of a
thing adjudicated opened anew through respect for
right and equity.
Hence, all fears and all prejudice ought to be
rejected in our relations with the United States, it
being evident that the strongest bulwark of our
guaranty as a nation, lacking physical strength,
lies in the force which emanates from right, and
therefore it resides in your own institutions, in your
characteristic respect for law, which, as was said
by a notable writer, is borne of the Anglo-Saxon
temperament — calm, practical, lover of justice, and
adverse to all extreme measures.
Hard is the lot of a weak people, even when
its friendship with great and strong nations is taken
into consideration.
The same august founder of your prosperous
Union, who saw everything through the crystal of
his excellent virtues, said, on taking leave of public
life, in his immortal message addressed to Congress:
Such an attachment of a small or weak toward a great
and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite
of the latter.
Nicaragua, however, which in 1884 was closely
bound to your country by the Zavala-Frelinghuysen
treaty, does not fear prejudice or see peril to its
autonomy, and, strong in its good faith and confi-
dent in its institutions, founded in and strengthened
by the same principles of justice which govern your
wonderful Republic, we open our arms and receive
52 NICARAGUA.
you as friends, with signal show of respect and true
esteem.
Accept, Mr. Secretary, this manifestation of the
Assembly, and which, through you, it extends to the
people and the Government of the United States.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. PRESIDENT:
I deeply appreciate the honor of being invited
to appear before this Assembly in solemn session.
It is another mark of the high consideration I have
been shown since I entered the Republic. I pro-
foundly realize the important relations which the
legislative branch of your Government, like the
legislative branches of all republics, bears to the
national system and how important its functions
are for the welfare of the people.
The real crisis in the history of any people who
have by revolution freed themselves from tyranny
and oppression is when the cohesive force of the
perils of war have been released and the duty of
the construction of a new government begins. A
people may be liberated and their right to self-
government established by the arbitrament of war;
but liberty without efficient government is anarchy,
and a true national government must be con-
structed. We found this true in the history of the
United States, and the period that intervened
between the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at York-
town and the establishment of the present Govern-
ment of the United States was one of the most
critical in its history. It was commonly asserted,
and even by our most friendly critics, that we were
53
54 NICARAGUA.
incapable of establishing any species of government
because we were disunited. It was thought that
suspicion and distrust of the people of the different
sections of our country would continue until the
end of rime, and that we would be subdivided into
little commonwealths or communities, according to
the physical conformation of the land
Perhaps without the splendid service which the
immortal Washington rendered to his country in
its trying years this dire prediction might have
proved true, but he roused the people to the appre-
ciation of the fact that no permanent government
;3ossible unless the people themselves would be
willing, as he expressed it in his farewell letter, "to
sacrifice, if need be, some of their local interests
to the common weal; they must discard their local
prejudices and regard one another as fellow citizens
of a common country, with interests in the deepest
and truest sense identical". This communication
was addressed to the people of thirteen different
Commonwealths, each of which regarded itself as
a sovereign power, and each of which was groan-
ing under the burden it had assumed for the
common cause now brought, as they believed, to
a happy issue. They were in no humor for fur-
ther surrender or sacrifice; they were quarreling
among themselves over all sorts of real and fancied
grievances. Our credit was failing at home and
abroad; our relations with other countries as well
as between ourselves were unhappy because of
our lack of unity. As a result our citizens were
KNOX. 55
insulted, kidnapped, impressed, and sold into slavery,
and all sorts of economic vagaries were abroad in
the land. This pointed to an early condition of
total wreckage of all that we had gained by our war
for independence if a better understanding for the
future was not soon reached.
Fortunately this opportunity came in the call
for the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia
in 1787. Once again duty called Washington from
the satisfactions of private life to preside over the
destiny of his countrymen, and upon the very
threshold of its labors his lofty character and noble
eloquence inspired the members of the convention
with a sense of their duties and responsibilities. It
has been said by one of our great historians* that —
At the very outset some of the delegates began to
exhibit symptoms of that peculiar kind of moral cowardice
which is wont to afflict free governments, and of which
American history furnishes so many instructive examples.
It was suggested that palliatives and half measures would
be far more likely to find favor with the people than any
thoroughgoing reform, when Washington suddenly in-
terposed with a brief but immortal speech, which ought to
be blazoned in letters of gold, and posted on the walls
of every American assembly that shall meet to nominate
a candidate, or declare a policy, or pass a law, so long as
the weakness of human nature shall endure. Rising from
his President's chair, his tall figure drawn up to its full
height, he exclaimed,. in tones unwontedly solemn, with
suppressed emotion: "It is too probable that no plan we
propose will be adopted; perhaps another dreadful con-
flict is to be sustained. If, to please the people, we offer
*John Fiske, "The Critical Period of American History, 1783-1789".
56 NICARAGUA.
what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward
defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the
wise and the honest can repair; the event is in the hand
of God."
This outburst of noble eloquence carried conviction to
everyone, and henceforth we do not hear that any attempt
was avowedly made to avoid the issues as they came up.
It was a most wholesome tonic. It braced up the con-
vention to high resolves, and impressed upon all the dele-
gates that they were in a situation where faltering or
trifling was both wicked and dangerous. From that
moment the mood in which they worked caught some-
thing from the glorious spirit of Washington.
The result of the labors of this convention was
the Constitution of the United States; the result
of its ratification by the States was the birth of a
nation. The present unity, brotherhood, and inter-
citizenship of the inhabitants of the formerly dis-
cordant and jarring States of our Union attest the
beneficence of the work of those upon whom the
original responsibility was cast, and you people of
Nicaragua may be assured of the certainty that
under Providence great blessings will come to you
as a result of the heroic fortitude you have dis-
played in the cause of liberty, if it is followed by
wise, prompt, and beneficent action for the rehabili-
tation and reconstruction of the institutions of your
land. Mere politics, local differences, sectional
strife, personal ambition, should be set aside, and
the best thought and the best effort of the country
given to the consideration and enactment of such
economic measures as will open to the people of
KNOX. 57
Nicaragua a new vista of hope and prosperity.
This, supplemented by such measures as will make
permanent and enduring the equality of rights
which is essential to the maintenance of republican
institutions, will give Nicaragua her proper place
among the family of American republics.
I note, Mr. President, what you have said in re-
gard to the existence of some apprehension here and
in other republics of Latin America as to the true
motives and purposes of the United States toward
them under the Monroe Doctrine. I beg to assure
you, and I am sure that what I say meets the
approval of the people and President of the United
States, that my Government does not covet an inch
of territory south of the Rio Grande. The full
measure and extent of our policy is to assist in
the maintenance of republican institutions upon
this hemisphere, and we are anxious that the experi-
ment of a government of the people, for the people,
and by the people shall not fail in any republic on
this continent. We have a well-known policy as
to causes that might threaten the existence of an
American republic from beyond the sea. We are
equally desirous that there shall be no failure to
maintain a republican form of government from
forces of disintegration originating from within ;
and so far as we may be able we will always be
found willing to lend such proper assistance as may
be within our power to preserve the stability of
our sister American republics.
Speech of the President of the Supreme Court of
Justice, Dr. Alfonso Solorzano, at a solemn ses-
sion held by that Tribunal in honor of Mr.
Knox on March 6, 1912.
[Translation.]
EXCELLENT SIR:
It is the first time in the annals of the history of
the Supreme Court of Justice that it has departed
from its traditions and extended an invitation to
anyone to honor it with a visit.
But nothing is more natural than that it should
be extended to you who come as the representative
of the great American Nation, which, it is truthfully
said, has placed law upon the highest pedestal in
the world.
We read your history with interest to learn of
the institutions of a free people; its pages, covered
with wise lessons, have taught us to love your great
men of lofty virtue, who, always conscious of their
duty, had the strength of mind to perform it — those
men of a glorious past who first planted with firm
and unfaltering hand the banner of freedom in the
heart of the American Continent.
Born, like you, to a life of law, we have strug-
gled for liberty. Vividly before us is the example
of your country, which has succeeded in attaining
58
SOLORZANO. 59
the height of power not only through the untiring
endeavors of its sons to win material progress, but
also, and especially, through its political institu-
tions so wisely formulated and even more judicially
adhered to.
When your great ancestors founded the Republic
they embodied in the Constitution the admirable
principles of liberty. They believed, and rightly,
that progress and happiness of a people could
only be brought about by the full exercise of indi-
vidual activities, and hence they put upon them no
limitations other than those fixed by God, Himself,
to prevent annihilation of all in the clash of oppos-
ing aspirations.
But they also understood that the wise provi-
sions of this political organism would be fruitless if
they did not establish a sovereign and independent
power, which, removed as far as human weakness
permits from the strife of parties and free from
the passions of interest, should become the custo-
dian of its institutions and safeguard its laws; and
to the Supreme Court of Justice, which already had
been intrusted with the noble mission of conserving
peace, protecting life, property, and honor against
individual acts, was intrusted this other and higher
charge — that of maintaining its principles when
unfortunately they might be trampled upon by
those intrusted to guard them.
The institution of the Supreme Court of Justice
as the custodian of the fundamental law is, to quote
Root, "the most precious gift that political science
6O NICARAGUA.
has given to our country". We, prepared by the
history of our "mother country", which from the first
understood that law is in the hands of the govern-
ing power, were heirs also to this valuable legacy.
Our court, like yours, without machinery of
material force, is perhaps the highest moral power
of the State. It prevents the execution of those
orders of the other high powers of the States which
might violate the Constitution; it repairs the wrong,
punishes the guilty, and, by recent ruling, it even
decides upon direct appeal the unconstitutionality
of the laws. It is this power which now demon-
strates its admiration and good will toward you, and,
through you, toward your country. We fain would
believe that, if the assurances of cordiality which
the political bodies of our country have lavished
upon you have been agreeable, as the expression of
sincere feeling, this demonstration, which is ad-
dressed not to policy but to an eminent jurisconsult,
not to a great and strong power, but to people great
in law and liberty, will be not less well received.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE:
This is indeed a high honor you have conferred
on me, and I deeply appreciate it, as well as the very
kind and complimentary words which you have just
pronounced in referring to my Government and to
my people.
During twenty-five years of my life I devoted
myself to the practice of law in my native State and
there I learned to respect the courts as a power, exert-
ing within the orbits of law, justice, and equity great
influence for all that is good, and in the last analysis
constituting the strongest safeguard for the people's
rights. Though I have never occupied a judicial
position, yet, having served as the chief of the
Department of Justice in two administrations, the
contact which my position permitted me to enjoy
with the members of the bench strengthened my
respect for the courts and taught me to appreciate
the sacrifice made by those who, in devoting their
lives to the administration of justice, deny them-
selves opportunities for acquiring wealth or fame
in the more alluring fields of human endeavor.
Again I beg of you, Mr. Chief Justice, to accept
my most sincere thanks for the distinguished honor
you have this day shown to me.
61
Speech of His Excellency Diego M. Chamorro, Min-
ister for Foreign Affairs of Nicaragua, at a
banquet tendered to Mr. Knox at Managua,
March 6, 1912.
[Translation.]
MOST EXCELLENT MR. MINISTER, LADIES, AND
GENTLEMEN :
Animated by sentiments of the most legitimate
satisfaction, I have the great honor to offer this
homage of high appreciation and good will to the
most excellent the Secretary of State of the United
States of America, Mr. Philander C. Knox.
The people and Government of Nicaragua, most
excellent Mr. Secretary, feel a lively pleasure in the
visit that you make to our country, where your illus-
trious land is alternately appreciated and admired,
and with unfeigned rejoicing we celebrate the happy
occasion of your presence among us, which has per-
mitted you to know personally how sincere and en-
thusiastic are the sympathies we cherish for the great
Republic of the north, sympathies which increase
every day in the glow of the inalterable confidence
which your interest for the well-being and prosperity
of Nicaragua inspires in us, and in the perseverance
with which we labor in the same work of liberty
and of justice, which is the aspiration of our people
and the generous ideal of your nation and of your
Government.
62
CHAMORRO. 63
Peoples, like individuals, more than by their own
resources, live by the interests common to other
peoples, and no nation, without placing in danger
its well-being and its existence, can draw away from
that sociological law which compels all individuals
and all nationalities to live together in a general
concert which tends to the highest development of
their forces in the material, the economic, and the
moral order.
Profoundly affected by this truth and by the
exceptional importance which the relations will as-
sume in the near future, without doubt, between
the United States and other nations of the world
and all the countries surrounding the Panama Canal,
we, in the agreements celebrated with the United
States, without any reserve or vacillation, have fol-
lowed the inspirations of a far-sighted and patriotic
policy that counsels us not to lag behind the other
nations on the ascending road of progress, civiliza-
tion, and culture, but to assure, once for all, our
position among the nations of the world.
You, most excellent sir, are not a stranger among
us. Your name is familiar to our people, and every-
where it is accompanied by the respect and the
affection with which entire Nicaragua greets you
and receives you as an old and true friend. Your
illustrious personality and the eminent representa-
tive character vested in you give to your pleasant
visit a significance superabundantly honorable for
Nicaragua, because you come in the name of a great
people to whom we are bound not only by the
64 NICARAGUA.
material ties of an active commerce ever on the
increase, but by the better and indestructible moral
bonds of the same political ideals, and by your his-
torical traditions closely connected with all our
struggles for independence.
With your beautiful Declaration of July, 1776,
you awakened in all the people of America the love
for liberty. Your sympathies accompanied us in
our strivings for emancipation, and before any other
country it was your people who recognized us as
sovereign nations. Your international doctrines
then gave stability and strength to those conquests
of right, assuring forever our existence as republics,
unhampered by foreign interference. We owe to
you the restoration of our territory, and to-day more
than ever we place confidence in the friendship and
solicitude of your people for the maximum develop-
ment, which all Nicaraguans desire, of republican
institutions and practices of which your country is,
par excellence, the highest exponent in the world.
In the paternal house we learnt from childhood
to know and admire your great forefathers. The
lives of Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin were
heroic legends of the home and their salient and
stirring deeds were held up before us constantly by
our elders as the most beautiful examples of virtue
and patriotism worthy of admiration; and so, used
to living in communion with your heroes, we never
have and never will accustom ourselves to regard
them as strangers, since they are not and can not
be such for any free man, whatever the place of his
CHAMORRO. 65
nationality in the world. If your language be
unknown to us, the language of liberty and justice,
which by its example pointed the way to the attain-
ment of the greatest and most perfect political
institution that human endeavor has been able to
bring about, so took possession of our minds that
it is not surprising that, as men, in contemplating
the stupendous altitude which your country has
reached in all the spheres of activity and civiliza-
tion, we should continue rendering that same heart-
felt tribute of our admiration to those famous men
who initiated such work and to the heirs of those
virtues and warders of such great institutions.
In witnessing the public demonstrations and
your reception by the Nicaraguan people in their
fold, and in considering how the prejudices and
misunderstandings among the nations of this conti-
nent are quickly blotted out by the frequent cele-
bration of our Pan-American Congresses, of the
lofty policy of which your visit to our countries of
Central America is one of the most expressive
signs, we can not fail to recall the notable words
which one of your most illustrious men, John
Adams, wrote with prophetic vision to his wife on
signing your magnificent Declaration of Inde-
pendence. He said:
Yesterday, the greatest question was decided, which
ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps,
never was nor will be decided among men. * * *
But the day is past. The second of July 1776, will be the
most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am
s 105 5
66 NICARAGUA.
apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding
generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to
be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn
acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be sol-
emnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games,
sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one
end of this continent to the other, from this time forward,
forevermore.
Remembering these beautiful words of him who
was your second President, the clear-sightedness of
the statesman is surprising who, from that memo-
rable date, understood the whole compass of your
revolution for the entire world, and with the vision
of his soul assisted, and caused his contemporaries
to assist, in the contemplation of the colossal devel-
opment of his country, free, rich, and happy after
more than an age of existence; who discerned, and
caused others to discern, the edifying and magnifi-
cent spectacle of America separated in numerous
republics, but all united in a single ideal of justice,
of liberty, and of respect for the independence and
sovereignty of each one of them.
Permit me, gentlemen, in the name of the Pres-
ident of the Republic, to invite you to drink a toast
to His Excellency the President of the United
States, William H. Taft; to His Excellency the Sec-
retary of State, Philander C. Knox; to his worthy
wife and distinguished ladies who accompany her,
whose presence grace and honor this occasion; and
to the North American people, to that great nation,
the friend of peace, of liberty, and of justice.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. MINISTER, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:
I am deeply grateful for the evidences of cor-
diality which the Government has given me, and I
accept these as a mark of brotherly feeling toward
the Government and people of the United States.
To my addresses before the Assembly and at the
Campo de Marte I have nothing further to add rela-
tive to the situation of Nicaragua, but I do wish to
avail myself of the opportunity to repeat that the
Government of the United States does not propose
in any way to interfere in the internal affairs of this
country.
This country, though small, has territory and
resources sufficient to support 6,000,000 inhabitants,
and the Government of the United States will assist
Nicaragua in order that it may grow in wealth and
population, thus becoming a strong nation.
When I promised to go to Granada I fully in-
tended to make the journey, as it was one of my
most cherished wishes that I could have the privi-
lege of visiting that city. The demands upon me
while I have been in Nicaragua have been so
numerous that I find myself physically unable to
undertake a journey that will require me to travel
so far to-morrow. I wish, through you, to express
67
68 NICARAGUA.
to the good citizens of Granada my very deep regret
that I am so situated that I can not be the recipient
of the cordial welcome that I feel certain I should
receive from them.
IV
Speeches in Honduras
Speech of His Excellency Mariano Vasquez, Min-
ister for Foreign Affairs of Honduras, at
a luncheon given to Mr. Knox at Amapala,
March 8, 1912.
[Translation.]
MR. SECRETARY:
The people of Honduras feel a very great satis-
faction at your arrival in its national territory.
We, the members of the Government, Delegates
of the National Congress, and representatives of
the judiciary, have come to offer you most cordial
reception and to state to you that the visit that you
are making to our country gives us pleasure.
We esteem it an honor to our small Republic
to have here the illustrious Secretary of State of
the great Republic of America.
The American Nation has always attracted the
attention of the world by the tremendous progress
it has made in advancing civilization. We have
learned, from childhood up, to admire it; every
triumph which it has won in its phenomenal march
has a grateful echo in our little republics and makes
us feel proud to be, like it, sons of the New World.
We have learned likewise to pronounce with
veneration and affection the names that render illus-
trious the history of your nation, the model of re-
publican virtues.
71
72 HONDURAS.
Washington, the glory of America, will always
be recognized as one of the greatest leaders of the
nations; his words are maxims of political morality.
He who said "the best and only road that leads
surely to honor, glory, and true dignity is justice"
is, indubitably, not only the father of the American
people but of all humanity. His wise counsel will
continue to resound through future ages.
We honor Franklin, the genius that imprisoned
the destructive lightning, the apostle who preached
the gospel of peace to all nations; Lincoln, the
liberator, and all the founders of America; and we
admire, too, those who, continuing the great work,
are likewise benefactors of humanity.
We honor Elihu Root, who, from the high tribune
of Rio de Janeiro in the Third American Conference,
declared, to the glory of the great Republic, the
universal principle of the equality of the nations,
when he said :
We deem the independence and equal rights of the
smallest and weakest member of the family of nations
entitled to as much respect as those of the greatest empire.
We honor Roosevelt, President Taft, and his
worthy Secretary of State, Mr. Knox, who, in the
midst of their wise and fruitful labors in their own
country, began yesterday and will to-morrow ter-
minate so colossal an undertaking as the Panama
Canal, which will fill the world with admiration and
will open new and broader highways for the civili-
zation and progress of the American Continent.
VASQUEZ. 73
Accept, sir, from the Government of Honduras
expressions of keenest appreciation of the cordiality
shown by you in coming to our territory accom-
panied by your distinguished family and prominent
persons of your country, and permit me, on this
happy occasion, to extend in the name of the Gov-
ernment of Honduras most sincere wishes for the
increasing prosperity of the great Republic and for
the personal welfare of President Taft and his
illustrious Secretary of State.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. MINISTER:
In the name of my Government and my fellow
citizens I thank you for your cordial hospitality and
friendly reception.
It is with sincere regret, Mr. Minister, that I am
forced, through circumstances over which neither of
us has any control, to forego the pleasure of visiting
the capital city of Honduras, which I had hoped to
be able to accomplish but which I found to be impos-
sible within the limited time at my disposal. Much
as I should have enjoyed the beauties of the journey
to the capital over the rugged face of nature, it is
nevertheless a great pleasure to meet you here and
have the advantage of your personal acquaintance.
The importance of the geographic position of
Honduras, which borders on three of the other Re-
publics of Central America, has long been recog-
nized, and experience has shown that most of the
unrest that has disturbed Central America, and par-
ticularly Honduras, has been due to the fact that
Honduras lies conveniently in the track of any
armies of other contending Central American states
and it has been impossible for Honduras to resist
their passage without itself becoming engaged in
the quarrel on one side or the other. So much has
the Republic of Honduras suffered in this regard
and so often has the peace of Central America been
74
KNOX. 75
easily disturbed, owing to the exposed position of
this country, that when the Central American Peace
Conference met in Washington in 1907, under the
auspices of the United States and Mexico, an article
was incorporated in one of the conventions there
signed whereby all the other powers concerned
pledged themselves to respect the neutrality of
Honduras. The importance and wisdom of the
provision has been fully demonstrated, and an elo-
quent testimonal as to its practical value is that since
the adoption of these conventions, although other
of its provisions may have been disregarded, there
has been no international war in Central America.
Probably one of the most important matters to
be considered by the Honduran Government is how
to make this guaranty, which is all important to
the peace of Central America, still more effective and
permanent. It is manifest that it is only as strong
as the stability of the country and the good will
of its neighbors combined, and that the surest means
of insuring its continued respect and resultant bene-
fits is to assure the stability of the Government of
Honduras itself and thereby to permit the develop-
ment of its wonderful store of natural resources.
Possessed, as it is, of a fertile soil and healthful
climate, as well as of probably the best natural har-
bor between San Diego, California, and Concep-
cion, Chile, the development of Honduras would
seem to be a matter which it should require but a
short time to accomplish. In Honduras, all the
elements of great national prosperity are but await-
76 HONDURAS.
ing development. The great needs of the country,
so great in natural wealth, are facilities of transpor-
tation, which will at once stimulate foreign and do-
mestic commerce, and an economic administration.
Central American tranquillity and security have
from the first been matters of the deepest concern
to the United States, and repose in Honduras,
which will always be the key to Central American
peace, has ever awakened the keenest interest among
Americans. When the transcontinental railroad
from the Atlantic to the Pacific was first under-
taken the sovereignty of Honduras over the rail-
road was guaranteed by the United States, and my
Government has always stood ready to assist in any
proper manner the preservation of order and the
promotion of peace in this country. The Marble-
head treaty, the convocation of the Central Ameri-
can Peace Conference in Washington, and the part
played by my Government in the Peace Conference
at Puerto Cortes in February, 1912, are all eloquent
testimonials of our good will toward Honduras.
It is the desire of my Government to perpetu-
ate upon the foundations of closer friendship and
acquaintance the good will we have received from
the past, to promote our common interests by de-
veloping a better mutual understanding, and to
frown down any and every attempt to disturb by
calumny and baseless suspicion the peaceful and
friendly relations between the United States and
Honduras.
Speech of Mr. Knox at a luncheon given by him on
board the "Maryland" at Amapala, Honditras,
March 9, 1912.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
I wish, on my own behalf and on behalf of my
party, to express our appreciation of the friendli-
ness and hospitality that we have received since we
have been here, and this afternoon I want to espe-
cially acknowledge our appreciation of that test of
good will which is evidenced by the long journey
that those among you have made from the capital
city to the coast under most trying circumstances.
I do not know of a higher test of friendship than
the one which you have thus given us. Our
reception in Honduras has been especially pleasing.
Indeed, I might almost say that nothing could
excel the kindliness that has been shown to me
and to my party since we reached Central America.
There is one thing that I can imagine might excel
it, and that is the malice and wickedness with which
those who desire to prevent closer relations between
the United States and Central America have,
through false reports, endeavored to create the
impression that the Central American people have
not received this mission with kindliness and with
sympathy. When I get back to my Government
my report shall be that up to the time that we have
77
78 HONDURAS.
left Amapala not a single incident has marred the
pleasure of our visit, not a single thing in the way
of bounteous and generous hospitality has been
lacking, and that we shall all feel that this visit has
been worth much to us and we hope it has been
worth something to you. As I started out to say,
I want this afternoon to express my special appre-
ciation to those who have come from Tegucigalpa
here to meet us, and I propose their health, their
long life, their prosperity, and their happiness.
Reply of His Excellency Mariano Vasquez, Minister
for Foreign Affairs.
[Translation.]
MR. SECRETARY:
With enthusiasm I have transmitted to the
President of the Republic the expressions of cor-
diality addressed by you to him and to Honduras.
The entire country will receive with satisfaction
your friendly words, which reveal the wise policy of
the acts of the Government of the United States.
The convention written on board the Marble-
head, which put an end to a conflict among the
States of Central America ; the treaty of Washing-
ton, which stipulated the neutrality of Honduras
and removed the dangers of fresh international dis-
turbances ; and the Puerto Cortes conferences, which
extinguished the civil war recently kindled in our
country — all through the amicable mediation of your
country — prove that you are interested in our wel-
fare, which naturally must emanate from peace, and
that on all occasions you have advised us well.
At the very moment that you hear the tumult
of our fruitless strife we hear your voice urging
us toward concord and peace.
With such antecedents it is impossible for Hon-
duras to Welcome any malevolent propaganda which
might disturb the relations it cultivates with the
79
80 HONDURAS.
United States or the gratitude it owes to your
Government.
On the contrary, we are endeavoring to make
those relations even more intimate and to attract
a useful immigration, which, by establishing business
interests, will strengthen them day by day.
Honduras, sir, desires peace, a stable and lasting
peace, in order to develop by means of salutary
work all the elements of life which it has in abund-
ance. Consequently, in order to attain this desired
end, it must not look to those countries for inspira-
tions which, more or less, have always lived under
the scourge of war, but it must take its example
from your Republic, which is rich, powerful, and
great, owing to the peace and order so wisely main-
tained since the first days of its independence.
I bear special instructions from the President
of the Republic to express these sentiments of frank
cordiality and of the mutual interest of our coun-
tries. And both he and each one of us are deeply
sorry that you have been unable to observe our
country at closer range. Our land is essentially
mineralogical and is likewise capable of growing
productive plants of every zone ; therein are forests
rich in precious woods, rivers flowing over sands
of gold. With your sagacious eye you would have
seen the land where a people now debilitated by
misfortune will soon be transformed, through the
efforts of its sons, into a rich and prosperous
nation by the fruitful agency of toil, and then you
VASQUEZ. 8 1
would have been convinced of the sincerity of our
desire of peace.
With unfeigned regret we learn the news of
your proximate departure. So numerous have been
the demonstrations of cordiality with which you
have distinguished us, and such the affection you
have awakened in each one of us, that in pressing
your hand for the last time we shall truly regret
the separation.
We wish you, your family, and party a happy
voyage, and it is a pleasure for me to assure you
that we shall ever remember the happy moments
when we had the satisfaction of having on our shore
the cultured and distinguished Mrs. Knox and the
trained diplomat who guides the destinies of the
great Republic.
s 105 6
Speeches in Salvador
Speech of His Excellency Manuel Araujo, Presi-
dent of Salvador, welcoming Mr. Knox at San
Salvador, March //, 1912.
[Translation.]
YOUR EXCELLENCY THE SECRETARY OF STATE :
In the name of the people of Salvador and of
the Government over which I preside I extend a
most cordial welcome to your excellency. Your
presence here, at this time, will establish an epoch
of note in the history of Central America. You
bear to us on your visit of courtesy the good will of
a great nation, one of the most powerful races of
the world. We acknowledge your visit as an act
of regard, and I, especially, at this moment, feel the
spirit of the American, the Latin, and the Indian
stirring upon my lips to enable me to render a com-
plete testimony of affection to your great nation,
your Government, and to your excellency. Your
country exhibits before the world, as a great and
sovereign nation, the glowing example of the liberty
and wisdom of your privileged race, forming an
attractive and enviable standard for all other peo-
ples. We, though constituted as small nationalties,
possess the nobility and loftiness of purpose engen-
dered by honor and faith in our destinies; and
your excellency may feel assured that in Salvador,
as throughout all Central America, there burns
85
86 SALVADOR.
brightly, exceeding brightly, that noble ambition
which is the objective point of all cultured peoples
to occupy a prominent position in the concert of
the civilized and free nations of the globe. Wel-
come, most honored Mr. Secretary, as also your
distinguished family and your brilliant suite. It is
our desire that the time spent by you in this section
of Central America may be agreeable, and that the
benefits of this visit may, at no distant day, flower
into the peace, liberty, and progress of our country's
ensign.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
EXCELLENCY:
I come to your country not in the capacity of a
diplomatic representative but by the direction of
the President of the United States as the bearer
of a message of friendship and good will from the
American people, and I desire to express to Your
Excellency my appreciation of the cordial and en-
thusiastic welcome accorded me by the officials of
your Government and the people of Salvador.
It is the earnest desire of the President and
people of the United States that the mutual rela-
tions between our two countries should continue to
become even more intimate and cordial than they
fortunately are to-day. I earnestly hope that Your
Excellency and the people of Salvador may con-
tinue to enjoy that happiness and prosperity which
Providence up to the present time has so bounte-
ously accorded you and them.
87
Speech of His Excellency Francisco Duenas, Min-
ister for Foreign Affairs of Salvador, at a
banquet given in honor* of Mr. Knox at the
National Palace, San Salvador, March n, 1912.
[Translation.]
GENTLEMEN:
Invested with the high character of Secretary of
State of the Government of the United States of
North America, the eminent jurisconsult and states-
man His Excellency Philander C. Knox is now
visiting us, the bearer of the messages of friendship
and sympathy which the powerful Government of
the White House sends us through the medium
of its most distinguished representative.
A cause of veritable satisfaction is the visit of
him who comes preceded by so conspicuous re-
noun, for it involves the generous and noble idea
that new bonds of friendship well understood must
continue to bind these Governments closer together
and because this is a happy occasion to evidence to
our illustrious guest the pacific and progressive evo-
lution which is going on in Salvador, thanks to the
highly patriotic spirit of the Government presided
over by Dr. Araujo and to the wisdom and high
ideals of the Salvadoran nation, which in its inter-
nal political construction embraces lofty principles
of liberty and order, and of peace and intimate
88
DUENAS. 89
communion with the sister nations of the Isth-
mus, under the symbolic aegis of its democratic
institutions.
Salvador, like all the countries of Central
America, has a great example to imitate in the
American people, both for their untiring spirit of
advancement in all spheres of human life, and for
their constant and gigantic industry, which has placed
them on the pinnacle of greatness; or, rather, for
their eminently republican doctrines, which have
been sustained and vouched for by characters of
the type of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and
Lincoln, who are the stars that shine by the side of
others in the political sky of that marvelous center
of modern civilization. Salvador, in a salutary com-
munication of ideas, will have much to avail itself
of and learn from the people who disseminate
civilization by the currents of their material and
intellectual culture, who owe their immense evolu-
tion to the well advanced and admirably defined
progress of liberty and law ; like a compass which
marks a changeless route for the peoples who follow
fruitful ideals in the realization of their immortal
destinies in the immense trajectory of the centuries.
The Government of Salvador expects, as a
pleasing reality, that the visit with which His
Excellency Mr. Knox honors us so exceedingly to-
day will have beneficial and practical results for the
rapprochement and concord of both peoples and
Governments, which will open a new era in inter-
national friendship, as his courteous visit is in the
QO SALVADOR.
nature of a frank refutation of the unfounded
prejudices of those who have not had the fortunate
opportunity, as we have, of hearing and admiring
the most noble ideas of peace and friendship which
he presents to us, ideas of which His Excellency the
North American Secretary of State is the distin-
guished bearer, coming, with his words of fraternity
and his honoring presence, on a mission of courtesy,
bearing in one hand the olive branch of peace
and in the other the heraldic emblem of the
noble and just friendship of the American Gov-
ernment and people, who do us this high honor of
sending us fraternal messages through the medium
of their highest representative.
Let us drink, gentlemen, to the glories of the
American people; to His Excellency President
Taft; to the most worthy Secretary of State, Mr.
Knox; to his most distinguished lady and brilliant
suite — and on raising our glasses in their praise let
us raise also our hearts, which burn with the sacred
flame of pure patriotism, thus responding with frank
cordiality to the homage which His Excellency the
Secretary of State of the great Republic pays us
by his visit.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:
It is with the feeling of sincere gratitude that I
desire, on my own behalf and on the part of the
people and Government of the United States, to
express thanks for the courteous and cordial hospi-
tality you have so generously lavished upon me and
upon my family.
It is indeed a pleasure for me, Mr. President,
to come from my countrymen as the bearer of a
message of their good will and friendship to the
people of Salvador.
Although the smallest of all the American re-
publics, Salvador has much of which it may justly
feel proud. Early among the Central American
republics to proclaim its independence and to
embark in the struggle for national emancipation,
Salvador has always given to the world a whole-
some example as a peace-loving and industrious
people. With its dense population and small area
its people have found it advantageous and even
necessary to seek new fields of occupation and are
gradually spreading into the neighboring republics,
there to engage in the pursuit of agriculture, and
lands theretofore unproductive promptly respond
to the sturdy and capable hand of the enterprising
Salvadoran who has gone peacefully to promote
their industrial conquest.
91
92 SALVADOR.
Salvador is the only sovereign nation of the
Northern Continent of the Western Hemisphere
which does not border on both oceans, and the
opening of the Panama Canal will shorten by some
10,000 miles the journey by water between Acajutla
and New York, which should naturally be one of
the chief markets for Salvadoran products. The
United States is not only the greatest producing
nation but likewise is the greatest consuming nation
of the world, and as soon as the products of Central
America, by being popularized in the United States,
become sufficiently known, and the facilities for
transporting them thither are made adequate, the
trade with our Caribbean neighbors will grow and
develop to an enormous extent.
The people of the United States have been too
ignorant of our southern neighbors, their vast,
undeveloped resources, and the measures they have
taken to open themselves to the world.
If we are to enjoy with them the satisfactions of
international friendship, the advantages of interna-
tional trade, and the blessings of peace we must
give more consideration to the means by which
these advantages are brought about. Friendship
and peace are indeed the common, if not inevitable,
consequences of commercial intercourse and result
from reciprocal dependence of countries upon each
other's products, sympathies, and assistance.
I have heretofore elsewhere in my journey
spoken of the possibilities of greater reciprocal
helpfulness between the United States and the
KNOX. 93
other American republics. This might take the
form, in part, of more generous measures of com-
mercial reciprocity between them. This, it seems,
would be a natural expression of their mutual inter-
dependence. In speaking, some two years ago, of
the spirit and purpose of American diplomacy I
then expressed the hope that the commerce be-
tween the United States and its southern neigh-
bors, which makes so powerfully for friendship,
might be adjusted on a more reciprocal basis.
The total annual trade of the Central American
states, not including Panama, with the United
States now amounts to something like $22,500,000.
An idea as to what extent this commerce is capable
of development and expansion may be obtained by
recalling for a moment what has taken place with
regard to the commerce of Mexico, whose close
relations with the United States have so materially
contributed to the rapid development of an enor-
mous volume of trade.
Picture, then, the possibilities of these Central
American republics and pause for a moment to
consider that Salvador, in proportion to its area,
produces more by far than any of its neighbors,
and some faint idea may then be obtained of the
magic to be worked by the closer intercourse
between them and the United States.
By far the most active sphere of American
diplomacy to-day is that of our relations with the
twenty other republics of the Western Hemisphere.
Most of these republics are passing through an
94 SALVADOR.
evolution similar to our own — that of the peopling
and developing of vast areas and the attempt to
perfect republican government under similar insti-
tutions. Now that so many of the republics to
the south of us have achieved government as stable,
as enlightened, and as responsible as our own, it
becomes more and more incumbent upon the citi-
zens of the United States to know and appreciate
them.
Nothing could have gratified me more than the
sentiment the Minister for Foreign Affairs has
just expressed when he said : The Government of
Salvador expects, as a pleasing reality, that my visit
to-day will have beneficial and practical results for
the rapprochement and concord of both peoples and
Governments, which will open a new era in inter-
national friendship and is in the nature of a frank
refutation of 'unfounded prejudices. It is, indeed,
the supreme purpose of my visit to show that
upon our part there is no justification or substantial
reason for prejudice or misunderstanding between
the people of the United States and the people of
Central America. What we both sorely need is
that the truth about Central America and Central
Americans and of their high civilization and lofty
purpose and graceful and dignified hospitality should
reach the United States through unpolluted sources
and that the truth as to the motives and friendliness
of the Government of the United States should
reach you without wicked perversion. Then, in-
deed, would our countries and our peoples be
KNOX. 95
unhampered in our advancement in the paths of
rectitude and trustful confidence to higher levels
of welfare and beneficial association. By such
advances the stature of equality tends gradually to
become as real as the equality of sovereignty and to
reach the high level of stability, justice, and modera-
tion and mutual responsibility which now happily
characterize the relations between Salvador and the
United States.
With its beautiful and health-giving mountain
ranges, fertile and productive valleys, dense and
labor-loving population dedicated to peaceful pur-
suits, Salvador presents, Mr. President, a spectacle
which irresistibly merits the admiration of every
foreigner whose good fortune it may be to touch
these shores and justifiably inspires with pride the
heart of every true son of Salvador.
VI
Speeches in Guatemala
s 105 7 97
Speech of Mr. Knox ^t,pon his reception by the
President of Guatemala, March 14, 1912.
MR. PRESIDENT:
I received on the quarter-deck of the Maryland
this morning the courteous message of welcome
which you sent to me by the distinguished gentle-
men whom I had then the honor to meet. From
that moment to the present nothing but expressions
and evidences of the most cordial and general hos-
pitality have met my ear and my eye upon every
side. I construe this to indicate, Mr. President,
that you and your Government and your people
accept in its true meaning the purpose of the Presi-
dent and people of the United States in sending
me to your country as a messenger of friendliness
and good will. The intimate relations and friend-
ship that have heretofore happily existed between
our two countries must necessarily grow closer and
stronger as Pan-American civilization develops, and
they will be much accelerated by the completion of
the great commercial highway at Panama, which
will in a peculiar sense draw the republics of this
hemisphere closer together. I beg you to accept
my thanks, the thanks of my party, and, through
us, of the people and President of the United States
for this dignified and courteous reception, and to
assure you that I am encouraged to believe that our
99
100 GUATEMALA.
short stay among you will be most pleasant and
profitable to us, and, I trust, likewise conducive to
the closer union and better understanding between
the peoples of the two Republics.
Reply of the President of Guatemala.
[Translation.]
MR. SECRETARY OF STATE:
The cordial words I have just heard from your
excellency's lips fill me with the liveliest satisfac-
tion, since they express your appreciation of the
sincere demonstrations of good will and affection
which my Government, in the name of the people
of Guatemala, has offered to you upon your
arrival in this country, which is enjoying in these
moments the great honor of being visited by the
representative of a nation with which my country
happily cultivates such good and friendly relations.
As the cradle and champion of American free-
dom, as the flowing fount of human progress and
the potent arm of labor, the American Union
merits the respect and esteem of every nation and
the affection of those who can interpret the senti-
ments with which its statesmen and thinkers are
inspired. From day to day it unfailingly makes
new conquests in every branch of human activity.
Its influence is bringing about closer relations
between the nations of the continent, and the per-
fect harmony which has always characterized its
relations with Guatemala justifies the enthusiasm
with which the Government of this Republic wel-
101
IO2 GUATEMALA.
comes your excellency as a messenger of concord
and affection from the Government of the United
States to the nations surrounding the Panama
Canal, which, upon the completion of this gigantic
work, will be more intimately linked with the
great Republic of the north by new ties of com-
merce and culture.
In wishing your excellency and the distin-
guished persons who accompany you on your visit
the most pleasant stay among us, I beg that you
please give to His Excellency the President of the
United States the thanks of the people and the
Government of Guatemala for the honor conferred
upon them by the visit of His Excellency the Sec-
retary of State of that nation, and present to him
my wishes for his personal happiness and the wel-
fare and prosperity of the American people.
Speech of His Excellency Luis Toledo Herrarte,
Minister for Foreign Affairs of Guatemala,
at a banquet given in honor of Mr. Knox at
Guatemala City, March 14, 1912.
[Translation.]
GENTLEMEN :
The just rejoicing of the people and the Gov-
ernment of Guatemala in welcoming to their midst
His Excellency the Secretary of State of the United
States is but the natural consequence of the broth-
erly love inspired by the powerful Republic of the
north which for more than a century has been the
paladin of American freedom, and constitutes a tes-
timony of the great value we attach to the visit of
so eminent a continental personality. Under such
happy circumstances Guatemala can not forget the
aid which her nascent sovereignty encountered a
hundred years ago in the United States, nor the
good and loyal friendship she has fostered for it
during all her independent life and which is so
brilliantly confirmed on the present occasion.
The American Union has won for itself the
esteem and admiration of all the civilized world for
its progress, which, marked with letters of gold in
the world's history, demonstrates clearly the possi-
bilities of the combination of liberty and labor. It
is an exemplar in modern ages to the younger
103
IO4 GUATEMALA.
nations and worthy of study by even the older coun-
tries, which in things politic, as shown in the
French Revolution, can adopt the principles of the
assembly of Philadelphia and in industry, com-
merce, and science apply to their respective needs
the product of the marvelous progress realized by
this wonderful country in every branch of human
activity.
A cyclopean work, as though the manifold ones
already accomplished were not enough, will soon
proclaim, with the opening of the Panama Canal,
the greatness and the power of American genius.
Thanks to the efforts of man, the obstacle placed
by nature between the two great seas of the world
will be demolished for the benefit of the peoples of
both hemispheres; and following this stupendous
conquest of labor the activities of the universe will
revolve as though around the axis and center of
the globe, and the nations on each side will see the
rapid development of their resources and of the
numberless elements of life which nature so prodi-
gally has lavished upon them.
In this proximate evolution a special place be-
longs to Guatemala, included, as it is, in the con-
tinental zone, where the influence of the Panama
Canal will most be felt, and thus once more will
American initiative and effort be the promoters of
the growth of the industry and commerce of our
Republic.
The trade relations of Guatemala with the
United States have grown to such proportions,
HERRARTE. IO5
with the facilities offered by railroads and steamship
lines, that during the last few years there is no nation
with which our country has maintained more active
commerce or a more valuable interchange of the
products of the soil and industry.
The interest of American merchants and manu-
facturers in our Republic becomes keener every
day, finding new outlets and new practical mani-
festations, thus giving rise to the most intimate
and perfect relationship, which in this way effec-
tively makes for a more binding intimacy, which
both countries by mutual effort wish to bring about,
since they happily are united by identic sentiments
of cordiality and good understanding.
Men of peace and good will direct the Govern-
ments of the nations whose flags, now intertwined,
symbolize their amicable intercourse, and a mes-
senger of peace and cordial feeling is the illustrious
statesman who honors us with his presence in this
country, and whom the Government of Guatemala
receives and welcomes with the heartiness and
sympathy which is due the free American people
and to the Government which so skillfully guides
its destinies.
Gentlemen, while offering this homage in the
name of the Government of the Republic to His
Excellency the Secretary of State of the United
States and the distinguished persons of his party
who accompany him, I ask you to drink with me
to the uninterrupted greatness of the United States,
to the personal happiness of its worthy President,
IO6 GUATEMALA.
and to the welfare of its eminent representative,
who has come to make so eloquent a public demon-
stration of the friendship of the American people
and Government for the people and Government of
Guatemala.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. PRESIDENT AND MR. MINISTER:
You may have thought it strange that, after
the courteous toast of the Minister for Foreign
Affairs, I did not rise during the playing of your
national air. I wanted to arise alone and thus
distinctively and by word of mouth to pay my
respects to the beautiful strains of your noble
national hymn. One can not travel long in this
genial clime without exhausting his vocabulary of
grateful expressions and thanks. I have much to
be thankful for, much to be grateful for, since I
came to Central America. From Panama, the most
southern of the Isthmian republics, through Costa
Rica, Nicaragua, at Honduras, Salvador, and finally
here, where I am to say good-by in this beautiful
country of Guatemala, I have received nothing but
sympathetic kindness; and perhaps, Mr. Minister,
one of the things I should be most thankful for is
that when I was landed in your beautiful country
in a basket in a not particularly dignified manner,
when my legs were reaching for something firm
upon which I might rest, and I was embarrassed by
my own awkwardness, my eyes lighted upon your
friendly countenance and that of your charming wife,
whose acquaintance I had enjoyed in Washington,
and I at once felt quite at home. My journey to
107
IO8 GUATEMALA.
this city to-day has been one of continuous delight.
Your country surprises me with its beauty and its
friendliness. The hospitality of your people cheered
me. I was a stranger in a strange land, and noth-
ing to a stranger in a strange land is so encouraging
as welcome smiles from those who meet you along
the highway. Not only did the adult population
of your country greet us cordially, but what touched
me most was the little children in their tidy cos-
tumes, whose countenances beamed with a genuine
welcome, for there is no feigned hospitality in the
countenance of the children ; and here, Mr. Presi-
dent and Mr. Minister, permit me to say that in
the education of your children you are laying an
unperishable foundation for institutions of liberty.
You are building for Guatemala a foundation upon
which tyranny and oppression and injustice can
never rest.
Mr. Minister, you spoke of the Convention at
Philadelphia, referring, of course, to the Constitu-
tional Convention, which constructed that great
piece of statesmanship, the Constitution of the
United States, which any American can say proudly
and not immodestly is probably the greatest
political instrument that has ever been constructed
by man. The authors of our Constitution were
not solving the problems of North America alone;
they were solving the problems of the Western
Hemisphere. To-day nearly one hundred and three
score millions of people residing upon the Western
Hemisphere (and that represents 90 per cent of
KNOX.
its entire population) are engaged in trying to
perfect the problem of popular government, and
the men who worked out the first Constitution
that has withstood the shocks of almost one hun-
dred and twenty-five years were not only working
out our problem, but they were working out yours.
It was a great thing for the world that for fifty
years prior to the Convention in Philadelphia, in
the colonies of North America, the best talent
of that day was given to the study of the princi-
ples of government. The works of the great
writers upon political science of that epoch had
been closely studied for fifty years prior to the
American Revolution with a diligence and purpose
unparalleled in any other country or at any other
time. To illustrate: It has been said on the best
authority that important political writings found a
larger sale and closer perusal in the colonies of
North America than they found in any part of
Europe. You of Latin America have received, and
you will continue to receive, the benefits of those
studies and our experiment. You were not long
behind us in demanding self-government, and when
the time came when you determined to strike for
freedom and to follow the example of your north-
ern brothers we were instantaneous in our sympa-
thetic recognition of your claims. We sustained
you by recognition when the great powers of the
world looked askance upon the American system
of government, whose merits they now so frankly
concede. We stood by you in your infancy; we
110 GUATEMALA.
have endeavored to encourage you in your rapidly
maturing growth; and I am here in your country
to-night to say to you, not only upon my own
responsibility but speaking for the President of the
United States and for the people of the United
States, that we have but one thought for all of the
sister republics of America, and that is that we want
you to prosper, we want you to grow, we want you
to be stronger, we want you to be always peaceful.
That is the message that I bear to Guatemala
to-night; that is the sentiment which is indorsed
by the best elements of my country; and I want to
assure the people of Guatemala, and I want to
assure you, Mr. President, that in your efforts for
your people, in your sincere endeavors to develop
your country, in your desire to expand your friend-
ship and to form closer and more binding ties with
other nations of the world, Guatemala has the
sympathy, as it will always have, where possible,
the cooperation, of the United States.
Speech of Senor Don Artiiro Ubico, President of the
Legislative Assembly, to Mr. Knox on his recep-
tion by that body at Guatemala City, March 75,
1912.
[Translation.]
HONORABLE MR. SECRETARY:
It is for me a great honor and a great pleasure
to present, in the name of the Legislative Assem-
bly of the Republic, our most cordial salutation
to His Excellency the Secretary of State of the
United States of America and welcome him to the
midst of this representative body of the nation,
thanking him at the same time for the courteous
deference with which he has accepted the distinc-
tion accorded in his honor, the only one of the
kind in the annals of our parliamentary history, and
which is due not only to the high personal endow-
ments of so honorable a guest, but also because of
his labors in favor of all America, and because he
is now representing in this country the American
people, who have given us proof of their frank and
loyal friendship, and the Government of that illus-
trious nation, which has always treated us with the
most intense and fraternal interest.
As nature has placed the Republic of the United
States at the head of the continent, so the intelli-
gence of its sons and their constant endeavor have
in
112 . GUATEMALA.
placed it at the head of the civilization of America,
and, ipso facto, it is morally bound before the
world to secure the peace, the union, and concord
of all the American nations as a fundamental basis
for the development of their culture and their
prosperity and as an indispensable preparation to
carrying out satisfactorily the high ends and impor-
tant destinies which the future holds in store for
them.
Some years ago prominent men of America,
inspired with the ideals of Monroe, strengthened
still more the basis of an essentially Pan-American
policy ; and to-day we see this policy converted into
a reality and raised to the category of a truly official
institution, which has already given excellent re-
sults in the economic order of Latin America.
Moreover, a stupendous event of an interest
absolutely universal, soon to occur — the interoceanic
canal across the Isthmus — would in itself justify,
without regard to the wonderful works of civiliza-
tion the world already owes to the United States,
special manifestations of the good will and the
gratitude of the nations of the Caribbean Sea, which
are so especially benefited by that gigantic work.
From this is to be deduced that, although sepa-
rated from the United States by ethnological in-
fluences, that country is beloved and respected by
us, and our geographical position in the center of
the Western Hemisphere binds us by ties that
are strong and firm and of great practical impor-
tance in the strenuous life of modern intercourse;
UBICO. 113
and well-understood patriotism advises us, therefore,
that, without forgetting our firm friendship for other
nations, we should nevertheless always maintain
with the United States a policy of preferential and
especial harmony, good understanding, and intimate
cordiality, founded, quite naturally, on reciprocal
justice and loyal frankness; and I ask your excel-
lency, in the name of the people of this Republic,
please so to inform the Government and people of
North America, and that you also deign to receive
the sincere wishes we extend for their welfare and
for the personal happiness of your excellency.
s 105 8
Reply of Mr. Knox.
Permit me, Mr. President, to acknowledge and
to thank you for the unprecedented honor the Na-
tional Assembly of Guatemala has accorded me in
receiving me in its midst to-day, thereby furnishing
an additional evidence of the high regard in which
the people and Government of Guatemala hold my
country and its people.
Your felicitous reference to the great doctrine
announced by President Monroe nearly a hundred
years ago, which has since that time been solicit-
ously, scrupulously, and unswervingly adhered to by
the Government of the United States, has been a
source of great satisfaction to me, and leads me, on
passing through the last Central American Repub-
lic, to reiterate what I said on landing at Panama,
and that is that "in my judgment the Monroe Doc-
trine will reach the acme of its beneficence when it
is regarded by the people of the United States as
a reason why we should constantly respond to the
needs of those of our Latin-American neighbors
who may find necessity for our assistance".
Guatemala is to be highly congratulated because
of her appreciation of the fundamental fact that in
many things the highest interests of the State can
be advanced by friendly coordination with other
114
KNOX. 115
sovereign states in relation to matters of interna-
tional common concern. Guatemala's friendly par-
ticipation in the centennial celebration of her
neighboring republics and highly valuable partici-
pation in the conferences and congresses dealing
with matters affecting Pan-American interests and
her prompt ratification of the conventions pro-
viding for the unification of currency, weights, and
measures, and the improvement of the consular
service of Central America, are evidences of high
international purposes and show an appreciative
realization of the fact that intelligent international
cooperation tends to advance the brotherhood of
nations. This has been one of the high purposes
and most consistent policies of the United States,
and we have endeavored in such matters to act in
concert with the other powers and to recognize the
same high duty. Not only does such international
cooperation advance civilization and improve the
relations between States, but, as I have heretofore
ventured to observe, will hasten the time, which I
sincerely believe the future holds in store, when
war shall cease ; when the nations of the world shall
realize a federation as real and vital as that now
subsisting between the component parts of a single
state; when the deliberate international conjunc-
tion of the strong shall universally help the weak ;
and when the corporate righteousness of the world
shall destroy the habitations of injustice still linger-
ing in the dark places of the earth.
Il6 GUATEMALA.
Those ends so much to be desired, and so benefi-
cial to humanity, are accelerated by the recognition
of national interdependence and such international
coefficiency as the statesmen of your country have
encouraged in the matters to which I have alluded.
Speech of Senor Licenciado Don Manuel Cabral,
Dean of the University of Guatemala, when con-
ferring a degree upon Mr. Knox, March 15,
1912.
[Translation.]
YOUR EXCELLENCY:
The significant fact of having among its mem-
bers the most eminent personalities in the divers
branches of human wisdom has ever been an honor
and a glory to scientific and literary institutions,
and because of this the most learned universities of
Europe and America have been proud to have in-
scribed in their registers the most illustrious of the
wise men of the world. This is a pride all the
more legitimate, inasmuch as science and letters do
not recognize frontiers and are the bonds which
unite in fraternal intellectuality the minds which,
by their culture, nobly represent their respective
countries.
To-day one of the most notable figures of the
great American Nation arrives upon Guatemalan
soil, and this institution of learning, heir of our
ancient and glorious university, the true alma mater
of Central America, feels immense satisfaction and
considers the inscription of the enlightened name
of your excellency in the catalogue of the persons
already there an event of inestimable value, and I
117
Il8 GUATEMALA.
have the honor to clothe you with the highest of
our academic titles, with the grade of Doctor of
Laws of the Facultad de Guatemala. At the same
time this center of science wishes to tender you its
homage of sympathy, respect, and admiration for
the great qualities which adorn you, and which
make you one of the most distinguished citizens of
the most populous of democracies and an illustrious
lawyer who, at home and abroad, adds so much
brilliancy to the American forum.
Guatemala and the United States, your excel-
lency, have always conserved the most perfect
friendship. Never has even the lightest cloud
arisen to darken the clear horizon of our countries,
and these relations of cordial amity have been
strengthened of late, thanks to the frequency of
our intercourse, to the better understanding of our
peoples, to greater mutual intimacy owing to their
common ideas and aspirations, to the daily increas-
ing commerce, and to the wisdom and patriotism
of our respective Governments, who, by the recti-
tude of their acts and the faithful performance of
their international duties, have succeeded in main-
taining between the two peoples an unbroken
peace, which is the fountain of all happiness and
all progress.
The Facultad de Derecho y Notariado, an im-
portant organism of the State, charged with arous-
ing and fomenting among its citizens the love of
institutions and of the study of law, which is the
principal base of national felicity, is not, nor can it
CABRAL. 119
be, unconscious of this good understanding, and
now that one of the most illustrious citizens of the
great land of Washington and Lincoln honors our
country with his visit it takes the keenest pleasure
in proffering him this humble evidence of its affec-
tion and its respectful appreciation.
May your excellency deign to favor it with your
acceptance as a souvenir of your visit to Guatemala.
We, in our turn, shall ever guard your name with
respectful affection among the members of our pro-
fession, and the day in which you honored us by
permitting us to inscribe your name prominently in
our register will be an imperishable memory.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
GENTLEMEN OF THE FACULTY :
The unprecedented act of this ancient seat of
learning in conferring upon me the honorary degree
of Doctor of Laws, with notarial powers, is an honor
of which I am indeed proud. If, as I understand
my informants, at no time and to no one has the
university extended so marked an evidence of its
good will, it is a distinction of such an unique
character that while I feel unworthy of receiv-
ing it I am sure I shall always bear it in graceful
remembrance.
The law was my first love, and, although she has
always been termed a "jealous mistress", yet, after
a quarter century of devotion, I was lured away by
the blandishments of political life, but I am not
without hope that time holds for me the good for-
tune of a return to the profession.
Let me again express to you, gentlemen of the
Faculty of the National University of Guatemala,
my gratitude and my thanks.
120
Speech of His Excellency Estrada Cabrera, Presi-
dent of Guatemala, at a banquet given by him
to Mr. Knox, March 16, 1912.
[From Diario de Centre American of March 19, 1912. — Translation.]
It was indeed a happy thought of His Excel-
lency the President of the United States of America
to intrust to his worthy Secretary of State the
mission of frank and loyal friendship which confers
upon us, in addition to the honor of having him
among us, the truly singular pleasure and satisfac-
tion derived from the fact that one of the most
eminent citizens of the New World bears to Guate-
mala a message of fraternity and good will from
the American people.
The relations of intimate sympathy and mutual
attraction which have always been carefully culti-
vated by both peoples and Governments tend each
day to produce most flattering results through a
reciprocal understanding in official matters, through
the better acquaintance of their respective citizens
with each other, and through the development of
commerce, which not only consists in an interchange
of products of the soil and industry but which also
disseminates ideas of civilization and progress.
I value and take pleasure in the presence of His
Excellency Mr. Knox in this country to the fullest
121
122 GUATEMALA.
extent and he can not do otherwise than inspire my
utmost appreciation of it. It constitutes a pledge
of greater intimacy — which has always been my
prayer, and I am happy to see it realized — between
Guatemala and the United States, as the immediate
result of geographic situation, of historical condi-
tions, and of hopes for the future, which, combined,
constitute a collection of facts and principles which
controls the evolution of the twenty-one sister
republics of the Western Hemisphere.
While experiencing the extreme pleasure of the
moment, I am especially pleased to perform the
grateful duty of expressing my sincere thanks to
His Excellency Mr. Knox for his delicate courtesy
in that he is accompanied by persons dearest to the
sentiment of a highly cultured gentleman ; and may
I be permitted to render the homage of my respect-
ful esteem to the distinguished Mrs. Knox, who,
together with her estimable children, honors us by
participation in the demonstrations which Guate-
mala is so happy to offer to the great Republic
through its eminent representative.
It gives me honor and pleasure to drink to the
ever-increasing prosperity of the United States of
America, to the personal felicity of His Excellency
President Taft, and to that of his eminent Secre-
tary of State and Mrs. Knox.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:
Permit me, in my own behalf and in the name
of my countrymen, to thank you for the cordial
welcome and bountiful hospitality you have ex-
tended to me and to my family.
Beginning for the fourth time the journey from
ocean to ocean in Central America, it is with a
feeling of regret that I realize that the brevity of
the time at my disposal does not permit me to
travel more extensively through these countries,
to enjoy the pleasures of the wonderful scenery
which so beautifully reflects the magic touch of the
lavish hand of nature, and to gain the educational
advantages which observation and friendly commu-
nication with the people so abundantly afford.
Guatemala, in its position of close proximity to
the United States, where there is ever ready an
eager market for its products, and with its dense
population, occupies, indeed, an enviable position
among the Central American nations. This posi-
tion will be rendered increasingly desirable as time
goes on and the development of your country's
enormous possibilities is accomplished. And, Mr.
President, I may here remark, without, I am sure,
indulging any view not equally shared by yourself,
that the continuous development and permanent
123
124 GUATEMALA.
advancement of the Republic depend on its stable
economic conditions as well as upon its domestic
content and consequent repose. The unvarying
friendship of the Government of the United States
for republican institutions in this hemisphere and
its desire to see them conserved free from interfer-
ence are too well known and understood to need
words of reassurance from me. From the very
inception of, and even before the independence of,
the Latin-American nations the attitude of the
American Government, which later was unmistak-
ably announced by President Monroe, was well
known and it continues undiminished to the pres-
ent day.
In Central America the United States has a
special interest not only because of the proximity
of the five republics to the great commercial high-
way now nearing completion in Panama, but also
because of its moral obligations under the Wash-
ington conventions. The maintenance of peace
and stable conditions in these republics is a matter
of first importance to my Government. The faith-
ful observance of these conventions will, in the
opinion of my Government, go far toward the
elimination of the turmoil that has hitherto shaken
the very foundations of some of the less fortunate
and less tranquil countries.
It is the sincere and candid desire of the United
States to maintain and advance to an even higher
degree frank and cordial relations with all the
republics in this hemisphere, and to that end the
KNOX. 125
President directed my present mission that, by per-
sonal contact, I might become better acquainted with
the men who direct the destinies of these states, in
order thereby to promote better understanding and
mutually advantageous relations. That the friend-
ship of my Government toward these states is frank
and sincere needs no demonstration other than a
consideration of the record of the past, and no words
from me can half so eloquently deal with the situa-
tion or manifest the true attitude of my Government
as can its acts toward its sister republics. The
United States, unfortunately, has many times been
misrepresented in the past by those unscrupulous
persons who, through an endeavor to promote their
own gain, falsely represent the sentiments of the
American people with regard to this or that nation
of Central America.
It is a matter for rejoicing to everyone having
faith in the great destinies of this continent to
observe that in this Republic a large stretch of
steel way which will at some time, in the not far
distant future, connect the capitals of all the sister
states of this continent with each other has been
completed. The completion of the Central Ameri-
can link will be the first step in the grand project
of the three Americas' trunk line from New York
to Buenos Aires. With the proximate inaugura-
tion of the Guatemalan section of this system there
will be through railway connection from New York
to Guatemala City.
The effect of a through trunk line of railroad on
126 GUATEMALA.
the countries of Central America would be to sow
the prolific seed of communication in rich districts
and the consequent development of mutual com-
merce and the advantageous exploitation of bound-
less native resources. To this great central artery
the transverse lines from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
acting as feeders, would contribute to swell the
international traffic.
In conclusion, Mr. President, allow me to in-
dulge the hope that the relations between our
respective countries may become increasingly cor-
dial and close, to the mutual benefit of both, and
for your warm welcome and your cordial and grace-
ful hospitality and entertainment to sincerely thank
you.
VII
Speeches in Venezuela
127
Speech of Dr. Marquez Bustillos, Governor of the
Federal District, at the Municipal Council,
Independence Hall, Caracas, March 23, 1912,
in welcoming Mr. Knox.
EXCELLENCY:
The municipality and the people of Caracas, in
the name of whom I, as governor of the Federal
District, have the honor to address you, feel great and
singular pleasure in welcoming you to this spot, a
place of cherished remembrances in the struggles
which form our political history. In you we greet
the illustrious statesman who brings us as a pledge
of friendship words from the country of the im-
mortal Washington, he who was, and with justice
is called, "the first in peace, the first in war, the first
in the hearts of his countrymen".
While thanking your excellency for the honor
you confer upon us by your visit to the Govern-
ment and to the municipality of the Federal Dis-
trict, we pray for your personal happiness and for
that of all the persons of your distinguished party,
and hope that the impressions which you take away
upon parting may be pleasant and lasting.
s 105 — 9 129
Reply of Mr. Knox.
EXCELLENCY :
I had not known until I entered this hall, sacred
not only to the liberty of Venezuela but to all of
Latin America, that the great honor was to be done
to me of permitting me to speak in this distinguished
presence. It would be a cold heart that would net
throb with the highest emotions standing in this
sacred place. This noble scene, depicted upon can-
vas in the background, is a reenactment of one in
our own history that is sacred to every American,
be he a North or South American, because, after
all, we were but a short time before you in our
aspirations for liberty and in our declaration of
independence. Your excellency has been kind
enough to wish that my sojourn among you should
be pleasant. I am frank to say that in the short
time that we have been upon your hospitable soil
one act of kindness has crowded another act of
kindness so rapidly that one's vocabulary of grati-
tude and appreciation is inadequate to meet such a
splendid ovation. I wish to proceed from this hall,
dedicated to the holy cause of liberty, with my
suite to the adjacent park and there lay, as an evi-
dence of the appreciation of the American Gov-
ernment and the American people, a wreath at the
foot of Bolivar, the great Liberator of the South.
130
Remarks of Mr. Knox upon placing a wreath at
the foot of the statue of Bolivar in Caracas,
Venezuela, March 23, 1912.
MR. MINISTER:
In the name of the people and of the President
of the United States I beg to lay this token of
appreciation, respect, and veneration at the foot
of the statue of the great Venezuelan Liberator.
[Remarks of Mr. Matos, Minister for Foreign
Affairs, were extempore and not taken.]
Speech of His Excellency Manuel A. Matos, Min-
ister for Foreign Affairs of Venezuela, at a
banquet given to Mr. Knox at Miraflores,
March 24, 1912.
MR. MINISTER:
I comply with the instructions of the President
of the Republic to tell you that your presence
amongst us is regarded with the greatest satisfac-
tion by the Government and people of Venezuela.
Upon selecting you to visit these countries in its
name your Government has furnished fresh evidence
of the friendly interest which they inspire, tend-
ing thus to strengthen the bonds which bind us to
the country of Washington and Lincoln.
Your visit, Mr. Minister, must further serve to
make better known in your country the conditions
of vitality of our own, thus accentuating sentiments
of mutual respect and consideration and developing
at the same time on a larger scale our commercial
relations. It is a further step in the fruitful work
of Pan-Americanism which our Liberator sought
to accomplish in his beautiful conception of the
Congress of Panama and which the United States
is supplementing with a perseverance worthy of the
genius of your noble race.
A principal factor of this union of the peoples of
America so necessary to the high aims of human
132
MATOS. 133
progress will be the opening of the Panama Canal,
which will not only bring nearer the East and the
West, uniting the two oceans, but which will also
draw closer together the republics of South and
Central America and the great Republic of the
north, giving a new and vigorous impulse to civiliza-
tion resulting from the interchange of the products
and ideas of all the regions of the world.
Venezuela, being situated on the route to Eu-
rope, will be one of the nations most benefited by
that colossal work of American endeavor from which
we perceive a new element of progress which will
permit us to develop further the sources of our
natural wealth and to better show our character-
istics of nationality on the American union.
Mr. Minister, the blood of your compatriots
watered the foundations of Venezuelan independ-
ence and the recognition of our country has been
perpetuated in monuments which you will have
occasion to see at Maracay and Puerto Cabello. This
is a further cause for the regard of the Venezuelan
people for the American people, a regard which we
have no doubt must be strengthened as a result of
your visit because of the high authority and repre-
sentation with which you are invested and because
of your remarkable merits as a statesman.
Gentlemen, in the name of the President of the
Republic, I invite -you to drink to the prosperity of
the America people, to the happiness of their Presi-
dent, His Excellency Mr. Taft, and to the hope
that His Excellency Mr. Knox and his honored
134 VENEZUELA.
family, during their brief stay amongst us, may
have reason only to be truly pleased and that they
may take from our country as pleasing and lasting
impressions as we shall have to retain of them.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:
It is indeed fortunate for me that the burdens
and responsibilities of the office I hold are tem-
pered by the enjoyment of privileges and advan-
tages which would not otherwise have been within
my reach. Not the least of these is the opportu-
nity now vouchsafed to me of coming among you,
my fellow countrymen of the Western World, with
a message of fraternal good will from the Govern-
ment and people of the northern Republic. I
prize this privilege beyond measure, and the more
so as in this historic land, favored by nature to be
the fitting cradle of the new birth of occidental
empire under the proud Castilian banner of its first
explorers, I feel myself among friends. The ob-
stacles of distance, of diverse ancestral origin, and
of dissimilar language disappear with the warmth
of your greeting. The Saxon North and the
Hispanic South meet as associates in the com-
mon cause of progress and peace, alike devoted
to the common duty of promoting the good will
and the mutual confidence and esteem which draw
the democratic commonwealths of America into
relations of true brotherhood.
The auspicious occasion of my present visit is
the proximate opening of the great canal. This
135
136 VENEZUELA.
stupendous work, the dream of centuries, since
Balboa first trod the solitudes of Darien, is far
more than a commercial enterprise. It is a great
humanitarian achievement, fraught with endless
possibilities of good for all the nations of the con-
tinent. It opens an avenue by which the peoples
of the eastern and western coasts of the northern
and southern continents are brought into closer
relation. The barrier of ages becomes the high-
way of the future, not for the devastating advance
of conquering hosts but for the beneficial move-
ment of progress and development, in which Vene-
zuela can not but take an important part. The
diversion of a vast share of the commerce of
Europe and America to the new channel must nec-
essarily bring benefit to the neighboring countries.
The already intimate intercourse of my country
with yours can not retrograde. The volume of
incoming and outgoing commerce between Vene-
zuela and the United States is now relatively larger
than that between Venezuela and any other nation.
Good will and mutual confidence will make it
actually larger. It is to the interest of Venezuela
that it should increase. The augmentation of the
exports of a vast and as yet but partly developed
country like yours is a stimulus to the expanding
development of its natural resources and the growth
of economic prosperity. The increase of its im-
ports is the natural reflex action due to domestic
prosperity. It is, indeed, an index of national
well-being. Moreover, advancement of home in-
KNOX. 137
terests makes for the material and moral uplifting
of the country and is the surest step to the firm
assurance of domestic peace and stable government,
which all good citizens desire and for which they
should strive whole-heartedly.
In coming to you with an earnest message of
peace and good will, I am especially mindful of the
historical fact that the political and traditional sym-
pathies of the United States and Venezuela are in
singularly close accord. If we have our Washing-
ton, you have your Bolivar, happily styled by Henry
Clay as the Washington of the South, who bore
upon his breast during his life the miniature of
Washington, presented to him through Lafayette
in 1825, more proudly than he wore the insignia of
rank, a sentiment you have respected and recorded
upon the imperishable and noble statue erected to
Bolivar's memory. Bolivar was the pioneer in the
noble work of upbuilding, in the northern region of
South America, a free commonwealth like ours of
the North ; and I can not forget that the vast terri-
tory which Bolivar liberated embraced the broad
reaches of the Caribbean and the Pacific, including
the very Isthmus through which we are now, as
appointed agents for the benefit of all the Americas
and of all the nations of the earth, opening a world
highway. Bolivar, his noble work achieved, re-
garded the isthmian barrier with regretful eyes,
feeling in his great heart a keen longing for the
accomplishment of the century-old dream of Latin
America that the Atlantic and Pacific might in time
138 VENEZUELA.
be joined by a pathway through the land whose
freedom he had won. It was one of the objects
brought before the Pan-American Congress of
Panama in 1826, but the intelligent, although fruit-
less and perhaps premature, efforts of your great
Liberator failed to mold the project into practical
shape. Let us believe that the spirits of Bolivar
and Washington are sharing our mutual felicitations
over the approaching realization of the unparalleled
task, and inspiring us all, Venezuelans and Ameri-
cans alike, with the glad resolve to know each other
better, to strengthen the ties of mutual confidence
that happily exist between us, and to give lasting
expression to that sentiment of disinterested help-
fulness which moves the two peoples to live in
amity and essential harmony, each rejoicing when
more of peace, of prosperity, of happiness, and of
security comes into the life of its brother people.
Farewell speech of Mr. Knox to His Excellency
Juan Vicente Gomez, President of Venezuela^
March 25, 1912.
MR. PRESIDENT:
In saying good-by to you I wish to repeat that
which we have tried to say to you again and again
and which we feel most sincerely and deeply, and
that is that you have our profound gratitude for
all of the acts of kindly courtesy and hospitality
that you have shown us since we have been in
your Republic, and we shall carry home with us
everlasting recollections of satisfaction, pleasure,
enjoyment, and profitable observation. For my
entire party I wish to emphasize the depth of our
appreciation.
I have been asked especially, Mr. President, by
the representatives of the American press who
have accompanied us upon this journey to say to
you for them, and with as much sincerity as I have
endeavored to express my own feelings, that they
rest under the deepest debt of gratitude not only
for the comforts, recreations, and pleasures you
have given to them, but for the particularly per-
sonal touch that you have given to every courteous
act of hospitality of which they have been the
recipients.
I will say good-by, and I hope to have the
pleasure of seeing you again.
139
Address of welcome of Senor Don Santiago Gon-
zalez Guinan, President of the State of Carabobo,
delivered at Valencia, March 25, 1912, by the
Comandante in the name of the State Executive.
YOUR EXCELLENCY :
It would have been a pleasure to the govern-
ment of the State and also to the people of Valen-
cia to present its respects and demonstrate its
sympathy with you by a feast of greater splendor,
but your rapid transit through the city scarcely
affords us sufficient time to offer this glass of cham-
pagne in the station park and without other orna-
ments than nature's green foliage and the blue
dome of a tropical sky, and this is possible only
through the consent of your excellency to stop a
moment in spite of your limited time.
In thus affording me, through your courtesy,
the opportunity of carrying out in this way the
part of the program assigned to me by the Govern-
ment of Venezuela in connection with your visit, I
take occasion, moved both by my personal feelings
and the natural impulse of the moment, to impress
upon your mind the sincerity with which I drink
to the welfare of your wife, the lasting memory of
your trip, the reciprocal cordiality of Presidents
Gomez and Taft, and, lastly, to your great country,
which as a unique instance in history has attained
140
GUINAN. 141
to a conquest of rights without shedding of blood
and which, in the midst of the wonderful develop-
ment of its civilization, fully meets the aspirations
of the human race in the unparalleled progress
of its democratic institutions. Your excellency's
health.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. COMANDANTE:
No program of entertainment that you might
have devised for me, and I know how well Vene-
zuelans do devise their programs of hospitality,
could have made a deeper impression upon me
than the one I see before me, namely, the sight of
so many strong men and so many beautiful ladies.
You have voiced a wish that my visit in Venezuela
should have been a pleasant one. We have not
only had days and hours of pleasure, but one
pleasure has crowded another so rapidly that it is
almost literally true that every moment of time
that we have spent in your beautiful country has
found us to be the recipients of the most kindly
hospitality, of the best of good cheer not only from
your officials and those who may have been desig-
nated by the Government to extend to me a wel-
come, representing as I do the people of the United
States, but I am glad to say that I have been able
to read in the faces, and looking into the eyes of
all the people of Venezuela, a welcome which I
shall never forget.
I beg to propose the health, the happiness, the
peace, and the prosperity of the Republic of Vene-
zuela and its generous, hospitable, and kindly
people.
142
Speech of Senor Don Jose Felipe Arc ay, Collector
of Customs at Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, March
25, 1912.
YOUR EXCELLENCY, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:
While greeting you in the name of the National
Government which I represent, in my own, and in
that of the high public officials who accompany me,
it is most pleasing to say that the honor you confer
upon us by your visit is a source of true satisfaction
which we duly appreciate, not only because we con-
sider it a special demonstration of sincere friendship
for our Republic, but also because it is the first time
that an American Secretary of State has visited our
country bearing with him true ideas of American
unity, strengthening and making more friendly, if
possible, the cordial relations existing between your
Republic and ours.
The sincere welcome you have received and the
demonstrations of deference of which you have been
the object by the Chief Magistrate of the nation,
by all the important persons of his Government,
and by the people in general, are unmistakable proofs
that we have been impressed with your visit, which
greatly honors us. We are certain that with your
clear judgment you will be able to appreciate the
progressive advance which our industries, our agri-
culture, and in general all the branches constituting
143
144 VENEZUELA.
our territorial riches are making under an era of
peace wisely founded and maintained by the modest
and equally patriotic citizen who guides the des-
tinies of the Republic, Gen. Juan Vicente Gomez.
You have been able to observe, despite the
briefness of your stay among us, the good will
which animates the Chief Magistrate of the country
toward all that tends to its aggrandizement, and in
effect he is taking measures to the end that the
proximate opening of the Panama Canal will find
Venezuela in a truly prosperous condition, so that
we may advance our great commercial interests.
We drink, therefore, to the country of Wash-
ington and to its worthy representative.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. COLLECTOR:
It will be a pleasing message, sir, that I will be
enabled to carry to the President and people of the
United States as the result of my visit to Vene-
zuela. President Taft conceived in his mind that
because of the early opening of the Panama Canal
the relations of the United States to our neighbors
on the littoral of the Caribbean Sea must neces-
sarily be closer and more intimate. He believed
that if he would send to you that officer of the Gov-
ernment of the United States who is charged with
the duty and responsibility of our relations with
foreign governments, the more intimate, direct,
and personal acquaintance would be an advantage
not only to us but he hoped also to them; and
when I return I can cheerfully say to the President,
and through him to the people of the United
States, that in the great Republic of Venezuela
from the moment my foot first touched its shores
until the moment when I said to you my last
farewell there has been nothing but kindness and
hospitality, not only upon the part of the people
but upon the part of your President, to whom you
have referred, and who has been kindness itself to
us all.
s 105 — 10 145
VIII
Speeches in the Dominican Republic
147
Speech of Mr. Knox to the President of the Domini-
can Repiiblic, Santo Domingo, March 27, 1912.
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:
In fulfillment of the wish of the President of
the United States that I should personally meet
the eminent men to whom the people of the neigh-
boring Caribbean countries have confided the reins
of government and that I should enjoy the privi-
lege of becoming better acquainted with the peo-
ples of those countries, it is my good fortune to
come among you bearing a cordial message of good
will from the Government and people of the United
States to their comrades in the community of
American republics. I feel especial gratification
in being enabled for the first time to breathe the
air of the oldest city in all the Americas, identified
for all time with the undying fame of Columbus,
founded by the great Admiral's brother ; the spot
where first were planted the fertile seeds of civic
order and of Christianity in the great western
empire of the peoples; the scene of the untiring
efforts of the discoverer to found an enduring
civilization ; and the home of Las Casas, that great
and good man who, in the sixteenth century, stood
forth as the advocate of the rights of man and who
is justly revered by all liberty-loving Americans as
one of the earliest apostles of democracy and
freedom.
149
I5O DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.
I stand, as it were, in the passing shadow of the
bereavement your country has suffered in the loss
of that humble, unselfish, and sincere patriot,
Ramon Caceres, slain at his post of duty; but I
rejoice to see the passing of that dark cloud with-
out disturbing the normal march of your people in
the broad path of orderly self-control. It is an
especial satisfaction to me that I can say this to
you, men of Santo Domingo, who are in a posi-
tion to bear witness to the unfeigned interest the
United States takes in the welfare and stable prog-
gress of the peoples of the great American brother-
hood ; to the earnest sympathy we feel for all the
younger commonwealths that, like your own, have
passed through the fires of tribulation toward a
higher and better national life ; and to the unselfish
spirit that prompts my countrymen and the Gov-
ernment of which I am a part to extend a ready
helpfulness to all who are prepared and willing to
help themselves to win stability and good order for
themselves and for their posterity.
Santo Domingo stands to-day a bright example
to all the Americas and to the world, teaching the
lesson that all free peoples are fit for good self-
government if they set about it in a way to do jus-
tice to themselves. That is what you Dominicans
have done, and it is precisely because of this that
my country was enabled to lend you a helping hand
in order to strengthen and make durable the rehabili-
tation for which you strove. The rapid growth of
national revenue and agricultural resources in the
KNOX. 151
last five years is far beyond the most fervent expec-
tations. I am convinced that this is but the begin-
ning, and that your Republic is but on the threshold
of still greater progress. Your position among the
countries of the western seas is singularly advanta-
geous. Lying on the avenues of approach to the
Isthmian Canal, now on the eve of completion,
your island can not fail to share in the prosperity
that will attend the opening of a highway destined to
change the old currents of international commerce.
I have had recent occasion to emphasize, in
public addresses, the new and enlarged responsi-
bilities to be assumed by the United States as the
patron of the Isthmian Canal, and as the upholder
of the time-honored doctrine which bears the name
of Monroe. The maintenance of that doctrine and
the effective carrying out of the policies that flow
therefrom demand a peculiarly intimate coordina-
tion of the part of all the nations which are to reap
the far-reaching benefits of the canal. It behooves
them to be cooperative, not obstructive. Each is
concerned in uplifting itself; each is benefited by
the uplifting of its neighbor. No more signal ob-
struction could be interposed in the path of general
progress than for any of the affected countries to
fall into disrepute through subversive disturbances
or failure to discharge its international obligations.
No greater aid can be given toward realizing that
general welfare for which we all strive than the
solid establishment of peaceful prosperity. You,
men of Santo Domingo, have led the way toward
152 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.
realizing this high end through means whereby your
country may continue to be prosperous, independ-
ent, self-respecting, and entitled to the respect of all.
The relations of friendship and cordial inter-
course which have always existed between the
United States and Santo Domingo are singularly
close and have worked for the mutual advantage
of both countries, thus fulfilling one of the highest
duties of neighborliness. Flowing through natural
channels, their reciprocal commerce has thriven
and has kept afloat one of the few lines of steamers
that have survived the competition of foreign
shipping.
It is the earnest prayer of my country and of
my countrymen that peace and freedom may be
the abiding heritage of the people of Santo
Domingo ; that internal perturbations and external
conflicts may be averted by wise and just counsels
at home and in your foreign relations.
In conclusion, permit me to express how deeply
I am touched by your cordial welcome; and, feeling
that it is rather the people of the United States
that you greet than my individual self, I thank you
in the name of my fellow citizens.
Reply of President Victoria.
[Translation.]
MR. SECRETARY:
The presence of the honorable the Secretary of
State of the United States of America in this
capital is a source of great satisfaction to the
Dominican people and to my Government. His
official visit to the countries of Spanish origin is a
notable event in the history of these young republics.
This visit, which undoubtedly must be profitable
to the good relations so happily existing between
the United States of America and these peoples,
co-workers in the cause of peace and progress, will
mark an epoch in the history of our international
life — and I hope that it may result thus for the
good of all and the glory of this continent.
Accept, Mr. Secretary, the most cordial wel-
come, which I am glad to extend to you in the
name of the Dominican people and of the Govern-
ment which I represent.
153
IX
Speeches in Haiti
155
Speech of welcome of M. Je'rome Salomon, Mayor
of Port au Prince, on the arrival of Mr. Knox,
Aprils,
EXCELLENCY:
To-day offers an occasion of great joy to the city
of Port au Prince. The fame of a fine and active
intelligence which preceded your occupancy of the
eminent post you now fill would alone have rendered
you worthy of the most cordial reception on our
part, but to your brilliant personal qualities is added
your official title, which renders your visit of infinite
value to us.
Often the most profound sympathy takes its
origin in a mark of attention. In knowing
each other, societies, as individuals, develop and
strengthen their bonds of friendship. Therefore,
Mr. Secretary, your thought of traveling in certain
countries of this hemisphere was a happy one.
Within a short time, by a supreme and superb effort
of man's genius, the dream which the Indian pre-
viously cherished in his native imagination— an
interoceanic canal — will become a living reality.
Cities, until now remote, will cease to be such.
But with the geographical rapprochement an inter-
communication of spirit should be effected in order
to attain that excellent relationship of "goodneigh-
borliness, mutual aid, consideration, and confidence"
157
158 HAITI.
of which you spoke two years since in your masterly
address at Philadelphia.
Human demonstrations are of supreme worth
when directed by the heart. It is indeed the heart
which directs at this time the great satisfaction felt
in this capital at your presence and that of the inter-
esting personages accompanying you.
We are especially appreciative of the flattering
tribute rendered us in affording us the pleasure of
greeting, in conjunction with yourself, Madam
Philander Knox, whose charming kindliness and
courteous grace shine with such splendor in your
magnificent Washington receptions, and which were
so admired on January i, last, in the superb dwelling
of the Pan American Union.
We hope that your excellency will take the same
pleasure in your sojourn here as we do in your
friendly testimonial toward the first city of this
Republic.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. MAYOR:
Speaking for myself, sir, and for the members
of my party, I wish to express our deepest sense of
appreciation for the cordiality of the reception by
the officials of the Republic of Haiti, and I wish to
place especial emphasis upon the kindliness and
cordiality with which we have been received by
the people of Haiti. I can assure you, sir, that this
has been no more gratifying to us than it will be
to the President of the United States and to the
people of the United States when I communicate
to them the character of our reception here this
morning. You have stated most eloquently one
of the main reasons why my visit here is one that
ought to be not only of advantage to you but of
advantage to us, and that is the necessity, because
of the proximate completion of the Panama Canal,
for the republics and the peoples that are to be
benefited immediately by the opening of that great
highway to be brought closer together through
the means of a more intimate personal acquaintance.
I am more than satisfied in the few moments that
I have been in Haiti that my visit here will be
eminently agreeable. Before concluding, sir, I
beg to express for Mrs. Knox her and my own
159
160 HAITI.
deep appreciation for the graceful compliments
you have paid her in your address of welcome and
for all of us our gratitude for your extreme
cordiality.
Speech of Mr. J. N. Leger, Minister for Foreign
Affairs of Haiti, at a luncheon given by him to
Mr. Knox, Port au Prince, April j>, 1912.
[Translation.]
MR. SECRETARY OF STATE:
Upon me devolves the agreeable duty of wel-
coming you and of thanking you, in the name of
the Haitian Republic, for your esteemed visit.
This is the second time that an American Sec-
retary of State has honored us with his presence.
The present, like the past, with the folds of our
flags once more intertwined, evokes the undying
memory of Savannah, where the heroes of Haitian
independence rivaled in bravery the intrepid sol-
diers of Washington. These are ties which can
not be forgotten.
I am particularly happy to be, under the cir-
cumstances, the mouthpiece of the people and
Government of Haiti, because I recall the tender
friendship which marks the relations between our
two peoples. And your visit, all the more valued
on account of the presence of Mrs. Knox, can not
but make these relations the more cordial.
If upon our friendship depends the pleasure of
your sojourn among us you will both carry from
your short stay in Port au Prince the same remem-
brance which I retain of my mission at Washington,
s 105 ii 161
1 62 HAITI.
the delicate attentions and the kindly hospitality
of the American people, and I do not think it too
much to ask that you please convey to that gener-
ous people and to their Government our sincere
wishes for the prosperity of the United States.
Permit me to raise my glass in honor of Presi-
dent Taft and to drink to the health of yourself
and Mrs. Knox.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. MINISTER:
It is always a great pleasure to renew an old
acquaintance. You can imagine how much that
pleasure is enhanced by renewing it under these
delightful auspices. We recall with great pleasure
your mission to Washington, where you were ac-
companied by your charming wife and young chil-
dren ; and I know of nothing that has occurred
since I have been in your hospitable country that
has given me more pleasure than when your good
wife told me here to-day that some of the happiest
moments of her life were spent in Washington.
My pleasure is largely increased by hearing one
who sustains the same relation to his own Govern-
ment as I sustain to mine express the deep desire
that the sympathies, the friendliness, and the inter-
ests of the two countries should become closer
and closer. There certainly is no reason why the
Republics of this ancient island, which was the seat
of American civilization, and their great sister of
the north should not be upon the best of terms. I
am glad to say that I know of no reason to the
contrary. It is a real pleasure for me to propose
the health of the President of the Haitian Republic,
your own, Mr. Minister, and that of your good
wife and your family, and the prosperity and peace
163
164 HAITI.
of your people; and to express the hope that they
may soon reach that point in their development and
prosperity which the rich endowments of nature
entitles them to attain.
Speech of President Leconte of Haiti at a banquet
given to Mr. Knox, Port au Prince, April j,
1912.
[Translation.]
MR. SECRETARY OF STATE:
It gives me great pleasure to reiterate, in the
name of the Republic of Haiti, our expressions of
cordial welcome. And it is also pleasing to feel
that your presence, at this time, among us is an
unmistakable evidence of the interest which our
great sister of the north takes in us.
You, Mr. Secretary of State, have, without
doubt, passed through countries of Latin America
that are richer, more prosperous, than ours ; a wealth
and prosperity which consists, to a large degree, in
the same conditions existing when those peoples of
this continent won their independence.
But here you will encounter the sincere and
loyal expression of our high esteem and our keen
sympathies for the people and Government of the
United States.
Your visit to us, which we shall cherish as a most
precious remembrance, will certainly strengthen the
bonds of intimate friendship which unite the two
countries, tend to make more cordial our relations,
and to develop the economic interests of the two
nations.
165
1 66 HAITI.
I pray that you deign to convey my personal
respects to President Taft, and that you please
assure him that the Republic of Haiti earnestly
wishes him happiness and the prosperity and great-
ness of the American people.
I thank you, Mr. Secretary, in the name of the
Government and people of Haiti, for the visit
you have been pleased to pay us, and I raise my
glass in honor of President Taft, to your health and
to. that of your friends, and to the success of the
mission of friendship and concord which you have
undertaken.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:
A glamour of historical memories hovers over the
Caribbean Sea, and all who feel its influence long
to visit the spots where the life of the New World
began with the landing of Columbus, and where the
foundations of government in the Western Hemi-
sphere were first laid. I have long desired to see and
become acquainted with the island world of the In-
dies. My wish has come to pass through the determi-
nation of the President of the United States to have
me carry to the neighboring American peoples a
fresh message of friendship and good will in the
name of his and my countrymen. It was especially
appropriate that the President should do this now,
on the eve of the completion of the Isthmian Canal,
and that the theme of his greeting should be the
benefits to flow to all the nations of the three
Americas from the opening of that stupendous
channel of intercourse which, by annihilating the
barrier between the oceans, must perforce change
the currents of the world's commerce.
At a time when the obligation which my coun-
try has assumed as the agent of the interest of all
America and of the world in creating a highway for
international commerce is about to be realized, we
are impressed with the conviction that the fullest
167
1 68 HAITI.
success of our work is, to a notable degree, depend-
ent on the peace and stability of our neighbors and
on their enjoying the prosperity and material wel-
fare which flow from orderly self-development. A
community liable to be torn by internal dissension
or checked in its progress by the consequences of
nonfulfillment of international obligations is not in
a good position to deserve and reap the benefits
accruing from enlarged commercial opportunities,
such as are certain to come about with the opening
of the canal. It may indeed become an obstruction
to the general enjoyment of those opportunities.
It is with political communities as with the
human organization, body and soul should be alike
sound and sane, each attuned to the other, to fit
the being for the struggle for existence in which it
is the lot of men and states to be constantly
engaged. The old Roman adage mens sana in
corpore sano is in point for both. Not only must
the body politic be healthy, but the public spirit
which guides its acts must be equally healthy. Only
by the union of these two conditions can a state
hold its place in the assemblage of nations, or
aspire to win a better station.
It is the fervent desire and the earnest hope of
the nation I represent that all its comrades of the
American fraternity shall attain to this well-balanced
condition, or shall conserve it where already pos-
sessed. We wish to see them all independent,
contented, orderly, and materially prosperous, each
gaining the fullest measure of well-being of which
KNOX. 169
it is naturally and physically capable, each bearing
good will for its neighbors and deserving their good
will in return. We begrudge the success of none ;
on the contrary, on the few occasions where help-
fulness is possible we have gladly given help.
The relations of the Haitian Republic with the
United States have been singularly intimate for
many years. The volume of American-Haitian
trade is proportionately large. The enterprise of
our citizens has contributed to the development of
Haitian resources. I look for the time, not far
distant, when these relations may be expanded and
strengthened, not through any invasive activity on
our part, but through the steady self-development
of the resources of Haiti under the benevolent sway
of peace. Your country has almost incalculable
native wealth at command. With a self-respecting
energy or purpose; with a contented and thrifty
population ; with wise counsels in the seats of gov-
ernment, devoting the efforts of the nation to the
great work of internal exploitation of natural
resources and perfection of agricultural methods;
and with the maintenance of peace, without as well
as within, you Haitians have a future before you
which other less-favored countries might well envy,
and which we of the United States would witness
with hearty sympathy.
I have a disposition to emphasize the essential
condition of peace, at home and abroad, as a need
in working out the material improvement of a
country. While it is doubtless true that trade and
I7O HAITI.
trade extension are the foundation in practical life
of most advances in civilization, yet the great
modern movements of accord and good under-
standing between nations are after all the lofty
achievements and the crown of all international
relations. The controlling principle of these move-
ments is peaceful and beneficial international inter-
course and a peaceful settlement by arbitration of
differences and controversies — extending that prin-
ciple, by friendly diplomacy, as rapidly as possible
to embrace an increasing number and variety of
disputes. The tide of world sentiment is setting
strongly toward the accommodation of international
controversies by processes of reason and justice;
not by defiance and the sword. That tide is sweep-
ing over my own country, where the ideal of uni-
versal peace with justice is dear to every heart.
Should not we, of the common brotherhood of all
the Americas, share alike in devotion to that ideal,
and stand mutually helpful toward whatever may
assure, by pacific means, peace and good will among
brethren ?
I thank you for the cordial personal welcome
you have given me. I shall long treasure the
memory of my visit.
Speech of Mr. Knox at a breakfast given by the
Municipal Council at the Bellevue Club, Port
au Prince, April 4, 1912, in response to a brief
speech of introduction by the Mayor.
MR. MAYOR:
I thank you very much, sir, for this additional
act of kindness, and we have been the recipients of
many acts of kindness since we have been in Port
au Prince, in your hospitable country, in your hos-
pitable city, and among your hospitable people.
My visit, however, would not, from my point of
view, be considered an entire success if it were
merely confined to pleasures and the delights of
intercourse with the people of this city. I have
observed here a thing that makes me very glad, and
that is that the Haitians seem to have realized that
industry is at the basis of prosperity and that the
object of their Government is now undoubtedly
to maintain peace at home and peace with her
neighbors, so that industrialism, which is the sole
foundation of wealth and prosperity, shall proceed
uninterrupted. You seem to have discovered, as
all nations must discover in their march toward the
progress of which they are capable, that the true
function of government is not to say to a man,
"Work and we will reward you", but to say to all
of its citizens, "Work and the government will
secure to you the results of your labor, that it shall
171
172 HAITI.
not be taken away from you by violence or by in-
justice". You have discovered, further, I believe,
that while the true function of government is not
what I have just described, it is this : to honestly
collect the revenues, as lightly tax the people as the
necessities of the government demand, and then to
apply these revenues honestly for the best interests
of the country. I am satisfied from a conversation
with your worthy President that it is not the inten-
tion of this administration of affairs in Haiti to
spend the substance of the people upon unneces-
sary military establishments but extend those great
public improvements which make the life of every
man better.
These are some of the observations I have made
since I have been with you, though the time has
been very short and has been occupied very largely
with the pleasures of the visit, but I shall carry them
home to the President of the United States and to
the people of the United States, and I am satisfied
that they, with me, will rejoice that everything in
Haiti seems to be on the upward move. I beg to
pledge the health of the President and people of
Haiti and their prosperity.
X
Speeches in Cuba
173
Speech of Senor Manuel Sanguily, Minister for
Foreign Affairs of Cuba, at a banquet given by
the President of Cuba to Mr. Knox, Habana,
April n, 1912.
[Translation.]
SIR:
The President of the Republic has honored me
by charging me with the office — a most pleasant
one for me — of giving you in his name and in
the name of the Cuban Government and people
a most cordial and heartfelt welcome to this isle
that has rocked the cradle of many a hero, and
which is ever a hospitable home in which the stranger
easily forgets his native land midst the blandishments
of bountiful nature and the warm brotherliness of
a people as noble as it is good. Harbinger of
peace, in visiting regions as yet unknown to you,
peopled by races of an origin and tongue so dif-
ferent from your own, you do not grasp the pon-
derous sword of conquest, but rather the glorious
caduceus of Mercury, symbol of prosperity and
beneficence, entwined with olive and laurel, some of
whose leaves shine with the tears of our sisters and
our own blood, while the heavenly radiance of our
martyrdom and our heroism blends with the halo of
light by which it is surrounded and illumined ; for,
united, the flashing American battalions and the
careworn Cuban legions, thin and almost naked,
175
176 CUBA.
accomplished — you in a rapid campaign, we bat-
tling unwearied for half a century — the splendid
issue which renewed your traditional doctrines of
world politics and gave new direction to your his-
toric destiny, while radically changing our secular
condition, both assuming from that moment, in
return for new duties and rights toward other na-
tions, mutual and reciprocal responsibilities by vir-
tue of which neither do you assume the right of
oppressing us nor have we suffered the misfortunes
of a fresh bondage.
With your excursion to the free commonwealths
of the Caribbean Sea you complete that other in-
teresting and fruitful excursion of your illustrious
predecessor to those republics south of the Equator,
animated, like him, by the same spirit of harmony
and fraternity; bearers, both, of one message of con-
cord and affection which the great Republic then
sent and now repeats to these impetuous republics,
shaped to her image, although under different con-
ditions— some born, as the most recent, at the
magic touch of her diplomacy ; others, as our
own, by the help of her arms; and all, perhaps,
maintained through the efficacy of her original and
life-giving principles. Wherefore the visit of so
high an envoy from the largest and most famous
democracy of the world could never imply purposes
opposed to the consecration and normal exercise
and development of republican institutions, not only
because of the greatness of the august federation
whose conspicuous and worthy representative you
SANGUILY. 177
are, and because of the elevation and moral refine-
ment of the generous people who established it and
have maintained and aggrandized it in the face of
great perils and fearful struggles, but because of
what, in the evolution of ideas and the transforma-
tion of history, the American spirit, American doc-
trines, and American action mean in the life of
modern society. Blessed fruit of a seasoned and
hard-fought development inspired and sustained by
the highest aspirations of benevolence and progress,
Americanism is either an empty word or is as a
leaven of order, of dignity, and of that serene trust
which in every man's heart builds up the sense of
power and righteousness as an impregnable fortress
and sows in every land the seed of vigorous virtues
whereby, through its own self-respect and in the ex-
alted interests of justice, it may become unconquer-
able and happy. Solely by that spirit which cre-
ates and upholds, by the humane and fruitful power
of that doctrine which is the product of a high ava-
tar of conscience, which is a new gospel of redemp-
tion and hope for oppressed peoples and bulwark
of vacillating and unstable democracies, would what
has been called Pan-Americanism in contradistinc-
tion to Old World denominations be truly justified
and have its full force, in harmony with the dig-
nity and happiness of nations. Whatever may be
the changes and applications of the Monroe Doc-
trine— the last phase of which your excellency has
set forth and interpreted authoritatively in a recent
well-known speech — it never could imply, as the
S 105 — 12
178 CUBA.
malevolent would wish, a harassing, illegitimate,
and humiliating suzerainty, consisting of a constant,
arbitrary, and perturbing interference of an alien
government in the private and normal life of sov-
ereign nations.
My words are prompted, Mr. Secretary, by my
admiration for your institutions as an old revolu-
tionist as well as by my esteem and my gratitude as
a Cuban. By participating in our hard struggle
with the Spanish power Americans probably ad-
vanced our independence by several years, assuring
to us at the same time the favorable outcome of a
protracted and devastating war, and saving us from
a corresponding period of hate, bloodshed, and ruin.
Later, in a demoralized and discouraged commu-
nity, with their better and, for us, novel methods,
they corrected pernicious errors, offsetting the de-
fects of negligence and leveling obstacles that the
past had laid across our path to a new life, whereby
wider and brighter prospects were opened up to us.
And now, if you counsel us in the difficulties of
national life, pointing out for their avoidance dan-
gers born of inexperience, excusable in a commu-
nity undergoing radical changes in organization and
government by bitter struggling, it constitutes what
is known as "a policy of prevention"; there being
nothing reprehensible in your exercise of an office
operated for our own preservation and profit, and
our failure to take advantage of the benefits it
offers would be blameworthy in us, inasmuch as
we are not to be held responsible for the fatalities
SANGUILY. 1 79
of history, nor of the time and place in which
we entered upon national life. Nor have we
been the first whom, because of weakness, you
have sought to admonish as to error or injustice,
foreseeing calamity and disaster, since in difficult or
perilous circumstances the constant or direct action
of your Government in American affairs, almost
from the beginning of the last century till its end,
with their assent and often with their compliance,
imposed timely rectifications on even strong gov-
ernments and powerful nations, even as in Cuba
itself — in spite of its great secular and glorious
titles — the earnest words of your Presidents have
called attention insistently to the dangers toward
which its blindness and pride were dragging it long
before finally issuing against it a sentence from
which there was no appeal.
Knowing, thus, our conditions and your ex-
pressed purposes we should be too suspicious and
skeptical if we still feared lest, through some evil
inspiration of violence or through unspeakable mo-
tives, the stability of our national institutions were
threatened; the more in that you, too, Mr. Secre-
tary, have just proclaimed in the very heart of the
continent that your country is too great and too
honest to covet foreign sovereignty and too ex-
tensive to need another's territory; that not in vain
has an uninterrupted heredity of virtue and culture
separated immeasurably from the violence of pas-
sion the luminous serenity of justice, nor from sav-
age times the present epochs of democracy and
l8o CUBA.
righteousness, and that the same distance lies in the
moral world between the chaotic and dark soul of
Tamerlane and the pure and immaculate spirit of
George Washington.
Moreover, Mr. Secretary, we need you in the
entire regulation of our national life, as, for many
and diverse reasons, you need us, and therefore our
common purpose should be in mutual usefulness by
the giving and exchange of reciprocal and equiva-
lent services; although it is clear that for the fulfill-
ment of such worthy aims it is indispensable that
neither here nor elsewhere should it be permitted and
much less proclaimed without due correction, by the
lawless voice of usury or of mammon, that anyone
can, by divine right, at his fancy, suppressing the
Republic by the scratch of a pen, reinstall Cuba as
a subject colony; for, if we do not live by our own
right and if our condition is that of a tenant, subject
at will to alien caprices and interests, there is neither
dignity in our lives, nor an authority to be re-
spected in the state, nor any possibility whatever of
true order and honorable and permanent peace.
The interests that gained profit or were enriched in
the public upheaval and interventions brought about
by circumstances would be well satisfied and glad
if the halcyon days of their power and predominance
were to return; but for that very reason the Cuban
people would be, indeed, unfortunate.
Only a few weeks ago the people of this city
rendered their last tribute of pious regard over
the remains of the sailors who perished on the
SANGUILY. l8l
Maine, and in great crowds gathered along the
shore and followed with bated breath the last voyage
of the fantastic ship. Yonder on the horizon, as
the evening fell, what was left of the fearful catas-
trophe— the mutilated hull — was submerged forever ;
but in every Cuban, as in so many American homes,
hearts beat as one remembering past days of anx-
iety, pain, and glory, and in the former as in the
latter the tragic remembrance of the Maine and of
that sinister night on which by the glow of that great
disaster this new American nation was brought to
life was evoked with religious unction. Born midst
such exceptional circumstances, fruit of such labors,
Cuba feels that the very roots of her national life
and of her rights are planted and nourished in the
conscience of the American nation ; and so, trust-
ing and grateful, she now extends her loyal hand to
her powerful and noble friend. When, as a reward
for your triumphant effort, the two seas separated
by the Isthmus since remote ages shall be joined in
one embrace, should their waves, like the folded
cloak of the Roman ambassador, hide the blessings
of peace or the horrors of war, Cuba, satisfied and
content in its happy independence, will enjoy with
you the incalculable benefits of that universal pros-
perity which is approaching as the necessary result
of such a marvelous modification of the continent.
And you may be sure, likewise, that in the hour of
danger and of conflict your soldiers will not fight,
should it be necessary to do so, with such enthusi-
asm as, for its own independence and in your aid, our
l82 CUBA.
people would fight, knowing as they do that in the
present state of the world and in the critical eventu-
alities of an uncertain and not far-distant future
never shall the Cuban flag be more secure of respect
abroad than when close to the beneficent shadow of
your own, which, strewn with stars, symbols of real
nations in the full glow of life, prefigures the mystic
and glorious galaxy of right. And therefore it is its
high function, in conformity to tradition and purpose,
to create free commonwealths and new republics
throughout the continent and not — as those who out-
rage her name by invoking her power in furtherance
of inconceivable enmities and ignoble interests —
to be the threat and scourge of weak nations. But
if the relentless purpose which iniquitous prophets
of evil have been announcing should ever be ful-
filled by reason of the changes and weaknesses to
which humanity is subject, surely some unheard-of
portent would befall; perhaps that majestic woman
standing on Bedloe Island in the great estuary
would loose her metal girdle and extinguish in the
seething waves the gigantic torch that illumines the
vast ocean and the conscience of man, while a fear-
some clamor sprung from a terrified disenchantment
would be reechoed from wave to wave and from
height to height, proclaiming to the darkness of the
world that Liberty was no more.
Never, however, shall such a misfortune take
place, far more grievous and fatal than if at a mo-
ment's notice the light of all the stars should be
extinguished. Wherefore allow me to be the mouth-
SANGUILY. 183
piece of hope and love, in the sincere trust, Mr.
Secretary, that you may enjoy a long and happy life
of honor and of glory; that your illustrious Presi-
dent may be in all circumstances, as heretofore, the
noble friend of Cuba ; and that, crowned with bless-
ings, in the prosperity of a spotless fame, your
great nation may be now, and in centuries to come,
protector of the law, aegis of the weak, example to
the strong, firm foundation of civilization, palladium
of republican America, realizing its great destiny
as it circles in its huge orbit like a benign star, in
harmony with all human interests and amidst the
blessings of all the nations of the earth.
Reply of Mr. Knox.
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:
It has been my high privilege to be the Presi-
dent's chosen instrument for conveying to the in-
dependent nations of the Caribbean at this time,
when the completion of the Panama Canal is near,
a message of fraternal good will and an assurance,
if, indeed, assurance were necessary, of the deep
sense of responsibility felt by the Government and
people of the United States that the great work
which we have undertaken shall helpfully contrib-
ute to the well-being of the commonwealths of the
Western World and be instrumental in bringing
closer all the peoples of the Americas, inspiring
them with broader confidence, more intimate sym-
pathy, and more practical reciprocal helpfulness in
the promotion of their mutual advantage and coor-
dinate development. This was the message I car-
ried, not alone to the peoples of the Caribbean
littoral but to all the countries of Latin America,
emphasizing the sincerity of purpose and the pur-
ity of motive which have animated the United
States in all its dealings with Latin America.
As I said at Panama, intelligent consideration of
the relations of the United States to the other
American republics makes it clear that our poli-
cies have been without a trace of sinister motive or
design, craving neither sovereignty nor territory.
184
KNOX. 185
The special purpose of my mission having been
accomplished, it is alike appropriate and gratifying
that on my homeward journey I should have the
opportunity to get into closer personal touch with
the one sovereign people of the whole Western
World who are, above all, in a position to know
and appreciate the broad and essentially conscien-
tious policy of Anglo-Saxon America toward
Latin America. So far as Cuba is concerned, our
record speaks for itself. It is consistent and un-
blemished. It was formulated and proclaimed be-
fore the first shot was fired at Manila initiating the
conflict to free from a crushing despotism "this
fairest land the eye had ever seen" and which, hap-
.pily, ended in gaining a free Cuba for free Cubans.
That policy has been lived up to ever since. It
needs no reiterative protestations. It is a constant,
vital entity, needing not to be galvanized into spas-
modic action ; neither should its true import be
dulled by wearisome repetition. Good faith is a
thing that proves itself by deeds, not words. Our
deeds in respect to the Cuban people are before
you. Look to them for fresh assurance — if there
be any doubting Thomas who thinks he needs it —
that the United States stands firmly as the true,
wholehearted friend of Cuba, glad of the work we
have done for the Cuban people and ready to aid
them to conserve the civic and material benefits
which it was our good fortune to be instrumental
in helping them to win.
l86 CUBA.
First among these benefits is self-government.
We hold that all peoples are fit to work out the
highest ideals of self-government by creating for
themselves and by their own effort a healthy national
life, inspired by the safe and sane exercise of the
popular will, homogeneous in all its parts, free from
radical weakness or corporeal blemish, self-respect-
ing and imbued with respect for the rights of all at
home and abroad. Providence has called upon free
Cuba to be a model state among the popular com-
monwealths of the world and has opened the way
to the achievement of that noble purpose. That is
the goal for which we have, with you, spent our blood
and treasure and to which our earnest efforts will
ever be directed. The beginning of Cuban political
life was the affirmation of the brotherhood of the
American and Cuban peoples. Let us ever be
brothers.
I speak to you, with all the earnestness I may,
the thoughts that rise at this time, when Cuba stands
on the threshold of a new era of even greater pros-
perity and progress by reason of being a natural
gateway to the great Isthmian Canal and being des-
tined, in the inevitable logic of events, to share in
the almost incalculable possibilities to spring from
the new channel to be opened to the world's com-
merce under a fresh and controlling impetus. It
makes a newer world of the New World of Colum-
bus. As I said at Panama, "In this new world we
must be found drawn closer by sympathies and
mutual esteem, and working in harmony toward
KNOX. 187
beneficent ends. This must be so, for our greatest
interests are those that are common to us all." We
must not forget that in order to work together
toward common ends each co-worker must be in
a position to do his effective share of the common
task. Even as the capacity of the individual
workman is dependent on soundness of body and
mind, so the potential efficiency of a community
is measured by the homogeneous perfection of its
civic organization and by the logical soundness of
the public mind that directs its operations. While
liberty is attained through patriotic valor, yet it
is only through fraternity and unselfish coordina-
tion that it is perpetuated. The crisis in the life
of any nation that has thrown off the yoke of
tyranny is the period of rehabilitation. When the
cohesive bonds of a common peril are relaxed by
the removal of the danger and liberty succeeds
oppression, unselfish fraternity must be substituted
for the unity which a common danger furnished
during the struggle for national rights. A people
liberated from oppressive tyranny is no better
off if unrestrained selfishness, which almost in-
evitably leads to anarchy, is the result. A people
so situated can not profitably exercise the right of
self-government unless they work faithfully together
with singleness of aim. Mistrust, jealousy, selfish-
ness, aloofness, and apathy will rob a people of their
birthright. There is always more to unite than to
separate all classes of citizens, and in Cuba, as in all
republics, all classes should be alert in the-conscious-
1 88 CUBA.
ness of their civic duties and not remit the destinies
of their country to the hands of the few who, with
nothing to lose and everything to gain, make a busi-
ness of the politics of their country.
It is the fervent prayer of my Government and
my countrymen that free Cuba may abide stead-
fastly in the high station to which Providence has
called her, sturdy with the strength of stable self-
control, free from the infirmities that beset weak
peoples, and earnest in the path of self-development.
Coming among you as I do, the cordiality of
the welcome I have received makes it impossible to
realize that I am in a strange land, among strange
kinsfolk. I feel, rather, that I am of your brother-
hood, as you are of mine. I come, too, at an
auspicious time, when the association of feeling
between my country and yours is made closer by
the sad memories attending the removal of the
wreck of the Maine. The waves of ocean have
clasped that ill-fated ship in their eternal embrace,
and your beautiful harbor is no longer marred by
the presence of a gloomy monument of national
resentment and strife. As the sun rises upon the
unbroken expanse of your noble bay, it brings a
message of oblivion of the dark past and of
encouragement for the new Cuba, strong in the
possession of rightful strength and at peace with
all the world.
XI
Speeches on Board the "Washington"
189
Speech of Mr. Knox to the officers and men on board
the U. S. S. "Washington", S^mday, April 14,
1912.
GENTLEMEN :
When Captain Hughes asked me, a day or so
ago, if I would be willing to say a few words to the
men of this gallant ship, I told him promptly and
without hesitation that it would give me great
pleasure, indeed, to do so. I realize how utterly
impossible it will be for my voice to reach the ears
of all of you here upon this open deck. I have had
the experience upon this voyage of talking against
steam whistles at Colon, talking against the merry
chat of the dancers in the ballroom at Guatemala
City, but this is the first time in my life that I have
been compelled to compete with the roaring of Old
Ocean, and I admit in advance my inability to do so.
I wish you all to be impressed with this fact—
that I regard the success this mission has attained
is, in a large degree, due to the men of this ship.
You have carried us with the promptness of an ex-
press train upon a well-regulated railroad to our
several destinations and enabled us promptly to
meet all our engagements, which is an important
factor in transactions between representatives of
different governments. You have not only been
largely instrumental in the success of the mission,
but you have contributed greatly to the pleasures,
191
ON BOARD THE WASHINGTON.
and I can say to the profit, of those of us upon
whom the direct responsibilities of its success were
cast. We have participated with you in your rec-
reations, we have enjoyed visiting the various
parts of the ship, and we have seen you in the dis-
charge of your daily duties, and I wish to say to
you now, speaking in my official capacity, that the
knowledge that I have acquired of the personnel of
one of our great vessels of war will be of inestima-
ble value to me in the discharge of my official du-
ties, because you must know that the efficiency of
diplomacy depends largely upon the Navy and that
the efficiency of the Navy depends entirely upon
the character of the crews who man the ships.
When the United States believes that it is neces-
sary for the protection of its rights or for the dis-
charge of its international duties to call upon those
nations within the special sphere of its influence
and responsibility to cease needless war, to stop the
shedding of innocent blood, the presence of an
American vessel in the neighborhood as an efficient
means for the enforcement of our rights or the per-
formance of our duties generally insures the peace
in the troubled region.
Gentlemen, I wish to thank you all for the
many courtesies you have shown my party. I am
glad of this opportunity of getting closer to you
than we have been able to do until now. It would
have been a great satisfaction to have formed the
personal acquaintance of every man upon this ship,
but inasmuch as your numbers and the exacting
KNOX. 193
and responsible nature of your duties have deprived
me of that pleasure permit me to say now to you
that this present opportunity to talk to you has
been a very real satisfaction and pleasure.
The other members of my party desire likewise
to say a word to you and I shall retire now and give
place to Mr. Hale, one of the editors of the
World's Work, . a great periodical with which you
are all acquainted, that he may say something to
you in behalf of the American press, which is rep-
resented on board the Washington.
s 105 — 13
Remarks of Mr. Hale, of the World's Work, on
board the U. S. S. "Washington", Sunday,
April 14, 1912.
MR. SECRETARY, CAPTAIN HUGHES, OFFICERS AND
MEN OF THE " WASHINGTON":
The representatives of the press here aboard de-
sire me to say for them that their interest in the
American Navy, always great, and their admiration
for it has been vastly increased by what we have
seen within the last two months. Aside from the
chief purpose of our presence here, which has been
to describe the memorable journey of the Secretary
through Central American and Caribbean coun-
tries, we count it a very great opportunity, indeed,
to have seen something of the life of a naval ves-
sel, as exemplified on this splendid ship, with its
splendid officers, and splendid crew, and splendid
record. We are still a little hazy about things nau-
tical and very much puzzled by a good deal of the
language we hear in the wardroom, but we are not
hazy in our conclusion that if the spirit of enthusi-
asm and of work which we see here is typical of the
spirit of the American Navy then that Navy de-
serves the very best the nation can give, and we
are not hazy or uncertain in our conviction that if
Congress will give you the ships you desire there
will never float on the blue waters of any of the
194
HALE. 195
Seven Seas anything that the clean, intelligent,
steady nerves, steady-hearted men of the American
Navy, under their ever-alert officers, can not knock
the stuffing out of any moment in the day or night,
if necessary.
We hope that will never be necessary. Forgive
me if I say I believe our people hope that any
dreams of victorious battle that your imaginations
naturally cherish may never be realized; hope that
yours will continue to be the work of keeping the
Navy in a state of such manifest efficiency that it
will never be necessary to prove that efficiency.
But whatever may be the future, it is safe to
say that you will probably never do a more useful
or, in its way, more glorious service for your coun-
try than you have done in conveying the Secretary
of State on his mission to these troubled regions of
the world. Secretary Knox has some virtues and
a number of redeeming vices, but he lacks the great
characteristic of a politician : he is too modest, and
he was too modest this morning to tell you of the
vast importance of this cruise and of the complete
success, the victorious success, with which it has
been accomplished ; but I can say as a reporter that
no man can tell of the results of this mission of
peace and good will, no man would be foolhardy
enough to undertake to state the limits of the far-
reaching results that may flow from the magnificent
presence in the harbors of all the countries of this
region of the Maryland and the Washington, great
engines of war, consecrated to the purposes of
196 ON BOARD THE WASHINGTON.
peace, backed up by the words of broad statesman-
ship, the noble assurances of good will and friendli-
ness uttered by the Secretary in the capitals of
these countries. I tell you that the journey upon
which the Washington has conveyed the Secretary
of State has been a history-making journey.
I now give way to one of the great orators and
statesmen of America, Martin W. Littleton, a
great friend of the United States Navy, but before
I do so may I, in the name of the press, wish good
luck to the good ship Washington, her captain,
officers, and men, always, on every sea, in every
port.
Remarks of Hon. Martin W. Littleton to the offi-
cers and crew of the £7. S. S. "Washington",
April 14, 1912.
I count myself distinctly fortunate in having
been in Habana at a time when I could be the re-
cipient of an invitation to make the return journey
upon the Washington in such goodly company.
One reason was that I would have an opportunity
of seeing the conclusion of that pilgrimage of peace
made by the honorable Secretary of State on behalf
of the American people to the various countries and
governments to the south of us. Another reason
was that I should have a chance to see those who
are actually primarily engaged in the mission of
peace because they are always prepared for the
dangers and demands of war; those who, with the
honorable Secretary, have been bearing a message
of good will to all the southern countries and cleans-
ing the bosom of each nation of prejudice and igno-
rance, that kind of ignorance and prejudice which
is at the foundation of the disasters of war and
which serves more to retard human progress than
all other influences put together.
It is particularly gratifying to know that this
pilgrimage, made by the honorable Secretary, re-
flecting so much credit on him and his wise judg-
ment, was met by those with whom he came in
197
198 ON BOARD THE WASHINGTON.
contact with unbounded enthusiasm and a grateful
recognition of our friendly relations. There he was
received with open arms, with banners, with music,
with flowers, and innumerable tokens of high
esteem.
One word about the Navy. I believe that we
should have a navy growing and advancing with the
growth and advancement of our country, not one
so abnormally large as to provoke the suspicion of
the world, not one so increasingly small as to invite
the contempt of other countries, but a navy which,
like every other great national institution, keeps
pace with the progress of its people and the advances
of time.
I left Congress a week ago this last Wednesday.
I had just come from a conference of the majority
side of the House regarding the battleships of the
future. In my opinion we made a serious mistake
in deciding that there should be no more battleships
this year. Some of us have refused to be bound
by this policy and with the aid of the Senate I feel
sure that this mistaken policy will be reversed before
the end of the session, that we will not proclaim to
the world the discontinuance of the building of
a navy.
Just a personal word to you of the crewT. You
come from every part of the United States; you go
to every part of the world ; you typify the American
life; you are missionaries and exemplars. You
inevitably stand for America in every port. I count
that heroism, that courage, the greatest and the
LITTLETON. 199
best which gives itself to the unseen and undramatic
drudgery of work in behalf of one's country, such
as the work rendered by you. These great instru-
ments of war and of peace, these cruisers and
battleships, these are your homes. Your charge is
American liberty and American peace; your emblem
is the American flag, brilliant in all its manifold
colors, floating always above you as an unfailing
inspiration.
Remarks of Judge Morgan O ' Brien to the officers
and crew of the U. S. S. "Washington', April
14, 1912.
This is a very great privilege, to have had an
opportunity of coming upon this great battleship,
through the kindness of the Secretary of State, and
my purpose is not to detain you with a speech, but
to make my acknowledgments to him and to the
captain of this great vessel and to the officers and
to you men for the pleasure that I have received on
the occasion of my first experience as a visitor and
guest on one of these great vessels. Like the dis-
tinguished orator, Mr. Littleton, whom you have
just heard, neither of us knows much about a ship.
I of course know much more about it than he does.
They tell a story of one of our greatest Presidents,
Mr. Lincoln, who, during the Civil War, called a
Cabinet meeting to consider certain proposed
changes in the policy of the Navy. When they
came out of the meeting, having had an acrimonious
discussion as to changes suggested in the types of
ships to be used in the future conduct of the war,
Mr. Chase, then Secretary of the Treasury, said to
the President, "It is too bad that Mr. Welles, the
Secretary of the Navy, should have been so strong
and positive in his views as to the future conduct of
the Navy, and I fear he has annoyed you"; where-
200
OBRIEN. 201
upon the President said to Chase, "You mustn't
worry about that. I will come out all right. When
I came into the Presidency and invited Mr. Welles
into the Cabinet neither of us then knew the bow
from the stern of a boat. I have since learned the
difference though up to this time he has failed to
note the distinction, but as he is an able and patri-
otic man the Navy will not suffer."
Our great Secretary of State, Mr. Knox, on
returning from his mission of peace, has indicated
and pointed out what advances have been made and
how the Navy has steadily grown in efficiency and in
strength and in usefulness. This occasion is an
inspiring one. A beautiful Sunday morning on
the Atlantic Ocean with the sun shining, a great
ship on its return from an epoch-making trip, here
in the presence of the representative of our Gov-
ernment, the opportunity is afforded to express to
the officers and men of the Washington the feelings
which all Americans entertain, irrespective of parties,
for the Navy and for the splendid unselfish and
patriotic work which they are performing for their
country. Ideals and standards are the real things
in life and in no department of government service
are they better or higher.
When one feels deeply and strongly, when
sentiments swell from the heart it is difficult to
appropriately express them. Silence is the lan-
guage of deep and abiding feeling. I wish, how-
ever, to say to you how much pleasure we have had
in being here to-day and meeting the rank and file
Statement to the Press by Mr. Knox upon his return
to Washington, April //, 1912.
The purpose of my mission, as indicated in my
letter of instruction from the President and by
him publicly stated, was, through a friendly visit
and personal acquaintance with the officers of the
governments and peoples of the Caribbean republics,
to put our relations with them upon a basis of bet-
ter understanding.
It is well known by those who have given
attention to conditions in some of the countries I
have visited that misrepresenting the attitude and
purposes of the United States toward them has
for many years been a feature of their democratic
politics, and it is equally well known that there has
existed in the United States a small coterie of
directly interested persons who have been endeav-
oring to block reforms essential to the progress of
some of the weaker republics which would break
down political abuses through which they were
profiting and a wretched despotism was being
upheld.
The operation of these two forces upon political
progress in the countries affected by them has been
deadly, and the misrepresentations of us to them
and of them to us has rapidly jeopardized friendly
205
2O6 STATEMENT TO THE PRESS.
and normal international relations by crystallizing
misunderstanding into prejudice. This situation
has been greatly aggravated by the seeming inability
through news channels of getting important and
substantial truth either into or out of some parts,
especially of Central America.
What effect my visit may have in permanently
improving our relations with and conditions in the
countries I have visited is largely a matter of con-
jecture. I prefer at this time to make no predic-
tions beyond this: That in the concrete case of
Nicaragua, if our Senate will consent to the ratifi-
cation of the treaty with that country now before
it, the effect will be instantaneously beneficial and
new life and hope will inspire a people who for
years have been the victims of a crushing despotism.
The means through which the President felt
that good results might be accomplished were dili-
gently employed. Every facility was furnished in
each country visited for meeting under the most
delightful auspices the officials of the government
and all classes of the people. Full and frank con-
versations I have had with the responsible people
of different countries, both those in official and
private life, and the exceptional facilities I have
enjoyed through the members of the American
press accompanying me in getting popular expres-
sion, especially from those in opposition to the
governments, certainly have furnished me with a
better understanding of these governments and
KNOX. 2O7
peoples and enabled me clearly to set before them
the attitude of the United States toward them.
It was most gratifying to observe the genuine
friendliness toward and interest in the people of the
United States in all the countries I visited and
the warmth of its manifestation when the real pur-
pose of my mission was appreciated. In no country
was our reception one of mere formal courtesy.
We left each country with the firm belief that we
were better understood when we left than when we
came, and that the almost indescribably bountiful
hospitality and kindness showered upon us reflected
a sentiment as cordial as it was generous toward the
country and the people whom we represented.
In view of the repeated and emphatic announce-
ments of the Monroe Doctrine at all periods in our
history, and by all shades of domestic political opin-
ions, and the emphasis which seems to have been
given to that doctrine by the extreme care the
Senate recently took to prevent the possibility of
any phase of its assertion being submitted to arbi-
tration, I am more than ever convinced of the logic
and wisdom of our helping the weaker republics to
help themselves to avoid specific conditions where
we might be embarrassed by its assertion.
The almost incalculable native wealth of the
Caribbean countries, the great variety and beauty
of scenery, and the salubrity of climate are the
physical conditions that most impressed us.
With political and financial stability in such
2O8 STATEMENT TO THE PRESS.
countries where these conditions are now wanting,
and under the benevolent sway of peace, there is
bound to be a steady development of their resources
and a growing appreciation of their natural charms
and attractions.
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