1411 
 >py 1 
 
 ADDRESS BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 L OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 AS HONORARY VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE 
 THIRD CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN RE- 
 PUBLICS AT RIO DE JANEIRO, JULY 31, 
 1906. ^ ^ ^ # 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 in 2010 witii funding from 
 Tine Library of Congress 
 
 littp://www.arcliive.org/details/addressbysecretaOOroot 
 
VV\i* v\c?ot . 
 
 ADDRESS BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 _ L OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 AS HONORARY VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE 
 THIRD CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN RE- 
 PUBLICS AT RIO DE JANEIRO, JULY 31, 
 1906. ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 9 0-'» 
 113 
 
By transfer 
 
 f^Afl 10I90S 
 
 
ADDRESS BY MR. ELIHU ROOT. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Third Con- 
 ference of American Republics : 
 I beg you to believe that I highly appreciate 
 and thank you for the honor you do me. 
 
 I bring from my country a special greeting to 
 her elder sisters in the civilization of America. 
 
 Unlike as we are in many respects, we are 
 alike in this, that we are all engaged under new 
 conditions, and free from the traditional forms 
 and limitations of the Old World in working out 
 the same problem of popular self-government. 
 
 It is a difficult and laborious task for each of 
 us. Not in one generation nor in one century 
 can the effective control of a superior sovereign, 
 so long deemed necessary to government, be 
 rejected and effective self-control by the gov- 
 erned be perfected in its place. The first fruits 
 of democracy are; many of them crude and un- 
 lovely; its mistakes are many, its partial failures 
 many, its sins not few. Capacity for self-gov- 
 ernment does not come to man by nature. It is 
 
 3 
 
an art to be learned, and it is also an expression 
 of character to be developed among all the thou- 
 sands of men who exercise popular sovereignty. 
 
 (To reach the goal towards which we are 
 pressing forward, the governing multitude must 
 first acquire knowledge that comes from uni- 
 versal education, wisdom that follows practical 
 experience, personal independence and self- 
 respect befitting men who acknowledge no 
 superior, self-control to replace that external 
 control which a democracy rejects, respect for 
 law, obedience to the lawful expressions of the 
 public will, consideration for the opinions and 
 interests of others equally entitled to a voice in 
 the state, loyalty to that abstract conception — 
 one's country — as inspiring as that loyalty to 
 personal sovereigns which has so illumined 
 the pages of history, subordination of personal 
 interests to the public good, love of justice and 
 mercy, of liberty and order. AH these we must 
 seek by slow and patient effort; and of how 
 many shortcomings in his own land and among 
 his own people each one of us is conscious. 
 
 (Yet no student of our times can fail to see 
 that not America alone but the whole civilized 
 
 4 
 
world is swinging away from its old govern- 
 mental moorings and intrusting the fate of its 
 civilization to the capacity of the popular mass 
 to govern.] By this pathway mankind is to 
 travel, withersoever it leads. Upon the success 
 of this our great undertaking the hope of 
 humanity depends. 
 
 Nor can we fail to see that the world makes 
 substantial progress towards more perfect popu- 
 lar self-government. 
 
 I believe it to be true that, viewed against 
 the background of conditions a century, a gen- 
 eration, a decade ago, government in my own 
 country has advanced, in the intelligent partici- 
 pation of the great mass of the people, in the 
 fidelity and honesty with which they are rep- 
 resented, in respect for law, in obedience to the 
 dictates of a sound morality, and in effectiveness 
 and purity of administration. 
 
 Nowhere in the world has this progress been 
 more marked than in Latin America. Out of 
 the wrack of Indian fighting and race conflicts 
 and civil wars, strong and stable governments 
 have arisen. Peaceful succession in accord with 
 the people's will has replaced the forcible seiz- 
 
 5 
 
ure of power permitted by the people's indiffer- 
 ence. Loyalty to country, its peace, its dignity, 
 its honor, has risen above partizanship for indi- 
 vidual leaders. The rule of law supersedes 
 the rule of man. Property is protected and 
 the fruits of enterprise are secure. Individual 
 liberty is respected. Continuous public policies 
 are followed ; national faith is held sacred. 
 Progress has not been equal everywhere, but 
 there has been progress everywhere. The 
 movement in the right direction is general. 
 The right tendency is not exceptional; it is con- 
 tinental. The present affords just cause for 
 satisfaction ; the future is bright with hope. 
 -j. Its is not by national isolation that these re- 
 sults have been accomplished, or that this prog- 
 ress can be continued./ No nation can live unto 
 itself alone and continue to live. Each nation's 
 growth is a part of the development of the race. 
 There may be leaders and there may be laggards, 
 but no nation can long continue very far in ad- 
 vance of the general progress of mankind, and 
 no nation that is not doomed to extinction can 
 remain very far behind. It is with nations as it 
 is with individual men; intercourse, association, 
 
 6 
 
correction of egotism by the influence of other's 
 judgment, broadening of views by the experi- 
 ence and thought of equals, acceptance of the 
 moral standards of a community the desire for 
 whose good opinion lends a sanction to the 
 rules of right conduct — these are the conditions 
 of growth in civilization^^A people whose minds 
 are not open to the lessons of the world's 
 progress, whose spirits are not stirred by the 
 aspirations and the achievements of humanity 
 struggling the world over for liberty and justice, 
 must be left behind by civilization in its steady 
 and beneficent advance. 
 
 . To promote this mutual interchange and 
 assistance between the American republics, en- 
 gaged in the same great task, inspired by the 
 same purpose, and professing the same princi- 
 ples, 1 understand to be the function of the 
 American Conference now in session. There is 
 not one of all our countries that can not benefit 
 the others; there is not one that can not receive 
 benefit from the others; there is not one that 
 will not gain by the prosperity, the peace, the 
 happiness of all. 
 
 According to your program no great and 
 
 7 
 
impressive single thing is to be done by you ; 
 no political questions are to be discussed ; no 
 controversies are to be settled ; no judgment is 
 to be passed upon the conduct of any state : 
 but many subjects are to be considered which 
 afford the possibility of removing barriers to in- 
 tercourse; of ascertaining for the common benefit 
 what advances have been made by each nation 
 in knowledge, in experience, in enterprise, in the 
 solution of difficult questions of government, and 
 in ethical standards ; of perfecting our knowl- 
 edge of each other; and of doing away with 
 the misconceptions, the misunderstandings, and 
 the resultant prejudices that are such fruitful 
 sources of controversy. 
 
 And there are some subjects in the program 
 which invite discussion that may lead the Ameri- 
 can republics towards an agreement upon prin- 
 ciples, the general practical application of which 
 can come only in the future through long and 
 patient effort. Some advance at least may be 
 made here towards the complete rule of justice 
 and peace among nations in lieu of force and war. 
 
 The association of so many eminent men 
 from all the Republics, leaders of opinion in 
 
their own homes; the friendships that will arise 
 among you; the habit of temperate and kindly 
 discussion of matters of common interest; the 
 ascertainment of common sympathies and aims; 
 the dissipation of misunderstandings; the exhi- 
 bition to all the American peoples of this 
 peaceful and considerate method of conferring 
 upon international questions— this alone, quite 
 irrespective of the resolutions you may adopt 
 and the conventions you may sign, will mark 
 a substantial advance in the direction of inter- 
 national good understanding. 
 
 These beneficent results the Government and 
 the people of the United States of America 
 greatly desire. !We wish for no victories but 
 those of peace; for no territory except our own; 
 for no sovereignty except the sovereignty over 
 ourselves. 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, and we 
 deem the observance of that respect the chief 
 guaranty of the weak against the oppression of 
 the strong. We neither claim nor desire any 
 rights, or privileges, or powers that we do not 
 
 9 
 
freely concede to every American republic.- j We 
 wish to increase our prosperity, to expand our 
 trade, to grow in wealth, in wisdom, and in 
 spirit, but our conception of the true way to 
 accomplish this is not to pull down others and 
 profit by their ruin, but to help all friends to 
 a common prosperity and a common growth, 
 that we may all become greater and stronger 
 together. 
 
 Within a few months, for the first time the 
 recognized possessors of every foot of soil upon 
 the American continents can be and 1 hope will 
 be represented with the acknowledged rights 
 of equal sovereign states in the great World 
 Congress at The Hague. This will be the 
 world's formal and final acceptance of the dec- 
 laration that no part of the American continents 
 is to be deemed subject to colonization. Let us 
 pledge ourselves to aid each other in the full 
 performance of the duty to humanity which that 
 accepted declaration implies; so that in time the 
 weakest and most unfortunate of our republics 
 may come to march with equal step by the side 
 of the stronger and more fortunate. ' Let us help 
 each other to show that for all the races of men 
 
 10 
 
the liberty for which we have fought and labored 
 is the twin sister of justice and peace/) Let us 
 unite in creating and maintaining and making 
 effective an all-American public opinion, whose 
 power shall influence international conduct and 
 prevent international wrong, and narrow the 
 causes of war, and forever preserve our free 
 lands from the burden of such armaments as 
 are massed behind the frontiers of Europe, and 
 bring us ever nearer to the perfection of ordered 
 liberty. So shall come security and prosperity, 
 production and trade, wealth, learning, the arts, 
 and happiness for us all. 
 
 Not in a single conference, nor by a single ■'^ 
 effort, can very much be done. You labor more 
 for the future than for the present; but if the 
 right impulse be given, if the right tendency be 
 established, the work you do here will go on 
 among all the millions of people in the Ameri- 
 can continents long after your final adjournment, 
 long after your lives, with incalculable benefit to 
 all our beloved countries, which may it please 
 God to continue free and independent and 
 happy for ages to come. 
 
 II 
 
LlBRftRV OF CONGRtJJ 
 
 "is 8 28 52525 1