TWO 
 
 ERAL CASTRO 
 
 PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELA 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Class Book Volume 
 
 ,3 <51 Cll-t 
 
 Ja 09-20M 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
(Hu tljc 
 
 2f0tt. lifrbrrt U. Snlunt. 
 
 yreaentiny to ymt tlje tranalatinn nf turn nf tlje 
 nutat ttntable yublir bnrumenta, yrnbureb by nnr 
 patrinl Preaibent, 31 beg tn arknmulebye tl|r integrity 
 attb ljuueaty nf your rljararler, uiljett in tlje attark nf 
 “ tljree $Jnutera ” agaittat Benezurla, leb gnn tn atanb 
 by tlje aibe nf tlje riglftenuanraa, anb luntt fnr tlje 
 rauae nf “ Juatire tbe rnnat enuiable laurel in ymtr 
 biylnmatiral rarm*. 
 
 flleaae arrej.it nty inarm abntiratinn anb ainrere 
 eateern. 
 
 tReayerlfully, 
 
 Pedro Rafael Rincones, 
 
 (Gnttaul (general nf Hene^nela. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/twonotablepublicOOcast 
 
GENERAL CIPRIANO CASTRO, 
 Constitutional President of Venezuela. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS 
 

 " ?Ort itH Ijahr faltt? that rigljt makra mtgijt 
 anh in that faitty let ua harr to ho our huttj.” 
 
 LINCOLN 
 

ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 GENERAL CIPRIANO CASTRO 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC 
 TO THE VENEZUELANS 
 
 ON JUDY FIFTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND THREE 
 
 L ET us stop and vfonder while delivering this patriotic oration on 
 ^ the anniversary of this memorable and solemn day, the birth- 
 day of our Venezuelan home, independent and free. 
 
 Seen from this distance of time, at a period when austere and 
 forceful civil virtue is so rarely met with, the men who inaugurated 
 and directed the revolutionary movement of 1811 appear indeed of 
 more than ordinary estate. 
 
 In contemplating and studying them and their work after this 
 lapse of years, they appear to grow and increase in size and assume 
 clearer outlines, not unlike the projections of the mountains at twi- 
 light and as the light of the new day that rises above the line of the 
 horizon. 
 
 They all were endowed with the qualities called for by the 
 exigencies of their times. 
 
 The ideas of liberty that at this period impregnated the minds 
 of the people, like the generating pollen on wings of revolutions to 
 frudlify this globe, germinated in the souls of these men like the 
 seed sown in deep and wide furrows. Creative and resourceful men, 
 who, notwithstanding the adverse surroundings and the reigning 
 prejudices, gallantly entered the arena to battle for freedom, and at 
 once astonished the w 7 orld by their Olympic audacity. 
 
 lyike God to the ocean, they dared to say to the ever proud, 
 overbearing and incroaching tide of medieval invasion : “ Here 
 
 shall be stayed their proud billows.” And stayed they were, be- 
 cause these men built the levees against which the tendencies of 
 historical absolutism vainly dashed their forces. The} 7 formed 
 among the people alliances based upon liberty, and in order to make 
 
 5 
 
them strong against all contingencies they cemented them with im- 
 mense sacrifices in blood and treasure, coupled with the highest efforts 
 of body and mind. 
 
 Oh, yes, that work of founding a nation must have been, in most 
 respecfts, strong and enduring, when in spite of attack from within 
 and without for three quarters of a century, it subsists at this day, 
 although weak and feverish from excessive loss of blood, still always 
 strong in spirit, with noble instincts, generous sentiments, and en- 
 tirely in accord with its history and destiny. 
 
 We have erred so much, so much, that at times the reflective 
 mind is almost persuaded to believe that we might be a people fatally 
 condemned to the most painful experiences and trials on the road to 
 civilization, for even in the very school of our own misfortunes, we 
 learn so very, very slowly the ways of practical and normal living 
 that is to say, the ideas of orderly, peaceful development under the 
 auspices of liberty. 
 
 Our society delivered from the foreign yoke, but irredeemed 
 from its own vices, falls and rises by turns, as if it obstinately re- 
 fused to change in the least its own chara&er and habits, and could 
 not listen to good counsels and sound advice, unless it were clothed 
 in the glare of conflagrations or in the distant rumblings of threatened 
 catastrophes. But, perhaps, may not the deep impressions created 
 by the recent happenings be sufficient to correct these, the most 
 potent causes of the convulsive instability of its institutions and its 
 governments? Will it at last learn the objeCt lesson, so full of un- 
 foreseen disaster, the fruits of fickle quackery, supported by the 
 most unbridled passions ? May it please God, that so it be ! 
 
 This is the day, above all others, on which to make solemn 
 vows to the sacred memory of the noble founders of our Nationality. 
 Let us make at least one, but let it be fervent, sincere and irrevocable. 
 
 Let us all promise without partisanship, without mental reser- 
 vation of any kind of intolerance and hatred, to live from this day, 
 possessed with the constantly growing purpose before us, to mend 
 our ways, or what amounts to the same thing, never again to dis- 
 embowel our country with^/words and bayonets, but rather to protect 
 it with our bodies, defend it with our arms, and to make it great 
 and happy by our efforts in the field of labor, which latter is the 
 highest form of patriotism. Now to-day is the time, to-morrow it 
 may be too late ! 
 
 To again expose ourselves to a crisis such as we have just 
 passed through, would be almost equal to abandon our glorious 
 
 6 
 
banner and that grand patrimony bequeathed to us by Miranda the 
 Martyr, Bolivar the Great, and their noble co-workers in the 
 struggle for our redemption. 
 
 Let us proclaim from every rostrum, and continue to send to our 
 people in the furthermost ends of the Republic, words of cheer and 
 encouragement, that they may arise from the terrible trials and 
 sufferings to which they have so long been subjected. 
 
 Let us resolve once and a thousand times before the sacred altar 
 of our common country, that we will abandon for once and all the 
 path of error, not as conquered, but as convinced, in order to pursue, 
 without flinching, the road that is pointed out to us by honor and 
 duty, and let us, at last, bury forever those passions that lead to and 
 end only in anarchy. 
 
 Thus shall we become strong and respedted and be enabled to 
 give force to the outcome of that peace, which to attain has cost us 
 so much, and thus being freed from internal obstacles and danger, we 
 shall be able to diredl all our efforts to the end of making of this 
 country the respedted and loved home of a worthy, industrious and 
 intelligent people, that for its sturdy virtues will recommend itself 
 to the admiration of the world, and whose moral worth will, make up 
 for the deficiencies of its material resources. Venezuela is in 
 evidence before itself and before the world. It is observed and 
 watched in these days of expansion and conquests. The fertility of 
 our soil, the abundance of our natural resources, form incentives for 
 the avaricious tendencies of other nations. 
 
 Venezuelans : — The truth must be told, though it may hurt 
 and pain, or rather in order that it causes intense pain, like strong 
 caustic, and thereby brings forth healthful results. 
 
 Venezuelans are unfortunately those whom we must charge as 
 being the authors of all our misfortunes, and Venezuelans must be 
 those who shall raise above all the symbol of our national salvation, 
 from our errors and misdeeds. 
 
 Under the palladium of this solemn pilgrimage, I, with all her 
 sons, will go to our beloved country, knowing that it, like a loving 
 mother, will forgive even those of her children who have not known 
 how to love and defend her in the days of tribulation. To-day it is 
 just one year since I, with expressions of the most intense patri- 
 otism, declared myself as being in the field to stamp out anarchism 
 and to restore constitutional order, and here I am, returned and 
 bringing you that which then I could but promise. There can still* 
 be heard the echo of the words with which a year ago I greeted the 
 
 7 
 
dawn of this glorious day, and announced to the country that the 
 requirements of solemn duty and political necessity had again forced 
 the sword into my hands, and had called me with irresistible force 
 to the field of battle, demanding a striking demonstration of the faCt 
 that the right is powerful and always will prevail, when it has for 
 standard bearers, men in whom honor is combined with force of 
 character and is backed by strong convictions. 
 
 And what I then promised is now fulfilled and completed with 
 evident exactness. 
 
 Thus it was that, in a short campaign, success was chained to our 
 chariot of victory in the very hotbed of rebellion, and thus I was 
 enabled, through the heroism of my men and the constancy of for- 
 tune, to draw from the very heat of battle the peace necessary for 
 our national existence, the guarantees for our citizenship, to give 
 stability to progress, prestige to our institutions, and thus purified 
 in the crucible of sacrifice and suffering, bring forth those elements 
 that are needed for the political and social restoration of Venezuela. 
 
 The impetuous avalanche of human beings and of events was, 
 in hundred days of battling, reduced to an informal mass, stricken 
 with fear and scattered in all directions. The grave foreign com- 
 plications that overtook us at the time of our internal conflict could 
 not have been foreseen on the day when we marched to battle, but 
 the general results, properly viewed and appreciated, have really ex- 
 ceeded the promises then made, notwithstanding that they were then 
 looked upon as the blatant vaporings of a beaten blusterer, who had 
 bent his footsteps toward inevitable disaster. 
 
 These prodigious achievements have not made me vainglorious, 
 nor has the height to which I have been raised by the heroic deeds 
 of the constitutional army in the internal conflict, and the prudence 
 and patriotism of our people in the foreign contest, caused any 
 dizziness to my head. I aspire rather to base my pride upon the 
 good use we may make of these victories, in the work of wise ad- 
 ministration, and of the progress in the unification and elevation of 
 our people, and in the battles that we shall have to fight in the field of 
 labor, of civilizations, of the sciences and of the arts. We have for 
 these undertakings the stimulant and first necessity of life, which is 
 that Peace, that will be veryshortly officially declared. This peace 
 is not merely the trace following a cruel, bloody struggle, but the 
 definite and logical outcome of a long war ; the end of which will 
 also, grant God, terminate our public calamities and open wide to 11s 
 the horizon of our national aspirations. This peace is the conscien- 
 
 8 
 
tious desire of all, and, therefore, it should be lasting and fruitful, 
 permitting us to realize unflinchingly the programme of the cause 
 of Liberal restoration. 
 
 Fellow Patriots : — Let us, on this glorious day, remember with 
 gratitude those who, although not of our kindred, have addressed to 
 us during our dreadful afflictions, words of cheer, and given us 
 tokens of affeCtiou and sympathy, and let us swear by the blood so 
 freely shed to seal the Independence of Colombia on that memorable 
 field, which, as a wonder of the national art, serves us at the same 
 time as canopy and horizon during this aCt.* 
 
 Let us swear to prove ourselves worthy of that glorious sacrifice 
 by constantly practicing those virtues which it served to improve. 
 
 (Signed) Cipriano Castro. 
 
 Caracas, July 5th, 1903. 
 
 *He refers to very good pictures of the war of independence that are on the inner 
 ceiling of the Capitol, representing the great battles of Carabobo, Boyaca, Junin and Ayacucho, 
 that were the ends of war with Spain, sealing the independence of the Great Colombia, which 
 comprised Venezuela, Nueva Granada and Ecuador. Also of Perti and Bolivia. 
 
 9 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 GENERAL CIPRIANO CASTRO 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC 
 TO THE VENEZUELANS 
 
 ON JANUARY FIRST, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FOUR 
 
 ELLOW Citizens : — My vows of to-day for your happiness are 
 
 so fervent that I may hardly succeed in formulating them : 
 My heart is full in this moment only with them, and they could 
 scarcely be translated but in a salutation or prayer to the Deity, who 
 protects the great peoples — the peoples that regenerate and save 
 themselves by sacrifices and self-denial. 
 
 Receive and accept these vows as an homage to your nobility, 
 as an innermost offering to the majesty of the Republic, as a testi- 
 mony of profound gratitude for the immense amount of honors I 
 owe to your confidence. 
 
 Fellow Citizens : — The year that begins to-day will be one of 
 the most fruitful and transcendental in the civil history of Venezue- 
 lans — it will be as the first triumphal arch of our organized and 
 flourishing democracy. 
 
 From the night of grief and trial that has just passed away, the 
 national soul comes forth, radiant and full of experience as an in- 
 effable Eucharist of patriotism. Those dreadful and protracted 
 hours, fatally necessary, perhaps to the chief design of our civiliza- 
 tion, will remain marked out with red rings in our republican 
 calendar as a warning in all times to the governments and the 
 parties that there is nothing so disgraceful and so ravenous as the 
 headlong fratricidal rancour, and that in the struggles supported by 
 this rancour, the people gamble or endanger not only their well- 
 being and credit, but even their existence, which for us was the price 
 of great efforts and sublime immolations. 
 
 1 1 
 
Something untangible, but noble and wise, as the Deity that in- 
 flamed the soul of Bolivar, whispers in my ear that we have doubled, 
 perhaps forever, the hateful cape of the domestic tempests. And in 
 fact, it seems impossible, rationally impossible, that a nation, illus- 
 trious for its element of blood, renowned for its heroism, great for 
 its virtues and envied for its riches, may relapse still in its turbulent 
 madness of three quarters of a century — madness of tumultuous 
 crow T ds and mutiny, that in Athens and Rome, as here and every- 
 where, has never given but fruits of catastrophe — dreadful germina- 
 tion of the greatest misfortunes. 
 
 The visible .signs of the present situation, valued from a serene 
 and ample point of view, agree together in proving that the country, 
 reacting upon itself with wise and prudent concurrence of opinion, 
 adopts lastly the means of securing a positive liberty, derived from 
 order and tolerance and the desired well-being, by virtue of the 
 fecundation of peace by labor. 
 
 It is evident to me, considering the present state of the public 
 opinion, that the peace conquered in four years of bloody fight is 
 not now r a truce that the interests in conflict give to each other, but 
 a compact of everlasting alliance between all the great factors of the 
 national democracy, to liquidate at once before History the mourn- 
 ful accounts of common blunders and mistakes, and to open others 
 with the future, in a great book of gradual and intelligent civiliza- 
 tion, able to be practically adapted to the native ways and the high 
 ends of social economy. 
 
 The factions have not already action of their own, not even 
 peculiar physiognomy. Some subdued, others convinced, all of them 
 are incorporated almost completely with the great restorer Nucleus, 
 to constitute the formidable unit that henceforth will answer before 
 natives and foreigners of the fate of the Republic. That nucleus is 
 the nebulous of a superb condensation of liberal and democratic 
 Venezuela. 
 
 Yes, fellow citizens ! we are in full exercise of our reflective 
 faculties. We try strenuously to give unity to the public spirit, so 
 that the common patriotic efforts may have the greatest effectiveness, 
 and this is a conclusive proof of practical wisdom, because unity is 
 the first scientific basis of all associations. We renounce to the old 
 factious conventions to belong to the new vigorous communion 
 which, from the borders of the Tachira to that of the Orinoco, has 
 irrigated in immense furrow the beneficent seed of the restorer 
 ideal ; and this is a testimony of profound good sense, because men 
 
and parties and even the same ideas, are by an evident historical 
 law more or less accidental elements of a given time, and fall will- 
 ingly or by force, under the vital principle of incessant transforma- 
 tion that rules in all the spheres of the universe. 
 
 Immediate product of this laudable concurrence of the country 
 with its primordiate needs, is the great plebiscite of corporations and 
 citizens that has proclaimed from one end to the other of the 
 national territory, the urgent convenience of the constitutional re- 
 forms, to correct certain grave anomalies occasioned by the war, and 
 to adjust the fundamental basis of the Union and the organic prin- 
 ciples of the public powers, according to what the same institutions 
 have demonstrated in their application. 
 
 The inopportune political idealism of our ruling classes has 
 caused the loss in barren trials of a precious time, that we will only 
 make up bringing to the body of the native institutions elements, of 
 comprobated analogy with our character, and organic rules that may 
 fill up with energetic wisdom our lack of sufficient preparation for 
 the free development of the Republic. 
 
 I have been present in the impetuous overflow of the reformist 
 currents as anxious spectator, because the duties of the Magistracy 
 prevent my activity in this field, and I would like to have been able 
 to support it freely with all my vigor. Eet this confession be par- 
 doned to me, as pledge of genial republican frankness, confession 
 that wrests from me the vehement desire of seeing consecrated in 
 everlasting Codes and laws the principles that nourished my soul in 
 the exile, that furnished me with arms on the 23rd day of May, 1899, 
 and that afterwards have always been my guide and even my shield 
 in all the peripetias of the Revohition Liberal Reslauradora , with an 
 efficiency visible to all, because this Revolution has conquered all its 
 adversaries, because under its flag our country has been saved of 
 black conspirators, and because in its provident bosom there is only 
 love for the Venezuelan family. 
 
 Eet it be also well understood that my agreement w T ith the re- 
 formist idea is above all those foul dealings which in similar cases 
 have put in danger the internal security of the State. 
 
 There is not a single motive to suppose that I am capable of 
 extravagant ambitions, or that I belong to that class of individuals 
 who affedt to surrender to certain insinuations of perfidious con- 
 ventionalism. Even if I had not come in the high position I occupy 
 by the uprightness of my behavior and the strength of my arms, I 
 would never turn my mind to suggestions unfriendly to liberty. 
 
 13 
 
It is enough the power that the people have given to me, and 
 my character of leader of the most beautiful and certainly the most 
 beneficent revolution that the modern annals of Venezuelan record. 
 With this character and this power, I have tried and will go on try- 
 ing to obtain for my country the greatest amount of benefit, and 
 when the hour to surrender then comes, there will be no man and 
 no party who will be able to say that I served them or they served 
 me as an instrument for something unworthy of the honor of the 
 Republic. 
 
 Venezuelans : — After some days you will be in possession of 
 the propitious, constitutional and judicial elements that you ask with 
 such high reasons as a sovereign and progressive entity. Then and 
 until considerable time after, it is probable that we will have no 
 questions nor political problems that will embarrass or preoccupy 
 us ; above all, because when the Association works with guarantees 
 and the Government administrators with honesty and intelligence, 
 there cannot be between the one and the other but sympathetic cur- 
 rents, and this, in my opinion, constitutes a state of things able to 
 satisfy the most pressing aspirations of liberty and expansion — of 
 ample liberation, in short. 
 
 Besides, the Liberal Restoration, definitely organized and con- 
 stituted, will be as a great church, always open to the communion of 
 the modern national spirit by the imminence of the democratic prin- 
 ciples in the brilliant eternity of the beloved country. The creed of 
 the citizens in that church will be a permanent protest against the 
 factious pugilism and the readlionary madness, and there will be no 
 Venezuelan that will not swear with noble faith in the altars, eternal 
 love to fraternity and to union. 
 
 In this way, free of incandescent passionate political controv- 
 ersies, affirmed the peace in the public conscience, maintained order 
 as a precious necessity to the individual and collective interests, the 
 most fruitful initiative in the sphere of the administration and in the 
 field of business will necessarily come, until our economic level will 
 be raised, and we will have sufficient representation in the markets 
 of the world. This is the desideratum of the country in this solemn 
 epoch, undoubtedly because, besides the elemental current reasons 
 that make good its criterion in this particular, its recent history 
 teaches that if some of our good liberal governments would not have 
 withdrawn from the activity of the administration and the improve- 
 ment of public works to rush into imprudent political adventures, 
 we would have to-day nothing to envy to the most advanced peoples 
 of the Continent. 
 
 4 
 
We are rich and laborious ; two oceans offer us extensive routes 
 to bring and to carry all that we produce and need, and the idle 
 capital in other zones wishes anxiously to come and thrive in our 
 soil. We only want to be sufficiently discreet and judicious to secure 
 confidence — mother of credit — and to exploit our riches with 
 practical and methodical criterion. 
 
 If to obtain this you need still some new sacrifice, you can dis- 
 pose of me and of what I am worth. No greater glory to a man than 
 to have contributed to his country’s civilization with all that he 
 received from her and from God, who helps and protects her. 
 
 Fellow Citizens : — In the name of the Liberal Restoration and 
 of my loyal forebodings, I augur you that this year will be the first 
 of a series of peaceful lustrums, during which the Republic will raise 
 to great culture and progress. 
 
 Caracas, January i, 1904. 
 
 •5