e popular sentiment. They constitute
the aspiration of all America. They express, at the least, the fervent
desires of the Uruguayan people and of its Government, who see in the
visit of the illustrious Secretary of State the foreshadowing of
progress, of culture, and fraternity, which will bring the peoples
closer together, contributing to their prosperity and to their
greatness, through which they may figure with honor in the concert of
civilized nations.

These sentiments, as is well known, have been increasing with the events
that have made a vigorous people of the great northern republic, capable
of preponderating in the destinies of humanity on account of the
enterprising genius of all its sons, on account of the irresistible
force of its energies and of its abundant riches; and, very especially,
on account of its redeeming influence of republican virtues, a
characteristic mark of the Puritan and the other elements which
organized the Federal Government on the immovable base of liberty,
justice, and democracy.

The pages of history show that the ideals of its own Constitution, like
every great and generous ideal, passing over the distance from the
Potomac to the banks of the River Plata, penetrated immediately to the
farthest corner of the American Continent. There soon afterwards arose a
new world of free countries where the undertakings of Solis or Pizarro
and Cortes will initiate a civilization destined to prosper in the
life-giving blast of liberty and in the vigorous impulse which democracy
infused into the old organizations of the colonial regime. The example
of the United States and its moral assistance animated the patriots.

Put to the proof in the memorable struggle for emancipation, its
fortitude and its heroism overturned all obstacles until the desired
moment of the consolidation, by its own effort, of the independence of
the American Continent. Indeed, the influence of the United States in
the diplomatic negotiations which preceded the recognition of the new
nationalities, and the chivalrous declaration which President Monroe
launched upon the world, contributed efficaciously to assure the
stability of the growing republic. Its development and its greatness
were, from that instant, intrusted to the patriotism of its sons, to the
fraternity of the American peoples, and to the fruitful labor of the
coming generations.

In spite of such social upheavals, which bring with them the ready-made
collisi