establishment of these free and
independent nations in this continent they have obtained a profitable
outlet for their trade, employment for their commerce, food for their
people, and refuge for their poor and their surplus population. We have
done more than that. We have tried here their experiments in government
for them. The reflex action of the American experiments in government
has been felt in every country in Europe without exception, and has been
far more effective in its influence than any good quality of the old
colonial system could have been. And now our prosperity but adds to
their prosperity. Intercourse in trade, exchange of thought in learning,
in literature, in art--all add to their power and their prosperity,
their intellectual activity, and their commercial strength. We still
draw from their stores of wealth commercially, spiritually,
intellectually, and physically, and we are beginning to return, in rich
measure, with interest, what we have got from them. We have learned
that national aggrandizement and national prosperity are to be gained
rather by national friendship than by national violence. The friendship
for your country that we from the North have is a friendship that
imperils no interest of Europe. It is a friendship that springs from a
desire to promote the common welfare of mankind by advancing the rule of
order, of justice, of humanity, and of the Christianity which makes for
the prosperity and happiness of all mankind. It is not as a messenger of
strife that I come to you; but I am here as the advocate of universal
friendship and peace.

ADDRESS OF HIS EXCELLENCY JOSE BATLLE Y ORDONEZ

PRESIDENT OF URUGUAY

At the Banquet given by him at the Government House, August 11, 1906

We celebrate an event new to South America--the presence in the heart of
our republics of a member of the Government of the United States of the
North. That grand nation has wished thus to manifest the interest her
sisters of the South inspire in her and her purpose of strongly drawing
together the links that bind her to them.

Born on the same continent and in the same epoch, ruled by the same
institutions, animated by the same spirit of liberty and progress, and
destined alike to cause republican ideas to prevail on earth, it is
natural that the nations of all America should approach nearer and
nearer to each other, and unite more and more amongst themselves; and it
is natural, also, that the most powerful a