that they may become good
and strong, concurs with all her moral power in the realization of this
work of the Pan American Congresses, destined to become a modern
amphictyon to whose decisions all the great American questions will be
submitted, already giving prestige thereto by such words as you have
spoken to the Congress of Rio de Janeiro, which present to the American
world new and grand perspectives of peace and progress.

Mr. Secretary of State, ladies and gentlemen, in the presence of deeds
of this magnitude, inspired and filled with enthusiasm by them, let us
pour out a libation to the United States of the North, to its vigorous
President, to you and to your distinguished family, the herald of
continental friendship, and to the American fatherland, from the Bering
Straits to Cape Horn.

REPLY OF MR. ROOT

I thank you for the kind reference to myself, and I thank you for the
high terms in which you have spoken of my country, from which I am so
far away. Do not think, I beg you, sir, if I accept what you have said
regarding the country I love, that we, in the north, consider ourselves
so perfect as your description of us. We have virtues, we have good
qualities, and we are proud of them; but we ourselves know in our own
hearts how many faults we have. We know the mistakes we have made, the
failures we have made, the tasks that are still before us to perform.
Yet from the experiences of our efforts and our successes, and from the
experiences of our faults and our failures, we, the oldest of the
organized republics of America, say to you of Uruguay, and to all our
sisters, "Be of good cheer and confident hope."

You have said, Mr. President, in your eloquent remarks this evening,
that the progress of Uruguay has been slow. Slow as measured by our
lives, perhaps, but not slow as measured by the lives of nations. The
march of civilization is slow; it moves little during single human
lives. Through the centuries and the ages it proceeds with deliberate
and certain step. Look to England, whence came the principles embodied
in your constitution, and ours, where first were developed the
principles of free representative government. Remember through how many
generations England fought and bled in her wars of the White and the
Red--her blancos and colorados--the white rose of York and the red rose
of Lancaster, before she could win her way to the security of English
law.

Look to France, whence came the great decla