he political philosophy of our
times, and especially to the political philosophy most interesting to
America. Upon the two subjects of special international interest to
which you have alluded, I am glad to be able to declare myself in hearty
and unreserved sympathy with you. The United States of America has never
deemed it to be suitable that she should use her army and navy for the
collection of ordinary contract debts of foreign governments to her
citizens. For more than a century the State Department, the Department
of Foreign Relations of the United States of America, has refused to
take such action, and that has become the settled policy of our country.
We deem it to be inconsistent with that respect for the sovereignty of
weaker powers which is essential to their protection against the
aggression of the strong. We deem the use of force for the collection of
ordinary contract debts to be an invitation to abuses, in their
necessary results far worse, far more baleful to humanity than that the
debts contracted by any nation should go unpaid. We consider that the
use of the army and navy of a great power to compel a weaker power to
answer to a contract with a private individual, is both an invitation to
speculation upon the necessities of weak and struggling countries and an
infringement upon the sovereignty of those countries, and we are now, as
we always have been, opposed to it; and we believe that, perhaps not
today nor tomorrow, but through the slow and certain process of the
future, the world will come to the same opinion.

It is with special gratification that I have heard from your lips so
just an estimate of the character of that traditional policy of the
United States which bears the name of President Monroe. When you say
that it was "without accentuating superiority or seeking preponderance,"
that Monroe's declaration condemned the oppression of the nations of
this part of the world and the control of their destinies by the great
powers of Europe, you speak the exact historical truth. You do but
simple justice to the purposes and the sentiments of Monroe and his
compatriots and to the country of Monroe at every hour from that time to
this.

I congratulate you upon the wonderful opportunity that lies before you.
Happier than those of us who were obliged in earlier days to conquer the
wilderness, you men of Argentina have at your hands great, new forces
for your use. Changes have come of recent years in the