o believe in the sincere and high appreciation which I have
for all the kindness you have shown me and my family since our arrival
in Chile. I believe that the delicacy, the sense of propriety and
fitness, that have characterized our reception, both official and
personal, have produced in our minds, under the sad circumstances of the
great misfortune that hangs over the Chilean people like a cloud, a
deeper impression than the most splendid and sumptuous display. I
believe that to be able to mourn with you in your loss, to sympathize
with you in your misfortune, draws us closer to you than to be with you
in the greatest prosperity and happiness upon which the brightest sun
has ever shone.

I thank you for your kindly expressions regarding my President,
regarding myself, and regarding my country. In the "United States of
America," as our Constitution called us many years ago--the "United
States of North America," as perhaps we should call ourselves south of
the equator--we have been for a long time, and are still trying to
reconcile individual liberty with public order, local self-government
with a strong central and national control; trying to develop the
capacity of the individuals of our people to control themselves, and
also the capacity of the people collectively for self-government; trying
to adopt sound financial methods, to promote justice--a justice
compatible with mercy--and to make progress in all that makes a people
happier, more prosperous, better educated, better able to perform their
duties as citizens and to do their part in the world to help humanity
out of the hard conditions of poverty and ignorance and along the
pathway of civilization. We have done what we could. We have committed
errors and we acknowledge them and are deeply conscious of them; but we
are justly proud of our country for the progress it has made; and we
look on every country that is engaged in that same struggle for liberty
and justice with profound sympathy and warm friendship.

I am here to say to the Chilean people that although there have been
misunderstandings in the past, they were misunderstandings such as arise
between two vigorous, proud peoples that know each other too little. Let
us know each other better and we shall have put an end to
misunderstandings. The present moment is especially propitious for
saying this, because we are upon the threshold of great events in this
western world of ours. In my own country the progre