s little understood by the people at large and requiring for
their solution the highest order of ability, self-denial, and love of
country. I beg you to take my testimony, coming from another land long
engaged in grappling with the same kind of difficulties; I beg you to
take my testimony that the troubles of your body in legislating for your
country, and those which you are to encounter in the future, are not
peculiar to your country, to your race, to your institutions, to your
customs. They inhere in the task before every legislative body
representing the vastly differing interests, opinions, sentiments, and
desires of a people.

Mr. President and gentlemen of the Chamber of Deputies, it is my sincere
desire and the desire of my countrymen, that in the performance of this
task for the republic of Mexico you may be guided in wisdom and in
peace. May you possess that self-restraint which is so necessary to the
preservation and security for property, for enterprise, and for life,
guarding you always from unwise extremes, leading you always to test
every question of legislation by sound principles taught by history. May
you always, and every one of you, be so inspired by love of country,
that you may be able to sink all personal ambitions and interests, to do
only that which is for the benefit of your country; so that through your
actions and inspired by your example the spirit of nationality which I
see growing among the people of Mexico, may continue to increase until
it is the living and controlling spirit of all the people from the Gulf
to the Pacific. May you have in your deliberations and your action
something of the self-sacrificing spirit of the humble priest Hidalgo,
which, without ambition on his part, with no other motive but the love
of his country, has written his name among the great benefactors of
humanity. May you have something of the patriotism and genius of Benito
Juarez, which enabled him with his strong hand to take Mexico out of the
conditions of warring factions when individual ambition rose above the
love of country. May you have something of that constancy and high
courage which has made for the soldier and the statesman who now sits in
the chair of the chief magistrate of Mexico, a place in history above
scores and hundreds of emperors and kings with high-sounding title and
no record in life but the desire for personal advancement.

And so, members of the Chamber of Deputies--may I say, my
frien