nd the spirit of the great citizens who have gone before
are gathered to do you honor and do your country honor. What has been
done in the United States of America, has been done, not by the power of
money; it has been done, not under the influence of selfish motives; it
has been done under the influence of noble ideals, of great minds, and
of great hearts directing and guiding and leading the mighty affairs of
a great people. And here are representatives, not all, but many, of the
foremost representatives of that American spirit which has accomplished
everything which you have seen in your journey here.

My friends of the Chamber of Commerce, some years ago when it fell to my
lot to visit South America, for the purpose of carrying to the minds of
our southern sisters a true message of the real feeling of our people
towards them, for the purpose of getting a hearing among the peoples of
South America, which could not be gained through the newspapers, which
could not be gained in any other way than by direct personal contact and
by the influence of one personality meeting another, for the purpose of
doing away with the false and distorted ideas that our great country was
possessed by ambition and the lust of conquest and the desire for
dominion over other lands, I met in Brazil the most noble and generous
hospitality. No nation of men could have exhibited in a higher degree
all those qualities which make men love each other than the people of
Brazil exhibited to me on my visit there. The noble traditions of their
race, all the great-heartedness of the grandees of the Iberian
Peninsula, all those sentiments which have made them _par excellence_
the gentlemen of civilization were exhibited in the welcome they gave
to you, to our people, through me as their representative.

In that land of surpassing beauty, in that scene upon the Bay of Rio,
with its shining waters and its blue mountains, in that city which has
all the romance of fair Ionian cities, I found a depth and warmth of
friendship, a depth of patriotism and love for their own country, a
response to the message of humanity, and a warm acceptance of the tender
of friendship which made the people of Brazil ever to me a group of
dearly loved and always to be remembered friends. And among the first of
them all was our guest of this evening. His personal hospitality I shall
never forget. He knew not the words inconvenience or trouble. One would
have thought he had no ot