SÃO PAULO
Speech of Theodomiro de Camargo
At a Mass-Meeting of Students of the Law School, in front of the Palacio Chaves, August 4, 1906
The Law School of São Paulo is the tabernacle of our proudest ideals, of our most grateful traditions. Thence departed the first champions of liberty for the holy crusade of the slaves' liberation; there expanded and strengthened the republican ideas that caused the fall of the monarchy; thence have come almost all our rulers and leading men.
It is in the name of that school, sir, that I salute you and give you welcome, not only as the eminent statesman but also and specially as the loyal and dedicated friend of Brazil.
I can assure you that common to all Brazilians are the sentiments of true sympathy and great admiration for the noble country which has in you so worthy a representative. This sympathy and this admiration, common to all Brazilians, are well deserved by the wonderful people which liberated Cuba with the precious blood of her sons; are well deserved by the generous nation which contributed so much in raising in the Orient the banner of peace, putting an end to one of the most sanguinary struggles registered in universal history. The deep joy with which you have been received since you set foot on Brazilian soil is sufficient to assert what I say.
We rejoice to receive your visit because it is a proof that our feelings are reciprocated, and also because it will be a stronger link to bind forever the two great republics that are destined to lead their American sisters through the wide path of progress and civilization.
President McKinley wisely said: "The wisdom and energy of all the nations are not too great for the world's work"; so our earnest vows are that your voyage coöperates for the true fraternity of the American republics, that they may work together in the pursuit of the highest and noblest endeavor of humanity, which is universal peace.
Speech of Mr. Galaor Nazareth de Arujo, of the Normal School
"Be welcome, distinguished visitor!" This phrase, so often addressed to you during your voyage in Brazil, may now be said again to express the sincerity with which the people of São Paulo receive the visit of one of the greatest statesmen of modern America.
Amongst the institutions of education of this city there is the Normal School, which has always tried to follow the methods and systems in use in your great country.
In the name of this institution and representing my colleagues, I come before you, sir, to repeat, with all my heart, the words you have heard so many times in Brazil: "Welcome, Mr. Root!"
Speech of Mr. Gama, jr., of the Commercial School
A representative of a peaceful people is always welcome to Brazil. You know already our traditional policy. From the beginning of our existence as a nation we have accustomed ourselves to see in your glorious country the nation which, first of all, substituted for military imperialism the beneficent and civilizing policy of free commercial expansion, joining producers and consumers without any link of dependence.
We followed with ardent sympathy your liberal and eminently humane action in the Chinese Empire, at the moment when that monarchy seemed doomed to dismemberment.
And you, sir, were the first to make understood the need of the maintenance of the administrative and territorial status quo of that empire, to which, as well as to other nationalities of the Far East, you are today the securest guaranty of national integrity.
You come to us, therefore, with the credentials of a peaceful people, and of a people that respects the autonomy of other nations, no matter how weak they may be.
In this quality we open to you our arms, and we heartily meet your wishes in the assurance that we contribute to the development of the ideas of peace and steadiness, without which the evolution of a people can only be accomplished imperfectly and at the cost of many centuries of hard effort.
The United States of Brazil acknowledged the advantages of a perfect communion of views in commercial matters with their great sister of North America. They were aware that essentially opposite points of view regarding commercial interchange separate them from some of the nations of the Old World.
So long as on the other side of the Atlantic an almost invincible barrier of customs duties impedes the entry of our products into markets naturally hostile to South American productions, our country has only two alternatives: either to continue the very irksome commercial relations with those markets, or to look for others with evident loss of a part of the harmony that ought to exist between nations affiliated by origin and for so many years united by the most intimate links of sympathy and intellectual solidarity.
Consequently, we adopted the legitimate defense of protectionism, while remaining faithful to those friendly feelings, and very naturally we turned to the continental nation that better understood the advantages of a free exchange of products; we looked unsuspiciously to the friendly people who conceived the idea of making in America, united and strong, a large neutral area devoted to peace amidst the possible divergencies that may perchance in time separate in aggressive antagonism a rejuvenated and martial Orient and the nations of the West.
We understood at once the difficult task to be accomplished, in order, by your side and with your aid, to secure the neutralization of America, so desirable and so necessary for the final reconciliation of nations still militarized, and for the establishment of a secure standpoint for the general fraternization of mankind.
All the enthusiastic appreciation of the twenty-one democracies that follow and love your deed, and all the facilities and coöperation that they can offer for its accomplishment, you will find, sir, should you visit them as you now do one of their number, in the corresponding twenty-one Brazilian capitals.
The Commercial School of São Paulo, from which very likely will come later commercial agents of Brazil, sincerely espouses your policy of peace and solidarity on the American continent; and in the person of its eminent chancellor salutes the noble North American nation.
Reply of Mr. Root
I thank you, students of São Paulo, for your greeting and for your generous sympathy.
I am here upon a mission of friendship and of appreciation. I am here in order that my country may know more of the people of Brazil, and in order that the people of Brazil may learn more of my country, believing that the cause of almost all controversy between nations, the most fertile source of weakness and of war, is national misunderstanding and the prejudice that comes from misunderstanding.
I shall go back to my country and tell my people that I have found in this famous city of learning, São Paulo, a great body of young men who are gathering inspiration in the cause of learning and of human rights from the atmosphere of liberty and independence.
I shall tell them that here, where the independence of Brazil was born, the spirit of that independence still lives in the youth of Brazil.
I shall tell them that here in the birthplace of presidents more young Brazilians are treading the first steps in the pathway of patriotism and greatness, pressing on to take the place, to take up and continue the great work of the men born in São Paulo, who have contributed so mightily to the greatness of Brazil.
Let me say one word, young gentlemen, as to the lessons that you may draw from your country's glorious past.
Noble and inspiring as are the victories Brazil has won in war; remarkable, eloquent, unsurpassed as are the great things done in the past by the Paulistas, greater and nobler victories of peace await the people of Brazil and São Paulo.
You have, as my country had, a vast continent with savage nature to subdue. You have, as my country had, with almost immeasurable forests fit for human habitation, to welcome to your free land the millions of Europe seeking to escape from hard conditions of grinding poverty. You have before you that noblest product of our time, that chief result of our institutions, the open path to progress and success for every youth of Brazil. Because this is a free land, because you are a republic, because you are a self-governing people, there is no limit to what each one of you may accomplish by the exercise of your own knowledge, determination, and ability. It is the free spirit that keeps open the door of that limitless expanse, and that will conquer the wilderness and make Brazil a refuge for the poor of other lands, and a country rich and teeming with people, prosperous, learned, and happy in the years and centuries to come.
On Presenting a Football Trophy, São Paulo, August 4, 1906
The pleasant and honorable duty of presenting to you this prize of success in the fine and rapid and skillful game we have just witnessed has been delegated to me by the kindness and consideration of the President and Government of the state of São Paulo.
It is a fitting act with which to signalize my first visit to this historic and famous city, this ancient center of activity and manly vigor, this state famous for centuries for its great and noble deeds, and known now throughout the world for its successful industry and commerce, known also as the home of great men and great patriots in the history of Brazil.
May the generous emulation of this courteous and gentlemanly game which you have been playing, be a symbol of activity in the commercial, industrial, and social life of the country; above all, may it be a symbol of your lives as patriots, as citizens of Brazil. Let the best man ever win. Let activity and skill and pluck ever have their just rewards. Do for your country always as you have done for your rival teams in this game of football. Do always your best, and do it always with good temper and kindly feeling, whatever be the game.
I congratulate you, sir, and your associates, upon being citizens of a country and of a state—both you of Rio de Janeiro and you Paulistas,—where the rewards of enterprise and activity are secure, and where there is open to every youth the pathway of success by deserving success. May this prize be an incentive to you and your comrades to exercise every manly effort, both for yourselves and for your country.
SANTOS
Speech of Doctor Rezende
At the Commercial Association of Santos, August 7, 1906
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Commercial Association of Santos, I bid you welcome.
The men gathered in this hall to greet you are cosmopolitan in character—Americans, Europeans, and Brazilians—men who have united their best efforts in the great movement of distributing coffee throughout the whole world.
Coffee is our staple product, and for many years to come is bound to be the backbone of our financial system.
The value of this great product is, however, much greater than is shown by the simple figures of statistics.
In order to understand its true value, we must add to it the other articles which are produced with it, and which are unknown to the commercial world.
Coffee also means corn, beans, rice, cattle, etc., which are abundantly raised by our coffee planters; coffee means also all of our infant industries, and those prosperous towns which dot the romantic shores of the Tieté, Paranahyba, and the Mogy-Guasú. For us, sir, coffee means plenty, prosperity, and perhaps greatness.
It is therefore easy to see how deeply we are interested in the growth of American commerce and civilization. The American people need for their trade nearly eleven million bags of coffee per annum, or almost all of an average crop of the state of São Paulo.
It is not necessary to lay special stress on this main fact, production and consumption; one is the complement of the other, and the development of both our activities and interests are so identified that we cannot talk of coffee without thinking of its greatest consumer, the American people.
Seventeen years ago, in 1889, James G. Blaine, one of your most distinguished statesmen, called together the first Pan American Congress in Washington. It is a long time for us business men to wait. We feel, however, that the ideals of that great statesman have not yet been realized. The great distance which separates us is perhaps somewhat responsible for the want of closer relations between our peoples; and when your visit to our shores was first announced, we Brazilians all felt that your presence in Brazil meant a new departure in American-Brazilian relations.
We are looking forward with eagerness for the results of the sessions of the Pan American Congress in Rio; and this interest has been greatly augmented by the high honor you confer upon us in selecting this opportunity to visit our people and our country, thus strengthening the ties of friendship between Americans and Brazilians; and though we belong to a class accustomed to consider only facts and cold figures, we are deeply touched by this high distinction, and, representing the Santos Board of Trade and the coffee planters of São Paulo—the greatest coffee producers of the world—I offer most hearty greetings to you, and through you to the great American people, the chief consumers of coffee in the world.
Reply of Mr. Root
It is a great pleasure to represent here in this great commercial city the best and largest customer you have. The United States of America bought in the last fiscal year, the statistics of which have been made public, from the United States of Brazil about $99,000,000 worth of goods, and we sold to Brazil about $11,000,000 worth of goods. I should like to see the trade more even; I should like to see the prosperity of Brazil so increase that the purchasing power of Brazil will grow; and I should like to see the activity of that purchasing power turned towards the markets of the North American republic. I am well aware that the course of trade cannot be controlled by sentiment or by governments. It follows its own immutable laws and is drawn solely in the direction of profit. But there are many ways in which the course of trade can be facilitated, can be stimulated, can be induced and increased. Mutual knowledge leads to trade. All the advertisement in the world which pays is but the means of carrying information, knowledge, and suggestion to the mind that reads the advertisement. Mutual knowledge as between the people of North America and the people of Brazil—knowledge as between the individual people—will increase the trade. Our people will buy more coffee and more sugar and more rubber from the people they know, from the various trading concerns that they know about, than they will from strangers. Mutual knowledge cannot exist without mutual respect. I believe so much in the goodness of humanity that I think no two people can know each other without respecting each other.
There is the friendliest feeling in the United States of America for the people of Brazil, and we believe that there is great friendliness in this country for the people of the United States. We wish to be good friends and ever better friends; to enlarge our mutual trade to the advantage of both; and it is to express that feeling to you from my people with all the kindliness and friendship possible, that I am here in Brazil. It has been a great privilege to see something of your great coffee production—from the coffee plant on its red platform of the peculiar soil of São Paulo to the bags of coffee being carried to the steamer in which it is to be transported to the markets of the world. It is pleasing to me to see that the great commercial port of Santos has by the improvement of its harbor facilities become more and more great, and has done away with the unhealthiness that once existed. I congratulate you upon the fact that you have made your port and your city so healthy that yellow fever no longer exists.
This is probably the last word I shall utter in public before I leave the coast of Brazil, and as I pass from among you, I shall endeavor to make my last word an expression of grateful appreciation for all the courtesy, the kindliness, and the friendliness which has surrounded me every hour, from the moment I first landed at Pará three weeks ago today. My reception and that of all my family—the attentions that have been paid to us, the kindness that has been exhibited—far exceed anything that I anticipated or had hoped for; and I beg you to believe that we shall never forget it. We shall make it known to our people when we return home. I believe that it will increase the friendship they feel for the people of Brazil; and it is with the greatest satisfaction that I shall feel entitled upon my return to say to the people of the United States that I have found in the republic of Brazil a country to which the laborers of the world may come to make new homes and to rear their families in prosperity and in happiness; that I may say to my people that I have found in the republic of Brazil a country where capital is secure, where the rights of man are held sacred, and the rewards of enterprise may be reaped without hindrance. I shall go from you with the hope that in my weak way I may do what it is possible for one man to do in return for all the friendship that you have shown me throughout Brazil—may give my evidence to aid in turning towards your vast and undeveloped resources that immigration and that capital which have been the means of building up and developing the vast riches of my own country. I hope that the same brilliant and prosperous success that has blessed my own land may for many generations visit the people of Brazil. I hope that for many a year to come the two peoples, so similar in their laws, their institutions, their purposes, and the great task of development that lies before them, may continue to grow in friendship and in mutual help. And so, gentlemen, I make to you, and through you to the people of Brazil, my grateful and appreciative farewell.