Chile will be glad to see American capital come and establish itself in our commercial and industrial circulation. It will blend well with Chilean honor and will prosper under the protection of our laws, which are liberal with the foreigner, and under the shelter of our government, which is unshakable.
We are certain that Chilean interests will meet the same respect from the government of the Union that we cherish for American interests.
The infinite variety of articles of supply and consumption will certainly enable the interchange of goods between Chile and America to increase without narrowing the horizons of our commerce with friendly markets, which today bring us capital, raw materials, workmen, and manufactures.
The American Union has happily solved its internal and foreign problems, has established its political and economic power on a firm basis, and is, finally, in full enjoyment of its natural greatness and freely exercising all its energies at the present time. We have attentively observed that it desires to promote the progress of the world and to see the other nations of Christendom, especially the American republics, associated in this great work on terms of equality, friendship, and mutual benefit.
We respond, therefore, to its affectionate call by declaring that we are imbued with sincere faith in the friendship of the government and the people of the United States; we utter fervent wishes that our mutual confidence may become strengthened and be free of misgivings; and we prophesy that the rapprochement which the eminent Secretary of State now visiting us has initiated will be of beneficent influence on our international cordiality and bring prosperous results for our development.
Most excellent Mr. Root, His Excellency the President of the Republic requests you to say to the illustrious President Roosevelt and to your fellow-citizens that the Chilean people fraternize cordially with the American people; that our markets are free to them; that we admire your government officials; that your most excellent minister, Mr. Hicks, enjoys our highest esteem and good feeling; and that we have received you and your most worthy family with open hearts.
I beg you to 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 progress of development has reached a point of transition. In the fifty years, from 1850 to 1900, we received on our shores nearly twenty million immigrants from the Old World. We borrowed from the Old World thousands of millions of dollars; and with the strong arm of the immigrants and with the capital from the Old World, we have threaded the country with railroads, we have constructed great public works, we have created the phenomenal prosperity that you all know; and now we have paid our debts to Europe; we have returned the capital with which our country was built up; and in the last half dozen years we have been accumulating an excess of capital that is beginning to seek an outlet in foreign enterprises.